Travel Plans and New Books

This week two books arrived for me in the mail. Tom Sutcliffe's "The Elements of Fly Tying" and a little pocket guide book to "Matching the Hatch" by Peter Lapsley and Cyril Bennett. Having skimmed through both books Tom's will no doubt go a long way to adding some respectability to my novice fly tying creations and the latter I hope will assist with my understanding of UK fly life and those times when the fish become a little more selective than usual (which, I might add, seems to happen quite frequently here in the UK!). I'll let you know what I think of them in due course but given their nature these books will require a fair amount of practical use for any review to do them justice. After reading "Trout Bum" I have also just ordered a copy of Gierach's second book, "The View from Rat Lake". I'm at a complete loss as to why it has taken me so long to make Mr Gierach's acquaintance but I'm relishing the prospect of working my way through all of his books, making up for lost time.

You may recall that thanks to your votes I was destined to make a fishing trip out to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco this year, in search of the southernmost strain of naturally occurring brown trout in the world. Well, just as I was starting to make some headway with my plans (there is very little information available on the net) a bomb exploded in a busy Marrakesh market last week tragically killing 16 tourists. Significant parts of North Africa have recently been or are currently still embroiled in civil strife and I have had to put safety first and consider alternative options. I think I have settled on a great choice, the Tuscany region of Italy, where I have arranged a day on the Lima River (about a 1.5 hour drive from Florence) in early June. I am really looking forward to spending both fishing and non fishing time in Florence, Pisa and Cinque Terre. Sadly Morocco and its unique trout will have to wait until things get a little safer.