This is a novel telling of the story of Tegla, an old Welsh longshoreman, who determines to kill a grey seal which is spoiling his fishing and ruining his nets. He makes this decision at the same time as Edward Drey, foolish, bumbling, slyly lustful, decides to seduce Tegla's pretty young daughter Bronwen whom he sees bathing one day as he - ostensibly bird-watching - scans the coast through his binoculars.
After some comic scenes, Tegla's conflict is resolved in a moving and unexpected climax which combines humour with pathos. This novel shows a deep knowledge of wild life and a sharpe eye for situation and character.
Read MoreW. H. Caraway was a game fisherman. He doesn’t despise the immaculate calm of the chalk water but he revels in the smash and grab of the mountain or moorland stream.
Such a river is Gwyrfai as it comes rolling off the granite shoulder of Snowdon. You may never have heard of the Gwyrfai, but that is scarcely the point. The Gwyrfai (pronounce it more or less to rhyme with ‘swervy’) is typical of fifty other rivers in north Wales and Scotland. Its problems are the ones that many a holiday trout fisherman faces when he visits a hill district.
The river holds fighting brown trout, but also has a good run of sea trout and salmon. It can be fished wet and it can be fished dry: it can even be spun if you are so inclined. At its mouth you will find everything including giant bass scouring the sands for food.
Mr Caraway, whose first fishing book A creel of Willow was a rare gem, deals with all species and all techniques in a narrative style as lively and well-paced as the stickle at the tail of a sea trout pool. In his appendices he gives every practical detail the visitor may wish to know from choice of flies to licence fees.
Read MoreA Creel of Willow
A Creel of Willow is set on the little river Withy and encounters the various characters who fish the water: Rogers, the time and motion man who fishes like a machine, the wise and kindly Dee who fishes the dry fly because he likes it, and old Percival, who does so because his father told him to.
This is a book for fishermen; it's also a book for people who can't understand fisherman at all.
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