My opinion (which many others seem to share) is that it’s basically essential for anyone fishing in Scotland, be it regularly as I do, or for a holiday. I bought it direct from Bruce, which meant he kindly signed it with a short quotation from Norman MacCaig as I requested. More details over on the (excellent) Wild Fishing Scotland web forum. If you prefer Amazon, it’s for sale here as well.

My favourite comment about the (original) book comes from Bruce’s son, who called it “the finest work of angling fiction ever written”. All in good humour, of course.

It comes from chapter 5, where he embarks on a two week expedition to fish for sea-trout in the windswept Faroe islands of the north Atlantic.

It was then that I had a take from something more like what I was looking for, and after a strenuous contest I netted a fine sea-trout of 3lb to the Bloody Butcher. Perseverence was rewarded, and my first Faroese sea-trout came against all the odds; a fisherman is sustained in the knowledge that the unexpected is only a few casts away. Let him believe this and he will endure almost anything.

Amber Heard, star of the upcoming River Why film. Hmm..excellent casting I’d say.

According to the article, he has been to court, claiming copyright infringement and various other bits and bobs, which has resulted in the current production of the film being unable to use his name in promoting the film. I say ‘current production’ because the article goes on to say that once the upcoming film has been released, Duncan will once again own the rights to his own book, and is planning to make his own screen version. Hmm…. all a bit dodgy I reckon.

In an earlier post I mentioned that Duncan had been contributing to the screenplay. A commenter on that post pointed out that the film would be quite different to the book (er, not a huge surprise..). I now learn that Duncan has been fighting the film.. Personally, I’m a bit confused. But looking at the Official Website for the new film, I see no mention of Duncan at all.

I don’t like being overly negative towards people who are trying to produce a film, or make music, or do anything creative. But I do begin to struggle a little bit when it appears that a film is being made, not just with a shrug of the shoulders from the author, but with a pitched court battle between him and the producers. I wouldn’t give a damn, of course, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was David James Duncan who created the story, the characters, the beautiful mood of the book. It’s his novel, and although I’m fully aware that copyright law is more complicated than my simplistic standpoint, I simply don’t feel comfortable about a film that doesn’t have the author’s backing. Amber Heard, however, I feel quite comfortable about.

Tonight’s passage comes from Murray’s final climb on the Beauchille in 1941, before he went off to Egypt for the war years. It’s impossible to read the account without imagining the tinge of sadness that must have accompanied him as he climbed, in the full knowledge that he might never return to Scotland. He did of course, and went on to write many of the accounts described in Undiscovered Scotland.

The mountain looked like a fortress of ice, its summit diamond cut deep into a royal blue sky.

It was this last that held us there. It was not along the confusion of snow-turret and bastions, nor even the ridges racing up and up, drawing in to the white blaze where the last rocks leaped against the blue; not grace of design, nor colour, nor height – none of these things alone – that charged our minds with wonder. These beauties were indeed endless, but were brought to unity and fulfilled in that austere and remote line dividing snow from sky. It was the signature of all things. It held us spellbound. It is hard to know why, until we know that it is the most simple things that most deeply impress a man. Until we know that we shall not hope to know the true beauty. Up there, nothing stirred. Not even ‘the sigh that silence heaves’; only a breathless stillness. A bright light. A pureness of beauty above all that the eye can see, or ear hear, or it can enter into the heart of man to conceive. One may say nothing of it that is not somehow false or misleading. For the truth that can be spoken is not the truth. Yet on the heights of truth one never climbs in vain.

For a few minutes the mountains burned, white and red upon a field of green and gold. In low country one may see so rich and full a glow of colour in the cavernous nave of Chartres Cathedral, when the forenoon sun floods the stained glass and the vast brown flags are flecked by shafts of ruby and blue. But Chartres is not matched elsewhere. To seek such depth of colour, and to find it in yet more noble forms, one must go to mountains.

As a writer Chris Yates has achieved something close to perfection with How to Fish. He captures the beauty, obsession, madness and gladness of fishing with the most fantastically simple, yet hypnotically engaging style I’ve ever come across. It sometimes seems amazing to me that a writer can have such a thing as their own ‘style’. After all, they’re only words, and how many ways can there really be of arranging ‘fishing’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘fell in’? Reading Yate’s offering I feel I’ve understood just as much about writing as about the glory of fishing. The pace of words, the construction of the chapters, it’s all brilliant and just draws you into a different world, populated by stripy fish and gently wafting weed.

The first time I picked the book up I had a slightly tentative feeling towards coarse fishing, born of several years of exclusively fishing flies. That feeling lasted about two seconds once I started reading, and it wasn’t long before my own memories of catching perch and tench as a child crept back. I now find myself in the position of feeling close to finally understanding something about the universality of fishing. It really is about a mindset, and the species and methods are almost meaningless beyond personal preference. Funnily enough I was reading John Gierach’s essay on ‘The Purist‘ just last night, which was rather timely.

If you want to read How to Fish for yourself, you can get a copy from here if you like. Mine is currently doing the rounds of all my family and fishing pals. For a sneak preview, I found the first chapter here in full. As a final aside, I recall downloading a podcast some time back featuring Chris Yates interviewed by Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 5 Live as part of the promotion for the book. It was very interesting to see how the pace of Chris’ voice seems nicely tied in to his writing style. I have a copy of it but have been unable to locate one online. If there’s any interest I’ll try and find a way to distribute it, if doing so isn’t illegal.

I’m up to chapter 6, and it’s already quite clear that it is a really beauty of a book. Chris has a wonderful style of writing. It is deceptively simple, but also extremely elegant and insightful. The best thing I can say is that he seems to be able to communicate a feeling which gets somewhere close to one’s soul. I’ll try and write a proper review when I’ve finished, so for the moment I’ll leave you with a wonderful paragraph.

“…fishing offers a dimension where, even if you don’t cast very far into it, you can be free of the wired-up world and suddenly in touch with an equally complex, less concise but deeper-rooted reality. The simpler your approach the more intimately you’re involved; uncluttered by a barrow-load of equipment, untroubled by the passage of time, hopefully undisturbed and often unambitious, you rediscover the art of improvisation that you mastered as a child, and as you become more absorbed in the watery surroundings you begin to notice details – the bending of a reed, the forming of a ripple, an abrupt stillness – that gradually join up to create an event that you may be part of. “

Happy reading…

One of the great things about internet fishing diaries and websites is the potential for discovering books, both new upstarts and old time gems. I’ve bought several books following recommendations from my pal Alistair over at the Urban Fly Fisher blog. One of my recent favourites is “Trout Madness” by Robert Traver.

Judging by the front cover of the book my first thought was that it would be a modern book about some gentleman from the lost youth of today. I was surprised to discover that most of the stories came from 1940s east USA, with brook trout and wild rivers and ponds forming the backdrop. Mr Traver was a district attorney in his day, and he frequently betrays the kind of eye-rolling wisdom one might imagine from such a man. His writing style certainly has a unique character quite unlike any other fishing book I’ve read. It’s honest, regularly humorous and full of lovely insights into…well, the madness of trout anglers.

Allow me to quote a couple of fine examples from the book:

“It was one of those warm, soft, luminous summer evenings; the kind that commands fishermen to go forth and then makes them yearn for time to stop in its tracks. The sky was big and high and gloriously aflame, and the fanning shafts of sunlight sifting through the far-off piles of cloud looked like the very organ pipes of Heaven.”

“As I relit my pipe and waited for new worlds to conquer I heard a mighty splash above me and wheeled gaping at the spreading magic ring of a really good trout, carefully marking the spot. Oddly enough he had risen just above where the young buck had just crossed, a little above the feeder creek. Perhaps I thought extravagantly, perhaps he was after the deer…”