I know there are quite a few from across the Atlantic that frequent this forum and I thought I'd give a Hampshire river keepers thoughts on them. I hope nobody minds me putting this on as it is not all fishing.
This is another Donny Donovan story and it makes me laugh out loud. It has never been published before.

Americans.

When I started working on the Nursling beat on the river Test I was particularly lucky to still have the previous keeper, the legendary Vic Foot, around to advise me. Vic was the keeper here for an incredible fifty six years so what he doesn't know about the river is not worth knowing and thankfully he is very willing to give any help or advice required.

A walk down the river with Vic and his lifetimes worth of experience is an education in itself and of course he knows the flora and fauna like the back of his hand and I am forever pestering him about the name of a certain plant or other river life. One particular plant whose name he mentioned I knew to be wrong but felt it awkward to correct him so for a few years just accepted it for what he said. The plant in question was Himalayan Balsam which grows on the riverbanks and of what he referred to as American Balsam.

When I finally plucked up the courage to question his plant identification he casually said that he knew the correct name was Himalayan but had always called it American because of certain characteristics; It was, he told me, alien, didn't really belong here, very invasive and aggressive and once it gets a foothold it is almost impossible to get rid of and before long has taken over the whole bloody neighbourhood!
American Balsam it is then.

I have spent many years living and working in America and have travelled literally thousands of miles passing through some forty two different states. I love America and most of its inhabitants. It is strange therefore, that I feel an unfair sense of inevitability when I say that on average the best fly fishermen that I meet are very often Americans, as is the best equipment.
A lot of Americans come to fish the Test and I have had the pleasure of guiding many of them on the Nursling beat and the one thing that is always immediately apparentis that they can all fish well and are usually excellent casters. This of course helps whilst in the pursuit of fish but what also differentiates them from other rods is their intensity and quest for knowledge. They literally batter you for information, are very up front, honest - much too honest and are in your face with question after question. They want to know everything about your beat and are, I think, quietly relieved if you can't answer at least one of their questions.

There are many other differences between the English fly fisher and the American, some subtle, some sledgehammer but the most noticeable to me as a river keeper is that whilst the Englishman begrudgingly listens to your advice so that he can carefully ignore it, the American wants to know the ins and outs of a dogs ****.

They do listen to what you tell them and they do adhere to your advice and will always tie on whichever fly you suggest and trim their leader to whatever length you suggest. If after half an hour they haven't caught, they will often come back to find you and ask for other suggestions. The Englishman on the other hand, will politely ask your advice, do the complete opposite and casually wander off to catch nothing all by himself having avoided the ignominy of having to be helped.

Americans all like to come to the chalkstreams but probably only the once and that being more of a pilgrimage to the home of fly fishing rather than for the quality of the fishing which I imagine must on some beats be something of a disappointment. I remember going to visit Stonehenge and feeling somewhat let down when I realised that it was indeed only a pile of bloody great rocks in the middle of a field. The roar of juggernauts blasting past on the A36 the other side of the barbed wire fence didn't exactly help the mystique and legend that I had so associated with Stonehenge and I remember wishing that I hadn't gone. It was better in my mind than in reality and I suspect that many Americans must feel the same of many beats on the Test. Reality does at times not quite match up to a lifetimes worth of imagination and how you want it to be.

As far as the up front and honesty bit, I can give one example of an American giving me just a little too much honest information although it had nothing at all to do with fishing.

I have travelled extensively throughout America although most of my time was spent in Alabama which is a state roughly the same size as England and with the friedliest, most polite people that I have ever met and I still have a great many friends there. There is a coastline in Alabama onto the Gulf of Mexico and the beaches are as good as its neighbour Florida, although with a lot less people, younger too. Alabama was thought of as a rather poor relation to other Amaricans and people always looked fairly startled when I told them that is was my favourite state. Most Amarican people think of it as being full of stoned red necks and whilst I agree that there are a lot of them, it's not only red necks - most of the police are stoned too.

Me ending up in Alabama began whilst hitch hiking on the outskirts of Chicago and being picked up by an unusual looking vehicle painted an extraordinary shade of purple and towing a large trailer. It was a Winnebago and had Alabama licence plates and the driver stuck his thumb up as he pulled in to pick me up. His name, he proudly announced, was Keys Mitchell and he produced a business card that he pushed into my hand. He reminded me a little of the always drunk so called doctors that travelled throughout the wild west selling lotions and potions, pulling teeth and cutting hair all at a reasonable rate. He was in fact a grandfather clock salesman trvelling all over America doing shows in shopping malls and at country fairs and immediately started telling me at great length the virtues of his wonderful clocks and the deals he could offer. The company he worked for was called The King Arthur Grandfather Clock Company and was based in Fairhope, Alabama. Keys would travel from mall to mall and set up his sixteen clocks that he carried in the trailer. He lived in the Winnebago and explained that everything associated with the company, including his suit, was painted in this extraordinary colour. Keys and me got on like a house on fire and like a lot of Americans - he talked as if it was his last day on earth.

We travelled through Arizona and I helped him do shows in Pheonix and Flagstaff and we visited the Grand Canyon that was very spectacular as was much of the scenery in Arizona and New Mexico It was strange to see Indians, as in cowboys and indians, riding alongside the roads and I was surprised that Keys didn't attempt to trade guns and liquor with them as I'm sure he had in a previous life.

I eventually ended up selling the clocks that I found the easiest thing in the world and together we sold literally hundreds of them. We worked our way back to Alabama and the clock company factory where we were summoned to meet the owner, an infamous paraplegic George Fowler to presumably explain the sudden upturn in sales. After waiting in the sales office for a nervous half hour the door suddenly burst open and in came this enormously fat man in a wheel chair with a secretary hurrying behind him. I stretched my hand out towards him at which he just stared so I awkwardly scratched my nose instead before he boomed out,
"You the limey ******* who sold lots of my clocks? Must be you, I know it 'aint you Keys; You couldn't sell your ass in Alcatraz."
Before I had any chance to reply he said, or rather shouted,
"You know limey what I miss most about being in this goddam chair?"
A thousand things must have gone through my mind in a mille second that this fat, loud mouthed man must have missed because of being in a wheel chair but I didn't have time to say anything before he started again.
"Having a good ****. That's what I miss more than anything, taking a dammed good ****, god I'd love to take a dump!"
I just didn't have an answer. I didn't know whether to agree with him, sympathise or what. To be perfectly honest I'd never given the subject of not being able to go to the toilet much thought and I was lost for conversation. No such problems for Keys though, this was his kind of subject and he felt almost obliged to join in. I waited with gritted teeth and closed eyes for his inevitable intervention.
"What about masturbating Mr.Fowler? I'm sure that I'd miss that more than crapping," he said with an agreeing nod.
"Well you would Keys, you know why Keys? The limeys have got a word for you and you know what that is? A ******, In England your a ******. Aint that right limey? In England Keys is a ******."
Keys was in his ideal conversation and obviously couldn't hear me thinking let it go Keys, just let it go.
"So let me get this right George, I'm a ****** and you're full of **** that you can't get rid off because your ******** doesn't work?"
There was a silence, a long silence and I couldn't work out if it was checkmate, stalemate or what but it was very, very quiet. Mr.Fowler suddenly turned to leave the room nearly knocking his secretary over in the process and shouted back as he crashed through the doors,
"Come and see me later ******, and bring the limey with you."

Like I said, up front, too honest...far, far too much information and unnecessary detail - but by god they can fish.

Donny Donovan 2002

Reg Wyatt

Best read ive had so far , class..

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[SIZE="4"]BRITISH BY BIRTH , SCOTTISH BY THE GRACE OF GOD..[/SIZE]

There must be more. Please, tell me there's more.

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The truth is that if it were not for anglers the majority of our streams and rivers would be largely lifeless. A rather more uncomfortable truth is that, as anglers, most of us are far less active than we should be in fulfilling our responsibilities to help protect the rivers we fish
Peter Lapsley
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Monnow Fisheries Association
Riffles and Runs
Charfield AA

Your right Reg. I go to America twice a year to North of Chicago (May & November). I'm a beginner to fly fishing so have been reading books in the UK and America. By far the most detailed are the American books. One of which I have just today finnished and was brilliant: Orvis Guide to Fly Fishing.

Problem with the North Chicago area is that, they have plenty of water but not much fly fishing, except maybe for Walleye and trout very deep down in Lake Michigan.

Thanks for a good read.

John

Blimey I've never seen so many ******* before. I was always told that Americans don't use or recognise the word ****** but what the **** do I know. Hope nobody was too offended.

Reg ****** Wyatt

That was excellent thanks.

Now THAT'S what writing should be like, when's the book coming out?

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Hi Reg. A little over ten years ago I did some guiding on the Eden, here at Penrith, and had three American anglers as customers. They were extremely polite, attentive and appreciative of anything that I did. One sent me his angling diary entries for a fishing holiday in Chile, where he caught bigger brown trout on my iron blue dun dry flies than I had ever managed. He also sent several copies of 'Field And Stream'. His name was Tom Grayling, honest!! And he was the head of the medical faculty at the University of Seattle when I met him.
The second of the three was an ophthalmic optician -- I think that was what he said. A Kentuckian, who complained about not having much good trout fishing where he lived. He loved the Eden and our lakes, and his first outing was on Bassenthwaite Lake, where local guide, Eric Hope found him a pike.
His best trout from the Eden on his two visits was a 16 1/2 inch fish, caught on a little comparadun, one of the first I saw. I was wearing thick white stockings over my latex stocking-foot chest waders-- it was the standard wear with fishing brogues, and he must have taken pity on me, because he sent me a pair of Simms ( I think it was Simms ) wading gaiters. He also sent me a copy of 'Blues' by John Hersey, a tale about sea fishing for American bluefish. He said he would come back and fish again one day, if the opportunity arose. It didn't, or it hasn't yet, but I won't forget him--a real angling gentleman, in any language. Cheers, keep up the good work, TerryC

Really nice stories by Reg and Terry.

The thing that I, and I think many American anglers, find attractive about fishing in the UK is that it's less fishing for fish and more fishing to enjoy the experience of fishing.

Let's be honest, if your only goal is to catch as many fish as possible--whatever fish they may be--the UK isn't going to top the dream destination list in many categories. But add in the experience of fishing for those species and the UK is tops.

There is nothing in the world that's a beautiful as fishing in England on a sunny day. Some of the members of the forum very generously took me on a wonderful day out fishing on a chalkstream in Hampshire and it was fantastic.

The only thing I found difficult to answer is the question of, "How did you find the fishing?"

And this was only because I hadn't really thought about the fishing as the reason for being out there. I was just so thoroughly enjoying looking around the chalk stream and how carefully engineered and manicured it was, the way the weed grows, the fishing huts and how everything if very carefully organized, divided, and sub-divided to ensure order.

There's also the particular way that the weeds in those chalkstreams move, against the cream rubble. They have the effect of being planted there deliberately, like waves of green barley waving in the wind.

Of course, as an American, we cannot ever resist tinkering with anything, even anything as good as fishing a chalkstream in Hampshire. So if you're wondering who, exactly, is responsible for brining about the wide-scale use of walkie-talkies as the new angling communication device of choice, well, sorry about that. Pig Pen, this here's the Rubber Duck. Over and out.

But it's just all so damned beautiful, I hadn't even thought about comparative aspect of the fishing, because I don't think about going there as an exercise in catching fish. It's a difficult leap to make, to explain to someone that it's the fishing in the UK that is to be savored, as separate from the catching of fish.

And then there's the presence of history that adds a dimension that isn't that much a part of most angling here in America. To be there in person, in a place like Winchester, standing by the River Itchen and to watching fish rise just yards from Walton's shrine in the cathedral is an indescribable experience. To read what Walton wrote is one thing, but to walk in the places that inspired him to write gives an angler something that cannot be had or felt in any other way except to go there and be there fishing.

Grouse

I've always found the American videos/DVDs excellent for instruction if you can put up with annoying accents.

My particular favourite is Doug Swisher's "Strategies for Selective Trout" and the sequel "Advanced Strategies etc." but Gary Borger is also very good.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary