Venues
The waters themselves: what makes a chalkstream, a spate river or a lough fish the way it does.
November Stillwater: Fry-Feeders and the Season's End
Fry-feeding trout on the big reservoirs in the last weeks of the season: where to look, how to fish a fry pattern, and cold-weather safety.
What is fishing well: venues
Small Stillwaters
Five to fifteen acres of honest water — find the feeding depth, then stay in it.
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
Winter Stillwaters
The stocked fisheries that stay open when the rivers rest — what cold water does to trout, the slow deep presentation, and where to go across Britain and Ireland.
Deeper and slower than you think. Late morning to mid-afternoon.
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.
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.
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.
Chalkstreams, mountain freestoners and the great salmon rivers.
Chalkstreams
Crystal water, educated trout, and the hundred-year argument between Halford and Skues that nobody has won yet.
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.
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.
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.
Wild-trout drifts in Ireland and Scotland.
Irish Loughs
Corrib, Mask, Derg — the wet-fly drift, the dap, and the particular joy of a wild trout in the wave.
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.
Small waters, big reservoirs, and fishing them through the winter.
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
Winter Stillwaters
The stocked fisheries that stay open when the rivers rest — what cold water does to trout, the slow deep presentation, and where to go across Britain and Ireland.
Deeper and slower than you think. Late morning to mid-afternoon.
November Stillwater: Fry-Feeders and the Season's End
Fry-feeding trout on the big reservoirs in the last weeks of the season: where to look, how to fish a fry pattern, and cold-weather safety.
Roach and perch fry. Floating to fast sink.
Worth the journey: Iceland, New Zealand and Japan.
Fly Fishing Iceland
Salmon, sea trout, brown trout and Arctic char across the three kinds of Icelandic river: glacial, spring-fed and direct runoff, and how to read each one.
Fly Fishing in New Zealand
Not a checklist of famous rivers, but a country read as a set of fishing problems — Taupō rainbows, South Island sight fishing, West Coast spate rivers, Canterbury braids.
Two authorities (DOC for Taupō). Fish the conditions. Check, Clean, Dry.
Fly Fishing in Japan
Native yamame, amago and iwana in mountain streams, white-spotted char in volcanic Hokkaidō lakes, tenkara on the fixed line, and the great Sakhalin taimen handled with the restraint a rare fish deserves.
Honshū: co-op yūgyoken, closes ~30 Sep. Hokkaidō: largely open, spring & autumn. Tenkara up high; Itou is conservation-first C&R.