The “ ethereal mildness” of spring spoken of by the poet seems in these later years to have become a considerable stretch of poetic licence, and whether our climate is gradually undergoing a change, or whether we have merely been affected with more than usual severity by those unseasonable changes to which our climate is always more or less liable is hard to determine. Whatever may or may not be the cause, the fact of a long course of bad weather for years in succession has been a serious discouragement for spring salmon–fishers…..
I discovered the above whilst browsing through my bookshelf. These very relevant words were written by, Francis Francis in his book “Angling Reminiscences”. Published in 1887.
I was saddened to hear that Clive Gammon a writer of many fine-angling books has passed away. He was an inspiration to a generation of anglers who grew up in the sixties and seventies. His book a “ Tide of Fish “ is one of the best sea angling books ever written and tells amongst other things of the early days of tope fishing from the shore.
