Here at Thomas Turner we are looking forward to a meeting with Jonathan White in a few days. He is, of course, chair of the Rivers Trust, but also a highly respected angler and author of the excellent book on nymphing, especially the French leader way. I felt that part of my preparation for our time together should involve going back to his book… and reminding myself just how excellent it is, and thoroughly up-to-date it remains. I have personally hung around the margins of the Czech and French ways of fishing nymphs for twenty five years, but this book helped me make sense of it all when I bought it a few years back.
In the mid-1990s I led a group of UK barbel anglers to the Czech Republic, and there was guided by the excellent Franta, who went on to be integrally involved with the Hanak tackle company, which Jonathan actually commends in the book. It was Franta, member of the national competition set-up, who taught me how devastating Czech nymphing could be for trout, grayling and even coarse fish, especially barbel. I brought Franta’s wisdom home with me, and fishing the nymph with an indicator became one of my go-to methods everywhere. Then, about 15 years ago, I accompanied the English fly fishing team to a competition in Slovenia. The team was sponsored by Hardy, and I was there in my role as creative team member to take photographs.
This trip was pivotal because the use of out-and-out strike indicators was banned, and all the team members were playing around with alternative tight line methods and the beginnings of coloured leaders. The team included anglers of the calibre of Howard Croston, Jeremy Lucas, Stuart Crofts, and later, Paul Procter, so you can imagine what an eye-opener the week was for me. My trouble was that, even so, I have always tended to stick with my earlier sight bob approach and never really moved onto “French” pastures new. The last couple of years, thanks to Jonathan’s book, I have become more adventurous, and little by little becoming more adept. The diagrams, the images and the text all combine to make this core reading if you want to understand this exhilarating technique.
But there’s more to the book, content that encourage me to think I’ll like Mr White hugely when we meet. I like his sense of history and his skill in placing modern techniques in context. Above all, I sense he is not a chalk stream snob. The book extols French leader work, but he explains strike indicator approaches very well indeed and suggests they have a valid place in the greater scheme of things. (When I wrote about and demonstrated Czech nymphing late in the Nineties I was routinely denigrated a float-chucker, so I appreciate Jonathan’s stance particularly.) I also pick up on the hints that he is a grayling man as well, music to my ears at least. And, blimey, he even mentions barbel as an interesting nymph target, so, in my book, his book is spot-on there too.
There is much more to be said about this cracker of a study, but what it also did for me was to bring back my love for brown trout. Over many years I’d perhaps had a surplus of them, but Jonathan’s talk of nymphing for all but impossible monsters stirred me to the quick. And the photographs alone are worth twenty quid in terms of inspiration and aspiration… perspiration too when I think of the effort I have put in to catch a wild brown of anything like similar proportions.
So, roll on our meeting! And, of course, I’ll report back as ever.
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