Product Description

'I only had one defining principle in writing this book,' says John Aston in his Foreword, 'to describe how it felt'. In that aim he has succeeded brilliantly. This is a book that brings to life over forty years of angling; it has very little to say about 'how to do it' but a great deal to say about 'why I do it' and 'what it felt like to do it'. Written in the form of an angling autobiography, it begins with boyhood expeditions to a pond in the shadow of the West Yorkshire slag heaps, and proceeds, via specimen-hunting trips to the bleak fenland dykes and forays to the lonely lochs of north-west Scotland, to the delicate business of conjuring trout out of the streams around the author's home in North Yorkshire. There is something here for anglers of all persuasions, John Aston is no fishing snob (rather the reverse, as he makes clear when he debunks the mystique of salmon fishing) and he writes with as much passion about the barbel, carp, perch and pike which he caught in the past as he does about the trout and grayling which now preoccupy his attention. Indeed, non-anglers will find, if they can be persuaded to open the book, that here, at last, is a fisherman who is intelligent enough and writes well enough to explain convincingly why otherwise sane citizens become obsessed by fishing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40648 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author
John Aston is a local authority lawyer who lives and fishes in North Yorkshire. He contributes to Trout and Salmon, Britain's premier game-fishing magazine; this is his first book.

Customer Reviews

A Great Fishing Book
This is a truly wonderful fishing book. John Aston has the style of a Chris Yates - but writes at greater pace with one story quickly following another. It is not a book for beginners who want dreary how to catch information but for the more advanced angler it contains many reflections that will strike a chord and provide wonderful entertainment.

Aston is opinionated and at times perhaps inconsistent but it is a real pleasure to read someone who doesn't sit on the fence. His real enthusiasm is river trout fishing - which he writes about in extraordinary depth but he writes lovingly about barbel, chub, tench and carp. Thus he encompasses the great variety of fishing available in these islands.

He is quite rude about the modern angling scene - unfairly so perhaps - but thoughtful anglers will see where he is coming from. In short the book is thoughtful, perceptive and stylish: a modern angling classic.

A Little Gem
I must admit to being somewhat sceptical when I first heard of this book earlier in the year. Is there room for another book of angling reminiscences I thought? I even considered the title slightly pompous and it was with something of a jaundiced eye that I started to read it.

I needn't have worried - the book is a little gem! A joy from an angler who's philosophy on the sport is so in tune with my own I felt we may have been separated at birth (except John is older than me!). The title is from the opening lines of BB's , Fisherman's Bedside Book and the book itself is 21 chapters of intelligent, well crafted writing.

John Aston is a 55 year old lawyer form North Yorkshire and this book takes in his angling career from the West Riding via Lincolnshire, the wilds of NW Scotland and back to Yorkshire. The book starts in the somewhat traditional manner - the first chapters covering early beginnings but thereafter there's no discernible chronological thread. Each subsequent chapter really a short story in its own right on a separate theme be it a species of fish, angling literature or John having a mild rant at some of the more boorish elements of the sport. Each chapter the perfect reading length for me to get through while Jaq `did her face' before turning in for the night! This is not a `how to' book - I don't think there's a single piece of advice - what it does do rather well is scratch the surface of why we do it!

John's writing style is engaging and often witty and I especially like his somewhat whimsical analogies - such as comparing barbel to Labrador puppies! The last line in the quote below is another particular favourite. He does a fair job at bigging up some of the places he fishes, too. The Tourist Boards of Sutherland and Lincolnshire owe him a pint or two. The Lincolnshire eulogy particularly surprised me as this is a county I have always loathed having spent 2 miserable years of my childhood living in Grantham!

There's something for anglers of all disciplines in this book. Coarse and game fishing are covered with equal deference though the odd salmon angler might have a bone to pick with John! All in all, there will be few anglers who wouldn't mind this book turning up in their Christmas stocking this year.

The couple of paragraphs below are from Chapter 19 - The Shadowed Light a chapter covering one of my favourite species - The Grayling

"But let me... ...concentrate on why the grayling is such a glorious fish. No argument, they are the most exotic-looking freshwater fish you will find in the UK, not just because of the obvious exuberance of their huge dorsal fin but because of the beauty and symmetry of their silvered-mailed flanks and the impossible nuances of colour which can flash across them in the light of a winter's day. They pull hard, not in the three-laps-of-the-pool-and-a double-leap style of a rainbow, or the dogged belligerence of a brown, but in a determined show of absolute resistance to being bossed around by anglers. Hook a big grayling in fast water below you and the first walloping thumps on the rod tip are enough to excite the most blasé of anglers.

The grayling's initial reaction to being hooked feels like a barbel, or even a big eel, as they refuse to give an inch without making you work for it. And even when landed they will not concede that they might have lost the fight, because they continue to struggle; holding a freshly landed grayling can feel like trying to control a cat in mid-tantrum."

Lovely stuff!

An old fashioned anglers biography
This is a book that could have feels like it should have been written in the 19th century. It has very much the flavour of those biographies of gentlemen anglers who published rather rambling tales of their angling lives. If you like that style of book then you'll probably like this. For me it is like most such books in that it contains a few jewels, but there is much dross to wade through inbetween. It is certainly not a book that will teach anybody much about the practicalities of angling; but then that is clearly not the anglers point. It does provide an insight into the mind of a modern angler; but then if one is an angler already do you really need this? In some ways it seems more of a book for the non angler to see into the world of the angler. However, if you're not an angler are you that intersted in what anglers think?