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Updated on 15 October 2009
OUR AUTHORS
The author of IRISH MAYFLIES, is a noted international fly-fisher with over 50 years experience. He has represented Ulster and the Ireland national team on a number of occasions and was selected to captain Ireland in 2002. He continues his involvement on a national basis by tying flies for the Irish Youth team and assisting with coaching. For some years he has been P R O for the Irish Trout Fly Association, a member of the National Executive, and also serves on the committee of Ulster Fly Fishing Association.
After initially tying flies on a self-taught basis, he was given further instruction by Cecil Reid of Sligo, a brilliant small dry fly specialist. He was also befriended by J R (Dick) Harris of An Angler’s Entomology fame, who readily gave Patsy advice on tying difficult patterns and help in locating materials which were not as readily available as they are today. He has shared his enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, the sport with fly tying tuition at clubs and schools over the last twenty years.
He has regularly contributed to Flydresser, the journal of The Flydressers’ Guild and Fly Fishing and Fly Tying magazine.
Brought up in a village near Derby, John Watson began angling over 50 years ago. His first rod-caught fish was a perch taken with a wire-ringed, six-foot cane with a level silk line, porcupine quill float and worm; his first brown trout came from the Derwent whilst minnow fishing some little time afterwards. Observations of familiar plants, birds and insects added a further dimension to angling expeditions which eventually led to a teaching career in Biology and absorbing interest in Natural History.
So began the lifelong waterside life of an angling naturalist, where botany and ornithology complemented one another on each angling visit; centred on the waters of Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire but extending throughout the British Isles. A fascination with fishing ‘the fly’ began a few years into his angling apprenticeship. Dressing local patterns generated research into the rich angling heritage of the Dove and Derwent watersheds along with their anglers, waterkeepers and tackle makers.
Now living in over-active retirement, John is a member of two Derbyshire angling clubs and fishes the rivers at weekly intervals, mainly for grayling and trout. In addition the Wharfe and Nidd also attract his attention.
‘Ted’ as he is affectionately known to his friends, has spent more than seventy years fishing throughout Ireland. He encountered his first fish, a fresh run salmon, while fishing a worm for trout at the tender age of eleven. The contest was quickly resolved with a broken cast and lost fish, but even today he can recall the scream of the reel and the silvery body as the fish leapt for life itself. His all encompassing interest in fly fishing the waters of Ireland led to him being responsible for, and inspiring much of, the development work in angling in Northern Ireland from 1968. A former director of the Ulster Angling Federation and a member of the Downpatrick and District Anglers Association, the many Life Memberships that have been accorded to Ted are testament to the esteem in which he is held.
For many years his particular interest has been trout and salmon flies. His wanderings around Ireland have resulted in a large collection of local flies and dressings; it was inevitable that this interest would lead to him researching into early fly-fishers and anglers. Now in retirement, Ted’s first book was published in 1984. The first edition of Irish Trout and Salmon Flies is now becoming eagerly sought after by collectors. In 2000 his Tying Flies in the Irish Style was published to similar critical acclaim.
Tommy Hanna’s flies came to the attention of Courtney-Williams and in his book A Dictionary of Trout Flies he devotes two full pages to a fly-dresser who is compared favourably with a famous angler of the time G E M Skues ‘but the Irishman has more imagination’. Two flies in particular will always be associated with Hanna, the Ballinderry Black and the Ballinderry Olive, both deadly effective for the large dollaghan trout of his beloved River Ballinderry.
When Fly-fishing in Ireland was published, Hanna decided the time had come to devote his working life to angling, and so was born the firm of Tommy Hanna of Moneymore, selling rods, fishing tackle and flies from the family drapery shop.
For far too long, T J Hanna’s memory has remained in the twilight, and this republication in facsimile should place him back in his rightful place on angling bookshelves where he belongs. The facsimile also includes a facsimile of the original dust jacket, now extremely scarce.
From the age of ten, Leslie Magee began to keep a nature diary and for more than 70 years virtually everything he has seen of interest on his outings, whether fly-fishing, bridwarching, botanizing or collecting insects, has been meticulously recorded. As a chartered engineer, his profession has taken him around the world. This opportunity to travel has allowed him to compare the wildlife and game fishing of many lands.
A member of several fishing clubs, he was Yorkshire correspondent for Trout and Salmon magazine and through his many acquaintances has accumulated a detailed knowledge of the North Country fly-fishing fraternity; old documents, photographs, hand written fly lists, artificial flies, books and tackle have all been carefully preserved.
Elected to serve as president of the Yorkshire Naturalists Union in 1993, Leslie Magee is eminently qualified to write about the development of fly fishing on the northern spate rivers.