Traditional Angling - book cover
The new extended version of my book Traditional Angling is now available to purchase. It's one of my most popular titles and captures the spirit of traditional pleasure fishing, proving there's more to fishing than catching fish. I'll be blogging about the book's content over the coming month, but first I'd like to talk to you about its cover. First impressions are, after all, important.
The front cover shows a picture of Redmire Pool – the most historic carp fishery in the UK, home of three record carp captures and the birth of the modern sport as we know it. Rather ironic, you might say, to include a picture of it on the cover of a book about traditional angling? But Redmire Pool is intrinsic to the 'traditional versus modern' angling debate. It's where traditions were either upheld or abandoned. And, as anglers changed their mindsets, the adventures and captures that took place at Redmire inspired a generation of anglers to think differently about their sport.
Whatever you fish for, and however you fish, angling is always an act of hope. Which is why seeing a traditional split cane rod and landing net (made and owned by our friend Martin Herrington) resting upon the dam rail at Redmire, tells us that we can hope and dream that angling could once again be as simple and pure as it once was, and that appreciating the aesthetic beauty of a sport – that takes us to idyllic nature-filled places – elevates angling to a near-heavenly experience.
The inside front cover of Traditional Angling, like the book, encourages us to think differently about our sport. It's designed to encourage and inspire us to fish a little slower and be less worried about catching fish.
It reminds us that fishing is a recreation and there's as much joy to be found between bites as when there's a fish on our line or in our net. It also seeks to provoke a rebellion against the soulless and humourless side of modern angling, so it doesn't shy away from the passion and eccentricity that defines traditional angling – and traditional anglers.
The rear cover features a picture of me in my favourite Norfolk jacket, sitting on a fallen tree (significant in itself) at my favourite lake. The water has, unlike Redmire Pool, escaped the attentions of modern anglers and so remains the stronghold of traditional angling in the UK.
I'm in appreciative and reflective mode, looking up into the trees knowing that there's as much life above and around me as below in the depths of the pool. I'm thinking of the writing of great anglers such as Richard Walker, Chris Yates, BB and Bernard Venables (especially the chapter entitled 'The Birth of a Creed' from Bernard Venables' The Gentle Art of Angling, which most influenced my attitude to 'modern' angling), and am wondering whether the time is right to create something similar to the Carp Catchers' Club of the 1950s, but for present-day traditional anglers. Instead of pioneering new ways of catching big fish, we could rediscover and champion the simple pleasures of fishing in natural places with vintage or retro-styled tackle. The outcome of these thoughts was a chapter entitled 'The Custodians of Traditional Angling' which features in the book.
The inside rear cover provides an overview of me as an angler. I'm very honoured to have had such a privileged angling apprenticeship, with friends and mentors including Chris Yates, Bernard Venables, Maurice Ingham, Peter Stone, Peter Wheat and Mike Winter. They each taught me something, and Traditional Angling is the result of their guidance and encouragement.
This blog refers to Traditional Angling, Fennel's Journal No. 6 by Fennel Hudson. If you like its content, please subscribe to Fennel on Friday where you'll receive either a blog, podcast or video sent via email in time for the weekend.