Cast of the Week 2 - Casting for Gold

Week 2

Cast of the Week

You might have seen on our site that we have a trip to Poland upcoming in a few weeks. It was in May 2007 on the San River that I witnessed one of the most inspiring sights of my river fishing life. I was with Jeremy Lucas, the England international, and a storm had been slowly building behind us. Evening was pulling in and as the light faded a total, complete calm fell over the river and the forest surrounding it. The sky darkened, lizards of lightning slithered. And before us, the water simply boiled with grayling.

These weren’t just ordinary grayling as a silky smooth advertisement goes. These were San grayling. Enormous. Beautifully coloured. Feeding from the surface with total focus. And focused, too, was Jeremy. In that precious half hour he fished as perfectly as anyone I’ve watched. I think he had four, possibly five grayling. All, I suspect, were over two pounds. All fell to tiny black dry flies. Not one rose more than five metres from him. On each occasion, we could hear the kiss of the take as well as see the dorsal break the surface. It was intimate, it was high art and it was mesmerising.

Of course, we’re all concerned about our carbon footprint in 2008. Fishermen, above all others, realise our duty to the environment. So, should we travel at all for our fishing or simply content ourselves with what’s in our backyards? Certainly, for many of us, that’s the environmental option – especially if it forces us to improve what’s already there. Co-operation with the Wild Trout Trust, for example, can make a reasonable trout stream into a good one to the benefit of everyone.

But, of course, if we stop travelling anywhere, all of us, the world economy would simply collapse. It’s hard to imagine a world without the use of cars, buses, motorbikes, boats, trains and, of course, aeroplanes. Millions of jobs would disappear overnight, worldwide. Without transport, we wouldn’t even have food on our supermarket shelves.

So, to a large degree, I believe this is where short haul angling expeditions fit into the greater picture. Spain. Poland. Slovenia. This type of destination is two hours distant and though what we’re doing is admittedly significant, perhaps the damage is not as great as if we were setting out for New Zealand or Latin America or Pacific coast steelhead fishing.

It’s my belief that for many years anglers – fly, lure and bait – have overlooked the fantastic opportunities available in west and central Europe. We can enjoy some of the best foreign fishing in the world, in far less time than it takes to drive from London to Edinburgh. We must discriminate for sure. We mustn’t be greedy of course. But short haul offers fantastic sport and perhaps a salve to our conscience.