Read
Playbooks, reference, and reading for the pub.
Sight Fishing
Spotting fish and casting to sighted targets — polarised glasses, stealth, and the art of seeing fish before they see you.
What the river is asking for this week
The Induced Take
Sawyer's lift — a nymph that rises at the end of its drift imitates an insect swimming to hatch, and a trout that was ignoring it suddenly cannot help itself.
Lift the nymph. The fish does the rest.
Tenkara
No reel. No fly line. Just a long rod, a length of tapered line, and a single fly. Tenkara strips fly fishing back to its essentials.
Fixed line. One fly. Small streams.
French Nymphing
If Czech nymphing is a hammer, French nymphing is a scalpel — long leader, fine tippet, lighter nymphs, and a reach beyond rod-length into technical water.
Long leader. Fine tippet. Light contact at range.
Emerger Fishing
That awkward inch between water and air where most insects die and most trout feed. When fish refuse your dry, the answer is almost always lower in the film.
In the film, not on it. CDC, Klinkhamer, shuttlecock.
Indicator Nymphing
The indicator is a float by any other name, and there is no shame in that. It suspends your nymph at the right depth and shows you takes you would otherwise miss.
Suspend the nymph. Watch the indicator. Set depth.
Upstream Dry Fly
The simplest idea in fly fishing, and the most satisfying — a floating fly, cast upstream to a rising trout, drifting back as though it belongs there.
Drag-free drift. Cast upstream, wait, lift.
A few you might not have seen
Hucho (Danube Salmon)
Europe's largest freshwater salmonid — biology, distribution, streamer tactics, and conservation across the western Balkans and upper Danube.
What's Hatching
The insects that run the show — what appears when, and why you should care.
March olive → May mayfly → July sedge → Sept spinner
Night Sea Trout
Not a variation of daytime fishing — a different pursuit entirely. The fish that lay invisible through the day become active and aggressive between dusk and dawn.
Know the pool. Fish slow. Resist the temptation to rush.
Small Stillwaters
Five to fifteen acres of honest water — find the feeding depth, then stay in it.
The Big Water
Grafham, Rutland, Blagdon — where the wind decides everything and the boat angler who reads it properly catches fish.
Wind is king — fish where wind meets structure
Chalkstreams
Crystal water, educated trout, and the hundred-year argument between Halford and Skues that nobody has won yet.
Upstream, zero drag, twenty-foot leaders
Irish Loughs
Corrib, Mask, Derg — the wet-fly drift, the dap, and the particular joy of a wild trout in the wave.
Wet-fly team on the drift. Lift, don't strip.
Scottish Lochs & Rivers
Big lochs that fish like seas, hill lochs the size of a field, and freestone rivers full of wild browns that don't read magazines.
Big lochs: wet-fly team. Hill lochs: stealth. Rivers: dry fly.
Connemara
Atlantic Ireland at its wildest — brown trout on the loughs and silver sea trout that, unlike their British cousins, oblige in daylight.
Sea trout on loughs: DAYTIME. On rivers: night.
The Pyrenees
Wild brown trout from snowmelt torrents to gin-clear foothill rivers — French parcours in summer, Spanish trophy water in autumn.
French parcours no-kill. Spanish trophy autumn.
Alpine Streams
Cold, fast, and stonefly-rich — the mountain streams where the trout diet is seventy per cent aquatic insects and the Euro nymph was born.
EPT dominance: 70% of diet. Euro nymph, heavy point.
Irish Salmon Rivers
The Moy for value, the Blackwater for low water, and Galway Weir for the kind of drama that ruins you for ordinary fishing.
Moy for value. Blackwater for low water. Galway for drama.
Atlantic Salmon
A fish that does not feed, yet takes a fly. The swing, the take, and the discipline to do neither too much nor too little.
Salmon: The Long Decline
From Victorian excess to Megan Boyd's minimalism to the conservation crisis that now defines the pursuit.
Victorian excess → Boyd minimalism → modern tubes
Grayling
The fish that saves winter — rising to tiny dries in December while everything else sleeps.
Delayed strike. Count "one", then lift.
Marble Trout
The Soča's ancient predator — a trout that looks like it was painted by someone who'd never seen one and had to guess.
Streamers for big fish. Euro nymph for numbers.
Coarse Fish on the Fly
Chub, perch, carp, pike — the same entomology, closer water, and fights that make you reconsider your tackle.
Same entomology, closer water, harder fighters.
Barbel on the Fly
Sight-fishing on crystal Spanish rivers — a foam beetle upstream of a tailing fish, and then the kind of run that tests your backing knot.
Foam beetle ahead of tailing fish. 5wt for haasi.
Mullet on the Fly
Harbours, estuaries, and tidal flats — three species that will humble your five-weight and your self-regard in equal measure.
Dead-drift bloodworm. Strip-strike, never lift.
Sea Bass on the Fly
Estuary mouths, surf gutters, rocky points and harbour lights — bass for trout anglers stepping sideways into saltwater.
8wt, intermediate line, weighted Clouser. Tide does the work.
Hucho (Danube Salmon)
Europe's largest freshwater salmonid — biology, distribution, streamer tactics, and conservation across the western Balkans and upper Danube.
Streamer, 8–14°C, falling water, autumn–winter.
Stocked Trout Variants
Blue, golden, tiger, spartic, brook, and triploid browns — identification, tactics, and venue guide for stocked trout on UK and European stillwaters.
Blue/golden: rainbow tactics. Tiger/brook/spartic/triploid: structure, pulled flies.
Every Method, and Why
Dry fly to Spey casting — every technique exists because the fish demanded it. Here's when each one earns its keep.
Upstream Dry Fly
The simplest idea in fly fishing, and the most satisfying — a floating fly, cast upstream to a rising trout, drifting back as though it belongs there.
Drag-free drift. Cast upstream, wait, lift.
Emerger Fishing
That awkward inch between water and air where most insects die and most trout feed. When fish refuse your dry, the answer is almost always lower in the film.
In the film, not on it. CDC, Klinkhamer, shuttlecock.
The Induced Take
Sawyer's lift — a nymph that rises at the end of its drift imitates an insect swimming to hatch, and a trout that was ignoring it suddenly cannot help itself.
Lift the nymph. The fish does the rest.
Soft Hackle & Spider
A turn of partridge on a hook, swung across the current. The oldest effective fly pattern in British fishing, and the fish have not yet worked it out.
Cast across, let it swing. Partridge & Orange, Waterhen Bloa.
Loch Style Wet Fly
The wind does half the work and the wave does the rest — a team of wet flies drifted from a boat, the bob fly dibbling in the surface.
Bob fly in the wave. Fish the hang.
Indicator Nymphing
The indicator is a float by any other name, and there is no shame in that. It suspends your nymph at the right depth and shows you takes you would otherwise miss.
Suspend the nymph. Watch the indicator. Set depth.
Tight-Line Nymphing
Take away the indicator and you are left with your rod, your leader, and the current. The most sensitive way to fish a nymph.
No float. Direct contact. Feel or see the take.
Czech Nymphing
Short-line, heavy nymphs, direct contact with the riverbed. It looks nothing like the pictures in the books, and it catches fish in fast water when nothing else will.
Short range. Heavy point fly. Feel the bottom.
French Nymphing
If Czech nymphing is a hammer, French nymphing is a scalpel — long leader, fine tippet, lighter nymphs, and a reach beyond rod-length into technical water.
Long leader. Fine tippet. Light contact at range.
Euro Nymphing
The method that quietly won everything — Czech short-range, French long-range, and the sighter rig that bridges them.
Czech: short range. French: long range. Sighter: everything.
Streamer Stripping
Big, mobile flies that imitate baitfish and whatever predatory impulse a trout cannot resist. The blunt end of fly fishing, and the takes arrive as a violent pull.
Strip, pause, strip. Sinking line for depth.
Classic Wet Fly Swing
The foundation of Atlantic salmon and sea trout fishing — cast across, let the fly swing under tension, step downstream, repeat. Simple method, lifetime's discipline.
Cast 45° across. Step and cast. Cover the pool.
Night Sea Trout
Not a variation of daytime fishing — a different pursuit entirely. The fish that lay invisible through the day become active and aggressive between dusk and dawn.
Know the pool. Fish slow. Resist the temptation to rush.
Buzzer Fishing
The chironomid midge pupa is the most important food item in any British stillwater. Learning to fish buzzers is the single most useful thing a stillwater angler can do.
Bung and buzzers. Set the depth. Wait.
French Nymphing for Grayling
Grayling and French nymphing were made for each other — the fish holds in clear, steady glides at precisely the depth a well-presented nymph reaches.
Long leader. Clear glides. Delicate takes.
Winter Grayling Nymphing
Heavy nymphs, slow drifts, deep runs, and the reward of fishing when nobody else will. The method that makes winter worth getting out of bed for.
Heavy nymphs. Deep and slow. Cold hands, warm heart.
Dapping
The oldest form of fly fishing and the most theatrical — a large fly held on the surface by the wind, barely touching the water, dancing like something alive and about to escape.
Wind, patience, and a willingness to hold your arm up.
Tenkara
No reel. No fly line. Just a long rod, a length of tapered line, and a single fly. Tenkara strips fly fishing back to its essentials.
Fixed line. One fly. Small streams.
Sight Fishing
Spotting fish and casting to sighted targets — polarised glasses, stealth, and the art of seeing fish before they see you.
Polaroids on. Slow down. See the fish first.
North Country Spiders
Three soft-hackle flies, a short line, and four hundred years of Yorkshire common sense.
March Brown, Waterhen Bloa, Partridge & Orange
Buzzers, Midges & Diptera
The insect nobody romanticises and every stillwater trout eats — 40–60% of a reservoir trout's diet, year-round, plus the crane flies and hawthorn flies that start a riot when the wind blows.
Caddis: The Architects of the River
They build houses out of silk, stones, and sticks — then abandon them to rise through the water column in a bubble of gas. The insect that makes the evening rise worth waiting for.
Grannom Apr–May 8–12°C. Evening sedges Jun–Sep. Ascending pupa: the key moment.
Mayflies: The Oldest Flies on Earth
350 million years old, cannot eat, moult after growing wings — the insect that invented dry fly fishing and still runs every river.
LDO from 5°C. March Brown from 8°C. BWO evening spinner. Green Drake: Duffer's Fortnight.
Dragons & Damsels
Jet propulsion, sperm wars, and the most useful nymph in the box — everything an angler should know about dragonflies and damselflies.
Damsel nymph: May–Sep, margins, slow strip. Dragonfly: crawls, doesn't swim.
Where the Trout Go When It Warms Up
The invisible architecture of a summer lake — thermoclines, oxygen squeezes, and why the best fish are twenty feet down.
16–19°C surface: fish 10–25 ft. 19°C+: dawn/dusk only.
The Fly Box
Every pattern that earns its place — searchable by species, season, and water type.
Searchable fly box with retailer links
What's Hatching
The insects that run the show — what appears when, and why you should care.
March olive → May mayfly → July sedge → Sept spinner
The Fishing Year
When everything happens — the species in form, the windows that matter, the quiet months that aren't as quiet as you'd think.
Spring trout → summer sea trout → autumn salmon → winter grayling
The Hatch on Big Water
Buzzers, daphnia clouds, damsel migrations — what the trout are actually eating on reservoirs, and why changing depth matters more than changing fly.
Buzzers: 60% of diet. Change depth before fly.
