This is a bit like the person only being able to hum the tune of the single they want to buy from a record shop but...

I'm trying to track down two 70s/80s fly fishing films I saw a while ago.

One is amazingly indulgent - two country gents wandering around a river on a sunny day, one of whom has had a bottle of white wine cooling in a pool, which they get out and drink lying in the grass under a tree. Seemingly no other plot or dialogue.

The other is one that features beautiful footage of mayfly on british chalkstreams. Again more documentary and no instruction as such.

A long shot I know. Thanks

The first sounds a bit like Bob James and Chris Yates in a Passion for Angling but that's probably more recent.

The second might be the Survival film (I think called "The Angler and the Trout") featuring James Robertson Justice (actor) after large trout on the Test during the mayfly and also a bit about the Lunn family and the stocking of browns - if so I have a copy of that.

__________________
“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

this might not be the mayfly one your thinking of ,but its good

__________________
I try to be funny... but sometimes I merely look it! Steve

I watched Jack Hargreave as a kid what a treat to see that you tube clip

SewinBasher is probably nearer the mark with this one but the Brian Clarke and John Goddard television documentary 'The Educated Trout' (part of the BBC 'World About Us' series) had some wonderful Mayfly action footage filmed on the Kennet.

Whilst there was no actual fishing instruction as such, it did contain a detailed fly-tying sequence. It only seems like yesterday to me but it was produced in 1980!

P.S. S.W., if you have the JRJ 'Survival' film in digital file format, I would be eternally grateful for a copy. I've only ever seen it once when it was first shown in about 1973 (I think). I started searching for it earlier this year but it seems impossible to get hold of on either VHS or DVD.

Thank you very much for the quick responses. I reckon the second one probably was the 'educated trout'. It was a video leant to me by my dad's friend and had a TV doc feel to it. How on earth I find these I don't know.

Your'e quite welcome.

Sadly, 'The Educated Trout' has long been out of print in its original VHS tape format and was never made commercially available on DVD.

Is there any chance that you could borrow the video tape again? In which case you could have it transferred to DVD. Of course, VHS had a notoriously short lifespan in terms of film quality - with a gradual fall-off in resolution with each successive play - but you may be lucky if the tape has hardly been viewed.

Alternatively, you could try a 'You Tube' search and see if some public spirited soul has uploaded a series of clips making up the whole film. (This has already been done with the only two VHS tapes ever to have been released of 'Kite's Country' compilations). You could then download all the clips to your PC and burn them to a DVD-R.

Speaking of Major Kite, are you quite sure that the first film you mentioned wasn't one of his? Reason being that he did a fair old amount of 'al fresco' wining and dining after a fishing session. (Bear in mind, though, that Southern Television made these early, to late 1960's).

Unfortunately the family friend who leant me the video passed away some fifteen years ago. But there it is on ebay on VHS! What a stroke of luck!

Again, thank you for the information. I've been enjoying the other Jack Hargreaves videos on youtube. I love the englishness of these old films. The modern fly fishing films I've come across seem way too slick, too strike-fight-big fish oriented. Much prefer bearded men taking their time in beautiful locations!

Well done and I agree entirely with you about the vintage films - they were largely much more in keeping with the spirit of fly fishing, in my opinion.

If you really want to 'push the boat out' there was the obscure 'Come Fishing' series (40 odd years old!); all traces of which I imagine have probably vanished forever. More recently (mid 1970's!), the long running 'Angling Today' series produced one or two gems, although these were often a little lightweight at times. The 'presenter' Terry Thomas was certainly a character and a half, though.

A real delight, however, were the televised dramatisations of Arthur Ransome's fishing diaries in the late 1980s, starring Sir Michael Hordern as Arhur Ransome. No dialogue, just a voice over by Michael Hordern. I think there were about six programmes in all,

Enjoy ' The Educated Trout' - this was an accomplished work of art!

A quick note to say thank you all for the recommendations.

I've since managed to track down a copy of the Educated Trout (which must be the one I saw, although I seem to have erased any memory of all that fly pattern content). I've loved Michael Hordern's slightly deranged fishing demeanour in Rod and Line, Out of Town is simply fantastic and I'm stuck into a Chris Yates book at the moment. But of the recommendations its the old Olly Kite films which for me are definitive fly fishing viewing. He encapsulates that ideal of the naturalist expert fly fisher so beautifully. I could watch the films all day.

By the way if anyone is desperately seeking a copy of Educated Trout I have had a dvd copy made which I'm sure someone can copy for me, so please pm.