TROUT HUNTING
Rob Sloane finds happiness in a new book by Bob Wyatt.
(Review from FlyLife #40)

When I review a book I like to make notes and write down the odd quote to jog my memory. Typically I end up with a page or so, but when I read Bob Wyatt’s book Trout Hunting I filled a whole notebook. There were juicy quotes, references, hints and interesting ideas on almost every page of this book.

If Hayes & Hill reads like a first year Uni lecture then Wyatt’s book is more like a post-graduate thesis. It’s a real mind-bender, an intellectual rant worthy of a PhD. I’ve christened it the PhD on the DHE (Deer Hair Emerger, see FlyLife #26), Wyatt’s favourite ‘go-to’ fly, which is promoted, and/or defended, throughout. As his ‘pals’ are apparently fond of saying: “Pu-leez, Wyatt, don’t start!”

Okay, I promise to give the DHE a fair-dinkum go next season when the duns are up on Arthurs. But seriously, although Trout Hunting could be branded as rather self-indulgent, being definitely pitched at a well-educated, well-read and well-fished audience, I found it an enjoyable and stimulating read. More so be-cause Wyatt’s approach to fly fishing and the conclusions he reaches very much overlap my own. And despite his riverine origins, he enjoys lake fishing too!

At the outset Wyatt debates ‘What is fly-fishing really?’ and you are left in no doubt that this is a book which demands your attention. Likewise ‘Tradition’ and ‘The Experience is the Thing’ are good raves about the essence of fly fishing, its history, literature and ethics. The book is deeply analytical and Wyatt (with lots of good humour) cleverly uses his ‘pals’ to debate fishing strengths and weaknesses. Hunting is an essential thread, intertwined with fly fishing throughout the book.

An art school lecturer now resident in Scotland, Bob Wyatt cut his angling teeth on the freestone rivers of Alberta and British Columbia. He regularly fishes in New Zealand and has visited Tasmania as well. The book includes a solid analysis of stream fishing techniques across continents, and plenty about lake fishing too, including modern versus traditional loch-style methods from Scotland and Ireland.

But most of the book is dedicated to in-depth analysis of trout and trout flies—the serious how and why. And Wyatt is not afraid to challenge the “received view” and to shake the trees of some famous writers on both sides of the Atlantic. He describes himself as “a hard core presentationist and impressionist” and dismisses notions of conscious selectivity and trout intelligence. And good on him because what he says is true; there is so much nonsense nowadays about the demands of fooling increasingly ‘educated’ trout. Wyatt makes an important distinction between the ‘disturbed and spooky’ trout and the popular perception of a ‘suspicious and selective’ trout.

The book contains an excellent treatment of trout-fly patterns including great colour images by Hans Weilenmann—also information on fly design with an emphasis on no-hackle and clipped-hackle dries. Wyatt advocates the use of emergers rather than high riding duns—his sitting duck versus rubber duck theory.

Although largely the result of time spent on Canadian and Scottish rivers, and lake fishing in Scotland and Ireland, Wyatt’s fly logic and fly patterns have universal appeal. I would happily swap fly boxes with Bob Wyatt any day and fish with confidence on Australian and New Zealand lakes and rivers, or anywhere else for that matter.

How this book fits with the contemporary British fly fishing scene is a mystery to me. Wyatt hates stockie bashing, and fishing competitions which turn “one of life’s best experiences into a pissing contest.” To Wyatt fly fishing is “a condition of mind and a state of happiness” not a competitive sport.

It’s deep, but well worth the effort—the most interesting book I’ve read in years.