Welcome to The Hook-Up

It's not the fish we're after...

Once fishing has worked its way inside you, there are few things that can replace what it gives. Challenge, tranquillity, camaraderie, disconnection, exhilaration, disappointment, hope… the rollercoaster of emotions is endless.

One of the pastime’s great charms is that it can be infrequent; flashing in and out of your life with the passing of weather patterns and seasons. Because of that, you can’t always be out on the water. In those darker and often faster-paced times, you turn to organisation. To planning. To careful preparation for the next time you pit your wits against our finned cousins.

Most of all, you turn to stories.

Stories of your last trip. Stories of your greatest achievements, nearest misses, most gut-wrenching defeats, and the feelings fishing made you feel.

These tales, no matter how tall or truthful, bind anglers together. They unite people around this watery world. Once you find a fellow fisher, even if you don’t speak the same language, you find a confine.

You understand each other.

I was a relative latecomer to fishing. I wasn’t taught by a patient father or a loving grandfather. I didn’t pick it up until my early 20s. It’s probably better phrasing to say that fishing was the one doing the picking up. It changed my perspective. On nature, on time, on life.

It is now an intrinsic part of my life that I simply cannot forge forward without. And I know most other folks who have felt that line go tight, watched a float go under, been stirred by a screaming bite alarm, or simply strolled the banks of a quietly tinkling river, feel very similar.

And so, after forging a career in journalsim (10 years of that in the fishing tackle industry), I have decided to put fingers to keyboard to celebrate all things angling.

This newsletter is designed to bring you a tiny bit of that undescribable feeling fishing gives you in the times between your own adventures.

I aim to populate it with stories from fascinating anglers around the world who have great stories to tell and great advice to give. In between those, I will try to fill the emptiness with my own thoughts on the sport, the industry, and the future of fishing.

It’s taken me a while to realise this, but the second-best thing to actually being out fishing is talking about it. So, I’m ready to start listening. I hope you are too.