Right, let’s talk about leader setups because I reckon this is where a lot of anglers make their fishing harder than it needs to be. You’ll see blokes on the river with all sorts of complicated rigs, and half the time they’re not entirely sure why they’ve set things up that way. The truth is, […]

I’ve lost count of how many fish I’ve seen come off because of dodgy knots. There’s nothing worse than watching a nice brown trout shake free on the Test or seeing your fly ping off mid-cast on a blustery day at Grafham. After twenty-odd years fishing across England and Wales, I’ve learned that your knot

Getting started with fly fishing in the UK can feel a bit overwhelming when you’re standing in a tackle shop staring at hundreds of different flies, or watching someone effortlessly cast thirty yards across a chalk stream while you’re still trying to work out which end of the line does what. I remember my first

Learning to cast a fly rod can feel awkward at first, but once you get the rhythm sorted, it becomes second nature. I remember standing on the bank of the River Test watching other anglers make these beautiful loops while my own line collapsed in a heap at my feet. If that sounds familiar, don’t

There’s something slightly mad about standing waist-deep in a river when your breath’s making clouds and there’s ice forming in your rod rings. But if you’re like me, you can’t just pack it in until spring. Winter fishing on UK rivers can be absolutely brilliant, with fewer anglers about and some surprisingly willing fish. The

Standing waist-deep in the Derbyshire Wye last February, I watched my mate Steve attempt his twentieth cast with hands so numb he could barely feel the line. His presentation was rubbish, not because he’d forgotten how to cast, but because his fingers had essentially turned into frozen sausages. That’s when I learned that fly fishing

There’s something masochistic about fly fishing in Britain between October and March. The trout might have switched off, but the grayling are feeding and the rivers look absolutely perfect when there’s a bit of colour in them. The only problem is your hands end up feeling like they belong to someone else after about twenty

There’s nothing quite like standing in the middle of a January river watching your breath turn to mist while the sun barely clears the trees. Those winter days can produce some of the best grayling fishing of the year, but they’ll also remind you very quickly that your hands are basically the first thing to

I’ll admit I was sceptical when I first saw anglers messing about with underwater cameras on the River Test. It seemed like another bit of kit to carry, another expense, another faff. But after borrowing a mate’s GoPro for an afternoon session on my local Derbyshire stream, I became a proper convert. Watching the footage

There’s something deeply satisfying about landing a wild brown trout from a rain-soaked riverbank in the Peak District or the Welsh valleys, but how often do those moments actually get recorded? For most of us bank-based fly anglers, the answer is not nearly enough. The problem isn’t lack of interest in documenting our fishing, it’s