Just dug out a very old picture of Geoffrey Bucknell presenting me with an award ( think it was for coming last in a fishing comp. and I think a toilet seat was involved.) Where are you now Geoffrey? are you still casting the fly?

Hi', Morris Dancer.
Geoffrey Bucknell lives at Barnard Castle, I understand, not too far from his beloved Cow Green reservoir, near the head of the Tees.
I have never met him, but I have made three of his rod kits up into two fly rods for trout and a 14ft, 3-piece, salmon fly rod. That was when glass fibre was more popular than it is today. I have always admired his writing, and consider him to be one of angling's real gentlemen. If he reads this, by chance, I wish him all the best. TerryC
PS Apart from being crazy about wild trout fishing, we have something else in common -- I think we discovered for ourselves the fascinating sport of fishing dry flies in the dark at about the same time, a little over forty years ago.

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Thanks Terry

G. Bucknall still writes articles for FF&FT, and very good they are.

And his latest book 'Alive on a Rainy Day', may in time become a minor fishing classic. Great read. And no, I'm not his agent...

__________________
Jeffrey Prest
Features Editor
Trout Fisherman

A couple of us decided to have a day up at Cow Green last summer after reading Geoffrey Bucknall's piece about it in FF&FT. On the way there, we dropped into Wilkinson's in Barnard Castle for some flies. While we were in there, we got chatting to an older fellow with a distinctly non-local accent, who offered us lots of good advice about flies and how to approach The Big Cow. It was only after he left that the penny dropped…

I bumped into him about 10 years ago or so at Cow Green- he looked in his element, unlike the crew of Kent anglers accompanying him who looked a bit shellshocked at the prospect of 600acres (I think ? ) of one of England's wildest waters.He is a lovely man , and one of the last of his generation- older readers may remember his erudite spats with Dick Walker on the stationary fly conundrum.