New Memoir Chronicles Life on An English Chalkstream
If you ever wondered about life on The Mother of All English Chalkstreams (the Test), thenKeeper — a recent release from outdoor-only publisher Departure Publishing — is worth your time.
Keeper is a genuine, entertaining read (click for publisher's page)
It’s a memoir by English Riverkeeper Martin Donovan that chronicles a way of life some fly fishermen might find romantic, and while the author does tend to disabuse his readers of that notion, he also evidences a knack for writing like he’s sitting right across the table talking to you, a half-empty bottle of someting between you.
The writing itself is straightforward (don’t expect a lot of literary gymnastics), yet Donovan’s prose creates compelling scenes.
Some of Donovan’s anecdotes are hilarious; others are quietly revealing — especially those that draw a picture of a private, pay-to-play fly fishing structure little seen in the US. (Most American fly fishing guides will choke on Donovan’s assertion that American fly fishermen are far more likely to accept advice than English anglers.)
While I enjoyed Keeper, it’s not without its flaws. Some of the later chapters felt under-developed and tacked on, and the writer twice descends into “kids these days” rants, which feel small and rootbound, especially given the fun, airy nature of the rest of the book.
Still, Keeper is a genuinely entertaining book by someone living a unique kind of fly fishing life — one that borders on a “trout bum” existence — yet takes place on England’s privately owned chalkstreams, the experience seems wholly removed from the American fly fishing scene.
Keeper website (Departure Publishing)
Read an excerpt from Keeper
I’m plodding through Frank Sawyer’s Keeper of the Stream and a anthology of fishing stories given to me for Christmas a couple of years back.
The most striking thing to me is the recognition of how much has changed. How foreign so much of what is descibed is now.
Ed(Quote)
It would be interesting to compare Keeper to Sawyer’s book to see how much had actually changed…
Tom Chandler(Quote)
I did that kind of thing in college, my senior thesis was a comparison of Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep” and the William Faulkner screenplay of it. I thought it was neat (sorry if the word choice dates me) to hold the original screenplay and know that it might have been typed by Faulkner himself.
The biggest changes there were brought about by the Hayes production code. It was interesting to see the changes they demanded.
Sawyer , so far, has focused almost exclusively on the river, the habit, and the trout. Maybe he’ll talk about the fisherman later in the book.
Ed(Quote)
Interesting stuff, from what I’ve seen (and fished) over there, flyfishers have been doing it the same way since Stonehenge went up and down. Pay, fish a while, don’t roam,don’t wade, dry and upstream for sport, catch and release? what, are you a mad American?, walk to pub for pint. Not bad, good for a visit.
But you realize why we rebelled, forget about the roamin’ we do as Yank fishers. Pulling over and fishing when we spot something to investigate. I had a helluva time even finding the water I had purchased day tickets for, prepositions and British tradition be damned. They don’t believe in a lot of street and highway signage in the UK. One gent whipped out GPS to assist me. Found my farm stay and said, Well, it’s over that way.
Pints however, at streamside with gentle breeze and fine view, are worth the trip. Then there was the flyshop in Bakewell. Worn old stone building, it was. I thought Medieval, fellow said, Oh it’s fairly recent, 1600s.
DarrellKuni(Quote)
The pay-to-play bit was comprehensible to me, but I found myself marveling at all the trimming and cutting and whatever on the banks of the beat to make it more comfortable and fishable.
If I’m not climbing over Volkswagen-sized boulders or scaling a bluff, I don’t even feel like I’m fishing. In fact, I’m not even wholly sure my favorite local stream was even here in the 1600s….
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Hi Tom
Haven’t read Keeper (yet), but have fished the chalkstreams quite a bit. It’s understandable given weight of literature emanating from the Test, Itchen, and Avon, but I do worry that you guys in the US have the impression that this is all there is over here. Saying that this kind of fishing represents fly fishing in the UK is like saying that fishing the Pennsylvanian spring creeks is all that the US has to offer.
Yep, the chalks-treams are amazing places (where they haven’t been wrecked with stocked fish), and they can be expensive and snooty. But (just like in the US, right?) if you look hard enough you can find nice wild stretches, fished by normal people, at reasonable prices. And catch and release is probably the most common attitude nowadays – especially on wild fisheries.
Remember, most of the chalk-streams are within an hour’s drive of London, and in one of the most densely populated parts of Europe. So a wilderness experience with lots of room to roam isn’t really going to happen. The thing to marvel at is that given the number of people, roads, towns, and whatnot, these rivers have stayed in such good nick for so long. It’s definitely a managed landscape, but a damn lovely one.
Once you move away from chalk-streams there are hundred of rain-fed rivers offering cheap, excellent, wild fishing in amazing places (try Devon, the Welsh borders, or Cumbria if you’re doing England).
I now live in Scotland, and my problem is choosing where to fish next. Brown trout fishing is ridiculously cheap (let’s not talk about salmon eh?), and you can choose between big rivers and tiny burns, huge deep lochs and smaller richer limestone lochs, with everything in between and in some of the most stunning landscapes anywhere.
Most people put wild brownies back nowadays. There are a few hold-outs here and there – prob. like the US. Oh and there’s a right to roam up here in Scotland, so if you’d like to scale a mountain, get lost on the moors, and not see anyone for a day or two you can do that too.
For a contrasting view you could try reading At the Loch of the Green Corrie by Andrew Greig. Not really a fishing book, but lovely writing about ordinary trout fishing in the hills.
Cheers
Will
Will(Quote)
I recognize that the iconic status of those Chalkstreams tends to mean we Americans tend to think they’re the norm in the UK, but I follow a couple of Scottish bloggers (made the mistake of calling them English… once), and I love Tamanawis’ pictures of the Scottish landscape.
Definitely not upper-crust, chalkstream stuff.
For that matter, I used to read the British magazines about the put-and-take, pay-to-play stillwater fisheries (where you keep everything you catch so fish don’t get smart). Just alien enough to be interesting.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
I finally finished Keeper of the Stream. I really enjoyed it. I’m on Salmon Fishing in Yemen now. I know my perceptions are colored by a romanticized version of how things are across the pond (Akin to what some golfers think of when they think of Augusta, or Pebble Beach). I liked the Buster wants to fish series about Famous English Trout streams he’d never fish. I don’t know a lot about how fishing is conducted over there (I’ve watches some interesting DVDs about it though) and my impression is that the average guy has to go through a lot to wet a line.
Ed(Quote)
Hi Ed
Well, I’m an average guy and it’s never been a problem to find good fishing. For freshwater in England and Wales I need a rod license (cheap and on-line) and permission from the fishery owner to fish. This can mean anything from stopping by the local post office or tackle shop, booking a ticket on-line or buying one at the lake/river, or joining a club. Yep, there are some exclusive/expensive clubs but they’re not the norm. Even on chalk streams you can find accessible and affordable fishing if you look around.
In Scotland you don’t even need a license, just (easily obtainable and cheap) permission to fish.
Tom, yep the put-and-take thing is certainly a phenomenon. Not many nowadays are 100% kill, and C&R is growing all the time. Those places aren’t really my thing though…
Will(Quote)
Will, I believe a lot of fly fishermen in the US probably hold a warped view of fishing availability in the UK. Europe is often held up as an example of what will happen to us if our public waters are privatized (an ongoing fight), and what we commonly read is about the Test or Gierach’s stay on a private Scottish salmon river, or something like it.
I’m a huge fan of the handful of UK fly fishing blogs (mostly Scottish), and I’ve seen a side to UK angling I wasn’t really exposed to before.
Thanks for adding to the information available to us.
Tom Chandler(Quote)