If my rise to becoming vice chairman of the Salisbury club was fast as I previously mentioned it has been nothing when compared to my fall. I say fall, but it was more of a jump. I may have knocked myself on the way down, I may have even made it bad news to be associated with 'that angry young man'. Like a modern day Reginald Perrin, I came, I saw, I stumbled away.

For the last few years I've listened to the voice of experience, pushed to make what small changes I could and tried to be the voice of compromise between the old guard, wanting to run the rivers like a put and take fishery and the more enlightened modern approach to river management espoused by the likes of the Wild Trout Trust, EA and other bodies. I've always felt that there was a middle way between the two schools of thought and this was where I pitched myself. Unfortunately it now seems that certain elements of the old guard are not prepared to move towards the light, not prepared to admit that things need to change and not prepared to let go of the rule book. Like a sailor clinging on to an oar after a shipwreck they grasp the rulebook like some unholy mantra that will save their souls, all the while not noticing that it is just dragging them further towards their doom.

Very dramatic stuff I know, but what this means in practice is that after allot of thought, I quit. I quit being the vice chairman. I quit being on the committee. No more work parties, no more attending Wiltshire Fisheries meetings representing the club, no more pushing for the club to support the WTT and others. I've remained as bailiff on my bit of the Nadder as it means too much to me to just take no interest in it but that's it.

I've made some fantastic friends through my involvement in the club and I hope they don't feel that I've just abandoned them, or acted rashly. But, when you've gotta go, you've gotta go.

Funnily enough, the very act of quitting has opened up lot's of possibilities elsewhere so maybe it was a good thing that the final straw came along when I was sitting on a heavily laden camel.

But, pissed off with fishing as I was, what do I do? Why, go fishing of course :)

A bit of coarse fishing for Perch, a bit of fly fishing on some unstocked truly wild rivers and a bit of saltwater fly fishing for bass. I opened the year talking about being a more rounded angler and by golly, I'm doing it.











~ malcolm

αν μπορείτε να διαβάσετε αυτό το μήνυμα σας οδήγηση πολύ κοντά



In the words of MC Miker G and DJ Sven, 'I'm gonna ring a dang a dong for a holiday' - 'and we take a little piece of amsterdam, RRRrright'

Pure ugly genius.

anyway, the reason for that moment of weakness is that I spent another week in glorious Parga, well most of it was on Sarakiniko beach to be fair. No fishing to report this time, just a happy smiley face bedecked in freckles. Could be the remains of chocolate ice cream, but I'm claiming it's freckles.


trying out a new technique in photoshop, click for bigger size. Reminds me of a train set or architectural model :)


I lied, it wasn't entirely a no fishing trip. I did find Andreas practicing his upstream dry fly/worm fishing...




















I was standing still, trying out blurry night shots and it's only when I checked them back the next day I found that I'd captured the ghost of 1986 on camera. Honest Injun, I had no idea that the mini skirt was near me...