A last visit to Bakewell Fly Fishing Shop

Christmas 2021 marks the closing of one of England's fly fishing institutions: Bakewell Fly Fishing Shop. A few photos here to mark its closing and the partial retirement of owner and well-known Derbyshire angler, Peter Arfield. I say 'partial retirement' because Pete will still be offering guiding and tuition on Derbysire rivers. The shop will be sadly missed by fly fishers though as it had genuine, iconic status - a renowned hub for anglers everywhere. Here are a few photos from what will be my last visit to the shop:

Pete Arfield presides over the organised chaos of Bakewell Fly Fishing Shop

Pete Arfield - portrait

Hebden Court, Bakewell

Stone steps leading to Bakewell Fly Fishing Shop

Gone fishing

One door closes, another opens. It is the end of an era though, that's for sure.

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Life is cheap when you’re a fish

I would like you to consider two stories. First, 100,000 litres of slurry leaks into a tributary stream of the River Coly in the Axe catchment which flows through Devon in the south west of England. That is one hundred tonnes of cow shit from the dairy farms which border the rivers in the region gone into the river. Talking to Shaun Leonard, Director of river conservation charity the Wild Trout Trust , he tells me that slurry pretty much suffocates a river. “It can happen incredibly quickly,” he says. “It moves as a slug. It will kill just about everything in the river. Not just fish, but everything which needs oxygen. So bugs, invertebrates, it will wipe all them out too. It can quite possibly do this overnight, it is a pretty instantaneous effect.” The second story concerns the shooting of a Red Kite in North Yorkshire one month before. I chose this one but it could have been any of a number of killings of birds of prey over the years, from eagles in Scotland, to that lightning rod

Meet the neighbours episode one: The Stonefly

This is the first in a series of short notes about some of the flies you’re going to find in your tray when you start kick sampling the river. You don’t have to be starting to kick sample to read these notes: if you are here then it is a good bet you are interested in the river in some capacity and if you are, then hopefully you will enjoy reading about these flies whether you are going to go out and actively study them or not. All the flies featured and photographed here I’ve collected myself and are from my local rivers, either the River Goyt or the River Sett in the Peak District, which is at the top end of the Mersey catchment, just on the Derbyshire side of the Derbyshire - Cheshire border in England. The exception is the adult willow fly, photograph below, which has been kindly contributed by entomologist and angler Stuart Crofts. First up is the stonefly, and in the photograph is the willow fly, one of the family of stoneflies that you’ll often hear called needle flies. When y

Glassjet notes

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