aiightt
24/07/07
I got sent a link to a
new online fishy magazine the other day. Expecting
nothing more than another boooring publication I was
really pleasantly suprised by turning up to
www.thisisfly.com
Cracking stories, lovely modern layout. Reminded me of the days I spent trawling through transworld skateboarding/snowboarding and thrasher magazine not that many years ago (although it feels like a lifetime...)
It set me to thinking though, my fishing just isn't 'street' enough.
I've been trying to think of ways of upping the bling of the nadder but I'm struggling. I tried hollering 'izzle mo shizzle' at the top of my voice when I hooked a 8" dace but the sheep a field away seemed really unimpressed. I tried making gang signs but it's hard to retrieve line when your fingers are doing hand twister. I've tried baseball caps; back to front, inside out, sideways, nothing... I tried some phat necklaces but they just get caught on my lanyard and tangled in my net and gink isn't reccomended as a silver cleaner anyway.
I've been thinking about helping the nadder look more urban, a shopping trolley or two, some black bin bags you know, something a bit 'cooler' than this rural idyl i'm forced to endure day after day. I'm thinking of spraying tags on some of the sheep or maybe cutting the vegetation less so it's a bit more like a dark alley instead of a country lane.
Try as I might, I just can't make fishing these waters 'extreme' or 'gnarly'. It seems in this day and age, exploration, adventure and that overused much maligned 'xtreme' word are all that matters. Despite the fact that 99% of people will only ever experience a nice safe packaged version of those worlds safe in the knowledge that their guide or tour operator is bound to have sorted out the little details for them. So, sorry to dissapoint, I've come to the conclusion that although I still skateboard, snowboard and otherwise live life to the 'pepsi-max' my chalkstreams are not extreme. They're by turns relaxing, theraputic, beautiful, calming, terribly unashameably British, enlightening, often frustrating; Just not extreme.
Trouble is the 'street' is somewhat ingrained after so many years eating tarmac so the next time your fishing the chalkstream and you hear someone shout BOOYAHH it's probably me, sorry. I apologise in advance.
Cracking stories, lovely modern layout. Reminded me of the days I spent trawling through transworld skateboarding/snowboarding and thrasher magazine not that many years ago (although it feels like a lifetime...)
It set me to thinking though, my fishing just isn't 'street' enough.
I've been trying to think of ways of upping the bling of the nadder but I'm struggling. I tried hollering 'izzle mo shizzle' at the top of my voice when I hooked a 8" dace but the sheep a field away seemed really unimpressed. I tried making gang signs but it's hard to retrieve line when your fingers are doing hand twister. I've tried baseball caps; back to front, inside out, sideways, nothing... I tried some phat necklaces but they just get caught on my lanyard and tangled in my net and gink isn't reccomended as a silver cleaner anyway.
I've been thinking about helping the nadder look more urban, a shopping trolley or two, some black bin bags you know, something a bit 'cooler' than this rural idyl i'm forced to endure day after day. I'm thinking of spraying tags on some of the sheep or maybe cutting the vegetation less so it's a bit more like a dark alley instead of a country lane.
Try as I might, I just can't make fishing these waters 'extreme' or 'gnarly'. It seems in this day and age, exploration, adventure and that overused much maligned 'xtreme' word are all that matters. Despite the fact that 99% of people will only ever experience a nice safe packaged version of those worlds safe in the knowledge that their guide or tour operator is bound to have sorted out the little details for them. So, sorry to dissapoint, I've come to the conclusion that although I still skateboard, snowboard and otherwise live life to the 'pepsi-max' my chalkstreams are not extreme. They're by turns relaxing, theraputic, beautiful, calming, terribly unashameably British, enlightening, often frustrating; Just not extreme.
Trouble is the 'street' is somewhat ingrained after so many years eating tarmac so the next time your fishing the chalkstream and you hear someone shout BOOYAHH it's probably me, sorry. I apologise in advance.
wet wet wet
05/07/07
No, the title isn't an
obscure reference to 'wishing I was lucky'. I'm
talking about the weather (as us Brits love to do).
Over the last few weeks the UK has gotten a bit of
rain, you know, nothing biblical (unless you live
north of the watford gap), but putting it in my
bestest understated manner, it's been a tad damp. The
Nadder is up, it's up and over the bank in parts of
Wilton. It's darker brown than Green & Blacks
organic chocolate ice-cream (yummmm by the way) and
as I stood by Bullbridge watching the river sort of
flow like a landslip underneath I saw the white
sticky uppy legs of a dead sheep bob past. As you can
probably guess, it's not fishing terribly well at the
moment.
Somewhere on the headwaters of the Wylye however...
Funny how a 'true' chalkstream can weather changes much better than areas affected by runoff. I know the Nadder is actually a spate river, but even lower down the Wylye and on the main stem of the Avon they are coloured after the recent rains. I think it really does show the effect that runoff from houses, concrete, drains, ploughed fields etc really has on our rivers. Google sustainable urban drainage and see how more appropriate management of runoff could improve things (I haven't checked what you get if you do google it, so if you get some crazy russian porn site don't blame me...).
The afternoon spent on the headwaters of the Wylye was magical for many reasons. It was a beautiful spot, the river was completely wild and untamed, it was stuffed full of nice 1lbish wild broonies and although it was very tough to fish and I didn't connect to a single fish I felt very happy to just be there. In fact I felt very happy to just be, something that the riverbank really encourages I think.
Crawling through the watercress to cast to a likely spot where I could see fish rising I was delighted to find a moorhen nest, even more delighted to hear a chirp-chirp and see the first tap-tap-tap as a chick poked it's beak out into the big wide world for the first time. Life, never ceases to amaze me, sometimes words can't convey an experience fully.
And one last thing, I had 55000 hits last month on the site, something like 6000 individual visitors. Really quite amazing for me, although hard to get my head around sometimes. You'd think with that many visitors to the site that someone from Orvis, Simms, Hardy/Greys may have said 'hey, Malcolm. Could we put an ad on your site?'. I might say no, I might say yes. Who knows. What I do know is that I need new wading boots, terrible what happened to this pair of Wychwood ones, after only one seasons wear...
Somewhere on the headwaters of the Wylye however...
Funny how a 'true' chalkstream can weather changes much better than areas affected by runoff. I know the Nadder is actually a spate river, but even lower down the Wylye and on the main stem of the Avon they are coloured after the recent rains. I think it really does show the effect that runoff from houses, concrete, drains, ploughed fields etc really has on our rivers. Google sustainable urban drainage and see how more appropriate management of runoff could improve things (I haven't checked what you get if you do google it, so if you get some crazy russian porn site don't blame me...).
The afternoon spent on the headwaters of the Wylye was magical for many reasons. It was a beautiful spot, the river was completely wild and untamed, it was stuffed full of nice 1lbish wild broonies and although it was very tough to fish and I didn't connect to a single fish I felt very happy to just be there. In fact I felt very happy to just be, something that the riverbank really encourages I think.
Crawling through the watercress to cast to a likely spot where I could see fish rising I was delighted to find a moorhen nest, even more delighted to hear a chirp-chirp and see the first tap-tap-tap as a chick poked it's beak out into the big wide world for the first time. Life, never ceases to amaze me, sometimes words can't convey an experience fully.
And one last thing, I had 55000 hits last month on the site, something like 6000 individual visitors. Really quite amazing for me, although hard to get my head around sometimes. You'd think with that many visitors to the site that someone from Orvis, Simms, Hardy/Greys may have said 'hey, Malcolm. Could we put an ad on your site?'. I might say no, I might say yes. Who knows. What I do know is that I need new wading boots, terrible what happened to this pair of Wychwood ones, after only one seasons wear...