Why Fly Fishing Becomes an Obsession | Tarquin Millington-Drake

You know, at the age of six, I think I was, I would be able to get up and get in my boat, and I would disappear on the river for the whole day. There's no doubt that Scotland's sort of demise fueled a desire and hunger to go abroad. The most ridiculous thing about Russia was people going home in a bad mood because they caught 49 fish instead of 50. Alta is special. It's the Navanna. You know, you will see a bow wave crossing the entire river following the fly coming after your fly. And people love that. Yeah, he's so exciting. If the Brits are plebs, will you put me into the Americans? Hello and welcome to the luxury dispatch, the podcast that reveals the refined and the rare, people, items and stories that make up the luxury industry. I'm Tom Chamberlain, and today we shall be stepping into a world where patience is prized, craftsmanship is measured in feathers and thread, and luxury is found not in noise but in stillness. It is the quiet, absorbing and faintly mystical world of fly fishing, from hand-tied flies to herited rods from remote rivers to the rituals that surround them, fly fishing sits at that fascinating intersection of sport, tradition and conservation, a pursuit that takes people all over the world seeking out the perfect catch, no matter the cost. To guide us in that world, I'm joined by Tarkin Millington Drake, Angler, writer and lifelong devotee of the river, and everything it teaches. Tarkin, welcome. Thank you. How are you doing? Getting there. Now I wish for you to think of me as a sort of golden retriever. A charming, very attractive dog that soaks up information, because I wish to delve deep into your mind and your experience of fly fishing, because this is a world to which I've been recently introduced, and I find totally fascinating, and I have been astonished by the lengths people will go around the world for an experience of the perfect catch and trying to find a particular, is it a quarry you'd find? How would you refer to a fish catch? I guess. People seek different species. I always say, when we start looking after people, they just want to catch a fish. Then they want to catch the most fish. Then they want to catch the biggest fish, and then they go off in different areas of sort of speciality after that. That tends to be their journey. Of course, fly fishing goes back a very, very long way. The aspect of fly fishing we're talking about isn't necessarily the White House and Mortimer style of fishing, the kind of quiet flasky type. This is much more a sport, isn't it? White House and Mortimer actually are a great example of how it should be, not because people should relax, but in my experience, people who approach their fishing in a relaxed manner are often more successful than those that are feverish and have objectives. Having said that, you know, in your opening, you said that fishing is about patience. I think most of the really good fishermen would argue that actually patience gets nowhere because a patient fisherman is someone who will set themselves up and sit and wait hoping something's going to change. What do they say? The first sign of madness is doing the same thing, time and time again, hoping you get for a different result. The good fishes will try something and then do something about it if it's not working. I think a better description actually is determination rather than patience. The less good fishermen tend to have patience because they just sit there and don't change anything. The good ones probably have a lack of patience. Yeah, but let's be the negative way of exploring it or explaining it or have determination and therefore adjust what they're doing. Okay, but let us perhaps define initially at least what constitutes fly fishing as opposed to other types of fishing. I suppose that the key difference is the method in which the bait for one of a better word, the word that everybody understands, is delivered to your quarry or the fish that you're trying to attract. There's trolling where you drag something behind a dinghy or a sport fishing boat, etc. Which is an art in itself. There's spin fishing where you're casting something out and retrieving it. There's ledgering and float fishing which again you're using a fixable reel, casting things out and then waiting for a reaction. And then fly fishing is using a crafted plastic which allows which loads a rod which allows delivery of the bait, which in this case is a fly and therefore it's light in most cases through a repetitive action. Therefore, the rather than the bait delivering itself because of its natural weight, sometimes it has lead, sometimes it's metal or whatever, sometimes it can be a big glob of worms with lead or whatever. The actual person doing the fishing is using the power to deliver the bait if that makes sense. That's probably a very long window way of doing it. I've learnt bits and bolts about flies these days but we're not going to go too deep into that although I heard that in the pre-war period before this sort of the empire started to wind up getting exotic, very colorful birds around the world, it was very straightforward and then what happened after all was they started painting them. But there were these wonderful names for the certain types of flies and they could make them almost identical. These sort of women up in Scotland, amazing crafts would make these so much effort and skill into creating these lures to catch the fish. And in the earlier days of fly fishing and do correct me if I'm wrong on this, what set it up as this sort of pursuit of the wealthy ultimately, a sort of high level sporting sort of a state was people were drawn to Scotland because of the salmon there. And they were drawn to Scotland to a large extent because Queen Victoria and Prince Albert Bauer in 1952 and everyone wanted to be quite close to them. Railway made it quite straightforward to get up to Scotland. And that was at the season is a lot longer than the shooting season for example. I believe the season goes, I mean liches the shooting season finishes at the end of January, right up until November or something. And so people were setting up big things at lodges and they were creating a whole ecosystem around this world for fishing. Yeah, I mean it also became part of the McNabb, I don't know if you've had a McNabb on your programme. No, one day perhaps. I know one, but maybe explain what the McNabb is. Catching a salmon is part of a McNabb. Could you explain what the rest is? A McNabb is, I mean in the old days it was catching a salmon, shooting a brace of grouse and a deer all in the same day. In the very old days it was on your neighbours estate without him knowing. That doesn't happen these days, but people are still trying to do McNabb since getting a bit more difficult in Scotland because of the lack of salmon. But you know McNabb has been around a long time and salmon has been part of it for all that time. I have a friend of mine who is an old guard's officer who has a signed McNabb card because he got one signed by her magic queen Elizabeth. Which I think is quite a good one. Yeah, that is cool. Because of course it was on GT in Balmoral. Yeah. Which I thought was really good. A friend of mine's grandfather actually shot the salmon because they saw him jumping up a waterfall. So he took the liberty of shooting the salmon while coming back from shooting grouse. Is that from shooting grouse? I think it would be now, certainly. But Scotland has gone through a great decline. In fact, I say that. I read about the decline in Scottish salmon and I read that in 2023 it was recorded that 32,477 salmon were caught. Which I thought sounded like a lot and your response to that was. I mean, yes, Scotland's gone down. My response to that is you need to compare it to the Rod effort. And the Rod effort in Scotland is probably 30 plus days per salmon. For that number. For that number. That's amazing. So every salmon that it's called, you know, you take the number of salmon caught divided by the amount of rod days that have been put in by people going to Scotland. It comes out that they've tried, they've been drive for 30 days or more. That's amazing. Which, you know, if you put it in perspective, it's four one week holidays, which for some people is four years. Which is sort of where you now come in because people are now wanting to go further afield to look for their salmon and so forth. And you are one of the things that you do is guide them through that process and take them to the places. Yeah, I mean, but before we get there, can I just ask you how you start efficient? I, it was deep countryside in my day, but I grew up in a place called Sheperton, which, the studio, the studio, the studio, fame. And in my day, we looked out over fields and tractors and all that good stuff. It's now almost part of London, I think. And we lived on the Thames and from when I could remember, I was fishing, catching, stickleback, then bleak and gudgeon on, you know, little quill floats with a, with a size 16, a hook and a maggot. And I remember, you know, the age of six, I think I was, I would be able to get up, make my own eggs and bacon and get in my boat, which had a motor, believe it or not. And I would disappear on the river for the whole day. I mean, if your parents let you do that now, you'd be, you'd be clapped in high ends. Yeah, super into the service. Yeah. But that is what I did and that's how I lived. I had, there was this side channel of the river, which used to go crystal clear and was full of fish. I used to fish there. We had a lake that I used to fish and then we had the main river. And between them, they kept me entertained all the time, basically. I wasn't big on seasons and licenses. I didn't really know that either existed when I was that age. And then when I was about, I don't know, 1617, I found this much floppier rod in a shed at home. And with a weird reel because I was used to fix spool reels. But this real just, sorry, what's a fixed spool reel? God, I have to go into the technical term. It's what most people who cause fish use. It has a bail arm. You flip it over to cast, et cetera. And if it's, if the bail arm is not flipped, the line won't yield at all. Fly rods. If you pull a fly line at the real yields, unless the drag is on mega tight. I understand. So I didn't understand the real either because it didn't have any sort of way particularly of stopping the line going out. Anyhow, I soon sort of worked out and then I had to teach myself to cast. And I could see charbon in the river rising to drive flies. And that's really what got me intrigued. It was how could I deliver what I saw the meeting to them? And the answer was a fly. And then I was like, how do I deliver a fly because a fixed spool spinning, you know, rig is not going to deliver a size 16 Wiccom's fancy. Or whatever it was that I was using. So I had to work out how to cast a fly rod. So what I ended up doing was putting the rod on the ground and pulling the line back on the bank, whatever length it was. And then if you pick the rod up, but left the tip on the ground, and then you could pick it up. And in one big, whoosh, using the weight forward of the line, you could send the whole rig out across the, the Thames and deliver the fly to where it needed to be. So those were my first casts with a fly rod. And then I learned to keep the line in the air, which obviously you need to do as a fly fisherman to make false casts, which helps with what? Lengthening the line. Delivery accuracy. And it looks very, all that. It looks very smart. Yeah. It's very impressive. Yeah, I mean, the less of the less of it you do, the better. You know, if you're teaching someone, they always do it too often, too much, too often. You know, bang, bang out is what you ideally want to do. But anyhow, I learned to do that. And the rest is history, really. Do you remember when you caught your first salmon? I do. I caught my first salmon. My very first salmon I poached. Thankfully with the owner of the river, we were young, you know, teenagers. The river was very low on the Isle of Aaron. And we managed to net out the salmon to everybody's amusement. Yeah. Because you could lie down on the rocks and see the salmon underneath and you could get at them. But I did, you know, I'm pleased to say I did catch my first salmon on a fly also on that river. Yeah. And sadly, that river's almost finished now. The use to catch 150 fish a year, it probably catches five now. Really? Sadly, it's a victim of the salmon farms. And so therefore, what is the fishing landscape now? Like where are, where are people now going? And where are you taking them for this sort of salmon fix? And then after we talk about salmon, I'd like to explore further a field sort of more exotic fish as well. And the sort of the kind of habits of people behind that as well. Because fishing has become an obsession for a lot of people, hasn't it? Yeah. And I think I mean, I think it always was. I mean, when I started frontiers in April of 93, we opened an office in London in the Obamal Street. Yeah. And that's a dress for people used to come around from whites and noodles and hang out and talk about fishing with us. It was an effective location. Yeah. And, you know, in those days, I'm not sure, I mean, in those days, I'm not sure we even had a fax machine right at the start. So people used to, the reason why they used to come around is they used to come around look at a slideshow. And we were educating people that there are sea trout in Argentina. What is a bonefish? You know, they do have salmon in Iceland or Norway or whatever. You know, it was a major educational, that was our role. And we used to do big events in the lands down club and by, you know, a hundred people to come and see a slideshow. And I would tell them about whatever the destination was. And so it was, you know, people were going abroad, but it was in its infancy then. And I never, we had a sort of rule in the office that I never wanted to feed off Scotland's failure. I didn't feel comfortable. So we never, we never did, you know, Scotland's terrible come and fish with us. Yeah. That we never took that approach ever. And we still don't. Plenty of people ring me up and moan about Scotland and we'll try and look after them. But we didn't take any pleasure from Scotland's demise. And I served on various committees with a guy called Ori Veefson, an orth Atlantic salmon fund. And, you know, we, we, we did our best and people are still doing their best. But the trend is overwhelming, sadly. And it's not that different, you know, in Norway or Iceland anywhere else, to be honest. So, but there's no doubt that Scotland's sort of demise, fueled a desire and hunger to go abroad, which in turn, fueled a desire to go and catch different species. And it started with people wanting to go salmon fishing abroad, which they've been doing since, you know, the late 1800s. Yeah. And, you know, there's rivers in Iceland where, you know, there's a house by river. I know it's called the English house because it was the first fishing lodge that the English set up in Iceland in God knows when, etc. But that and then they turn into a sea trout fishing in Argentina, because that's something that our market understood. It was still using a double-handed rod. It was still salmonids. It's a long way to go for fishing. Long way to go. Is it right that Jim Ratcliffe is run the biggest land of landowners in all of Iceland because they basically bought up fishing landowners? Well, he bought up the way it works in Iceland is if you own the land, you own the fishing rights. There's, you can't own the fishing rights on the river without owning the land around it. And he's not the only landowner and, you know, on a lot of rivers there's 25 landowners. Yeah. They all own about it. bit of the river and they lease the river to what they call leaseholder, surprise, surprise. And he runs the operation and brings it together. He'll run the lodge, he'll hire the guides, he'll hire the chef, he'll bring it all together, he'll bring in the transfer companies to bring people to and from the lodge, etc., etc. And the farmers who are the people in the land will divvy up the income in different ways, the most common way being how many fish were caught on your water versus my water in terms of percentage. But that has its own problems in that, you know, in days of old, if your water was better than my water, then I'd get in with a digger and try and make mine better. But what I'm actually doing is digging out the reds, which are the salmon nests and the spawning grounds. So, you know, they've had to adapt to make sure that doesn't happen. So with all that, if we think back to what I was saying about Scotland in the 30-day per fish, what did you go at the rods? What's the rod effort, you know, day effort? So what would it be in Iceland in equivalent now? People, because I've heard it's very oversubscribed, so presumably it's quite popular. But if people are getting one per 30 days in Scotland, what sort of the expectation does it have? I mean, I think the expectation in Iceland, certainly in prime time is, you know, two or three fish a session, and there's two sessions a day. So pretty radically different. Now, that can go horribly wrong, you know, droughts, too much water, etc., different rivers produce different numbers of fish. But, you know, rivers with bigger fish tend to produce less fish, rivers with smaller fish tend to produce more fish. So you're not guaranteed that, but certainly they're hoping to catch some fish each day. And that just really strikes me as interesting because let's say they're doing four to six a day. Yeah. If you take a day shooting, for example, there's going to be a lot more, if you aim straight, there's going to be a lot more, how do I put this? There's going to be a lot more to show for it. Yes. So what is it that draws people to fishing that is different, because obviously you must be filling a different need than going on a day shooting, for example. I mean, it's really interesting, you say that, because, you know, I've looked after clients for 35 years, if you include my time before, frontiers, and the guys that fish are generally pretty nice. The guys who fish and shoot are generally pretty nice. The ratio drops to like 50/50 for the hardcore shooters. And I think there's just more testosterone. I don't know, but there are different breed, but most of them do fish and shoot. Do you think perhaps there's a showiness to the kind of rituals of shooting that there isn't for, fishing sees to be more potentially more humbling pursuits. You've got to get very wet. You're probably going to get cold. You might blink. I believe it's blanking as a term for not getting wet. I think that, you know, shooting, and in some ways that's a very good description of it. It doesn't really involve field craft the way fly fishing does. Okay. And to explain that, you know, you, a good fisherman is observing very subtle differences in water, in the flow of water, which is indicating to them where fish might be, where they might lie, which in turn makes them fish differently. The way they'll fish one little bit of water will be different to how they'll fish another little bit of water. I was talking to a friend the other day about, you know, pool, we fish in Iceland. It's got two flows and, you know, you work with fly and the first time it goes through the first, the first fast bit, which is more powerful than the second fast bit. So you slow the fly down because the water does the fishing for you. And then there's a dead gap of slower water. So then you've got to work with fly. Then you come back into faster water. None of that existence shooting particularly yes, you have to observe the wind, the height, etc. But in terms of field craft and sensitivity and observation to quite different things. Yeah, because I guess every reel has a sort of purpose, whereas every shot is, you know, you know, you're going to get an opportunity in a second. So you just, it's less value. And then another friend of mine, I, he made another great observation, which is, you come off a day shooting, you've had a great day. Yes, you might have been out of it on the draw or not. But generally you've had a great day. Yeah. And you come off fishing and you catch a couple of salmon, you're happy. The difference is, if those final three, four shots of your day, you missed, you end the day with a bit of a niggle in your head. And based like, damn, I shot badly on that last drive or whatever. Whereas if you caught a couple of salmon, there's just, there's just nothing to be unhappy about. You've had a great day. And as he said, you know, we're shooting, you're almost only as happy as your last few shots. Yeah. Very different. Oh, to ask. Take a point. I'd like to ask you about Russia. Yeah. Because that was a popular, obviously, it's, it's a difficult place to go now, but similar to Iceland, it has superb fishing rivers and stuff. And but you were one of the people that did the tours of Russia. Yes. So perhaps just, could we reflect on that story as you could tell from there? Just as, you know, it's one of those places, you know, if you wanted to go today, you probably couldn't. I mean, it would be, or at least it'd be quite dangerous if you did. Yeah, I mean, it's at your risk and you can't use the credit card and you can't get travel insurance, etc, etc. But you know, Russia came at a time when people felt that Scotland was really getting bad. I mean, that was 1991, 92. I mean, compared to now, my god, you know, they didn't know what bad was then. But it was actually a breath of fresh air for salmon fishing because what was happening in Scotland is there was less and less fish. The people who were on beats, who were tenants on beats that did have fish or rivers that did have fish or good beats would obviously stick with them. And the a number of salmon fishing was, was a salmon fish among was probably declining because you were either a have or a have not and they have not really struggling. And suddenly this incredible for fishing appeared. And we talk about numbers, you know, the most ridiculous thing about Russia was people going home in a bad mood because they caught 49 fish instead of 50 or 99 instead of 100. Yeah, I mean, it puts Iceland in in in the shadows. You know, the most memorable day, you know, we were tested. For us who worked there, it's almost just you know, the mystery went away. You know, when we were preparing to guide the next day, we would go out, park the boat with an anchor, get out, start fishing our line, you know, yard two yards, three yards, up to 30 yards. We wouldn't move the boat. So in other words, if we hadn't caught multiple fish between the two of us, one fishing, one side, one fishing the other side, if we hadn't caught two or three fish, by the time we got our length of line out, so 20, 30 yards of line out fishing, there were no fish that we'd move. I mean, how spoiled is that? Yeah. Ridiculous. Absolutely. Ridiculous. Like nothing here, we'd go somewhere else. And here one day, we went test fishing the lower river, there were three of us. We were using the ear plugs that we use in there for the helicopters. And we thread the ear plug, the the leader through the ear plug, then we put on what's called a condom. It's a little plastic tube to hold the hook in the right place, and then we put the hook on. I think we caught 65 fish in about four hours on ear plugs. Correct. You know, that's what it was like. Amazing. Yeah. And is it, you might not be able to tell me everything, but is it a social pursuit? I mean, for example, all the lodgers and things in the evening, off the, you know, what happens off the river in the same we will have is off the peg. Yeah. You can often be as fun. 100% 100% and the other great thing just as I draw a line on the fishing in Russia is for a lot of English people, it was the first wilderness fishing they'd ever done and proper wilderness in that we were fishing 67 kilometers of river between 20 people. Yeah, with no, if you were in Scotland, it would have been six kilometers of river between 20 people. And people could just walk for mile, they could go all night. There was midnight sun, they could fish all night and they could fish all day. They'd never experienced non-beat fishing. When you go, when we went fishing with your guide during the day, your beat was five kilometers or six kilometers long, both banks. It was mind blowing for people and what happened is they became better, they learned more, they were able to experiment. It revolutionized the salmon fishing community that just got a hell of a lot better at salmon fishing because of Russia. I guess it sort of puts the test into a bit of perspective because I think people see the test as the whole day. It meant that they would come back and when they were fishing in Scotland, they were much more skilled and much more experienced. In Scotland, it takes multiple years to experience 10 fish on the end of your line. In Russia, it took the morning. In the 90s, there was this sort of English American, I don't want to be with the Americans. The English wanted to be with the English, and the Americans couldn't really care who they were with because they're basically pretty friendly bunch. But the Brits wanted to be with the Brits. I had this classic, I won't name it, but I had this guy come in to pay for trip to Mexico. He came in, Jimmy, he was all right, yes fine. He's writing his check as you did in those days. He's like, "I'll talk with him." Are there any Brits? Will there be any Brits in the lodge? I'm like, "Yeah, there are actually some Brits, Jimmy. You'll be fine, don't worry about it." Good. He writes his check and he goes back to white. About 20 minutes later, the phone rings, and they're talking with him. It's Jimmy. He's probably said, "I've been thinking, if the Brits are plebs, will you put me into the Americans?" That's how it was in those days. They didn't want to be the American, that has gone away completely. It's now, yes, it's as sociable as it is shooting, and nobody is sniffy about. If someone is an idiot, which it's pretty rare, they might be an American, they might be an Englishman, they might be a Frenchman, it doesn't matter. Now it's just fishing and it's pretty rare, you have a bad egg. Yeah, honest. And interestingly, the Americans are coming because obviously Americans have, I mean, they're plenty of space to their own, frankly. Yeah, but this was off the chart, Atlantic salmon fish. Yeah, fine, okay. I mean, off the charts compared to anything. What's special about the Atlantic salmon? I think the most special thing is about it is it rises. And therefore you see it take. So it's very visible. Because people talk about gin clear waters as well. They want to see it, to be able to see it through the water. But what they really want to see is the take in Russia and Iceland and so on, less so in Scotland because of Petri rivers and stuff. But you will see a bow wave crossing the entire river, following the fly, coming after your fly, and people love that. And sometimes they crash out of the water, sometimes they come flying out of the water like a tuner and just pound the fly and, you know, Pacific salmon don't do that. You need a sink tip. Okay, okay. Yeah. Interesting. Then further afield then, you, I heard about the seashells. Yeah. Mexico, Kenya. Yeah. I mean, there's so many. Yes. The French Polynesia, I'm assuming, this sort of means. What are people trying to get over there that's obviously salmon aren't there? So what are people fishing for with? I mean, they've got different reasons to go to different places. I mean, the seashells, I was one of the first people to go to seashells, I lived on a boat for two weeks before there was even a resort there or anything. I remember I was sleeping in this cabin. And the ceiling was like three inches from my head. I couldn't turn over because it was too, it was like it was like being in a coffin. I'm very hot. But it is world-class saltwater fishing. I mean, still is world-class saltwater fishing. The bone fishing is off the chart. It's the it's the it's the russia of saltwater fishing. What are you finding there? Lots of different species, but in the early days you could catch in a morning bonefish that would take you a week in the Bahamas. For example, maybe a bit smaller, but still, what you call in a heart in a morning. And both of us are very pretty. Yes. Not too severely. Not too severely. Yeah. Incredibly strong and powerful. But then really thanks to the caliber of guides that were in the seashore, which were mostly South Africans, they worked out how to catch the giant travales, the trigger fish, which is the sort of the eat coral. Giant travales big isn't it? Yeah, as a giant travali can be 100 pounds. That's a sort of trophy fish. Milkfish was another massive achievement and they fish with it with a green slime imitation and they feed off the top. But now you can go to the seashore and catch 10 or 12 different species in a week or on fly. So people love it in minutes. And I guess the sort of hovering question of all this is people want to go away to Iceland for let's say a weekend or a week's fishing or they want to go one of your fish. What are people coughing up for this? Because it's not this is not just going to your local river with a rod. It's these are expensive outings. Yes, they're very expensive outings and it's difficult because in the world of Atlantic salmon, it's expensive because of the rarity of the species and becoming more so because of the rarity of the species. So it's driven not by what it costs to lay on necessarily where it was in Russia. I mean we used to have people fly in you know it's two hours by helicopter they'd land and go okay I get it. I get it while it costs what it costs because everything around them has been flown in because there's we used to be able to float wood down the river but otherwise and towards the end we did what we call the winter fuel road where we loaded fuel tanks on tanks and drove across the frozen tundra with these tanks because we used to bring in about 150 tons of fuel a season. But otherwise you know the other times we used the largest helicopter in the world which is the me 26 which is the size of 737 and that would bring in 26 tons at a time. So in Russia there was a reason why it cost a lot. In Iceland it's basically market for forces in that the farmers think they can get more for their lease. The lease holders pay them that and then they charge more people. More people you know more money to the clients and the clients pay and they're still fighting over the space and therefore it fuels the increases. Places like Norway it's less productive but there are rivers where it's expensive because they have salmon and they have very big salmon which are particularly rare and same in Canada. So sorry to press you on this one. What do they spend? Yeah. I mean you know if you came to me and said you wanted a cheap trip I would be hoping that you're ready to spend three four grand per person not including your flights. For a week a day. For a week. For a week. And then it goes all the way up to you know 30 plus. Yeah. Per person. Yeah. Yeah it's quite something. It's more expensive than shooting. Potentially per rata. Only the really top end stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But what a lot of people want to do now which is becoming much more possible in Iceland is they don't want to go to an eight man lodge or a ten man lodge. They want to go to a four six or two man lodge and have a river to themselves. But this is the thing. I'll to let them know it. Yeah. This is this is the thing. You've got limited space because you haven't got Russia. You got limited. more demand, you've got, and it never tipped every single person, if they're people who are going to be spending a lot of money, none of them want to be doing what everybody else is doing. They'll all want different, more experiences. So is the fishing industry and is, you know, your business? Is it set up to provide more as over subscription will then breed the need for better services? There's a few issues with it in that there's very little of I want to do something that nobody else is doing. You know, there's a few people who want to be the pioneer of going somewhere, but there's less places to go, new places to go. But that is definitely a thing. But what they want is, you know, the problem is, and I've done my, my frontiers career for 33 years, nowhere has got better. I can tell you that right now, not one place has got better. And some have shown signs of getting better or sustaining themselves, but then they succumb to the same old problem, which is overroading, over pressure. And they start to go down. And the guys who are trying to operate it, you know, some people will accuse them of being greedy. Other, you know, but the reality is what they're trying to do is operate in a wilderness place. Now it might be wilderness helicopter. It might be wilderness 3, 4 hours drive, but it's pretty rare that you have amazing fishing in cities or around cities. You know, it tends to be the further away you can get from humans, the better the fishing will be because it hasn't been ruined and pressured. And therefore the economics of that in terms of getting all the shit there is horrendous. And that their way of solving that is to have 10 rods instead of eight rods coming to the lodge. Got it. Because how do they make the economics? And I'm in this horrible place where I don't like creating the exclusivity. And yet I recognize that the less pressure means the better chance that that fishery or wilderness or whatever it is will actually survive. Because if you pile the people in, it will succumb to the pressure. So it's a real difficult one. Well, with that in mind, any chance you could tell me a little bit about the altar. And I asked because I've heard it's quite special. And I imagine if there's anyone who knows about it, it's you. Yeah, I mean, the altar is special. Could you explain it, but yes, I will. I mean, certain first it's a history. You know, the rocks, per family, have been fishing for something like 150 years and still are and are very loyal to it and have a wonderful relationship with it. And they get it, which is incredibly important to those that haven't been lucky enough to go, which is the majority. It's the Nevada and the reason it's the Nevada is the average size of the fish is 24, 26 pounds, which for an Atlantic salmon is a monster. Most of us can only dream of catching a 20 pound fish. This is like Disneyland. Now, are there lots of them? No. But there are good years and bad. Ironically, well, encouragingly in some ways, the best year I ever had was in 1992. The second best year I ever was in 2022. It was pretty cool. But you know, you have, you have more than realistic chances of catching a 30 pound fish. You definitely have chances of 40 pound fish and you definitely have chances of 50 pound fish on a fly on a river that is beautiful fly water. It's not deep. It's not swirly. You're not having to fish deep. You're fishing classic beautiful fly water. It's a Norway. It's 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Northern Norway. Okay. And it's run. They celebrated their 300 year anniversary last year by an organization called the Alta Lacks Fiscary Interestant Scap. And what they did is all the owners formed a board, which is the ALI and the ALI run the river. And they have, I don't know the exact details, so forgive me if I get it wrong. But basically by royal decree, they are allowed to ignore some of the regulations of Norwegian fishery management and run the river themselves. And they do it in a very good way in that they have times of the year when the locals can fish, times of year when they invite foreigners to fish, which is only about four or five weeks of the 12 week season. And other times where you've got a little bit of both. And you know, people want to fish outside the main foreigner weeks, which are ascendicate weeks. They can enter a lottery, which is run extremely professionally. It's sent to Ireland or wherever, you know, to a professional lottery company that gives them the results. There's no shenanigans. They might win two days and they come and fish. And you know, I've had plenty of people ring me up and say, I've won in the lottery. Who can I have my boatman and where do I stay and all that kind of stuff? So because you mentioned the rock spritz. Yes. Of course, there's. They have been tenants and they still are tenants. For, you know, over a hundred years as a family. And okay, so if there is. Because you mentioned syndicates and seasons and so forth. Outer or not, somebody goes to far lows. They buy all their kit. They leave. Rod in one hand. They feel get it out. What does someone do next if they want to go have a good fishing experience? They can't just sort of drive up to a river and start fishing. There's a process. Right. There's. Yeah. I mean, they. What's the next best? Somebody wants to get into. I mean, if they've gone into far lows knowing nothing about fishing, then step one is to learn to fish. And to engage an instructor and learn to cast. And then they should go somewhere where they have a good caliber of what they call guillies in Scotland or guides elsewhere. Yeah. Where they actually start to learn and understand what they're actually trying to do and why they're doing it. And, you know, from there, they can make decisions about, you know, what they enjoy and what they don't enjoy. And where they want to go fishing and whether they want to join. You know, most people end up in Scotland because they've been invited to join a party by somebody else. And then they might start taking their own parties if they can find a tendency or they ring something like me. But, you know, they ring somebody like me. I will grill them about their experience because that tells me what I think they would and wouldn't enjoy their fitness levels. All that kind of stuff has an impact. Fishing levels. Yes. Fishing's tiring. You know, some of it is very tiring because you're in a canyon. And if you can't get out of the canyon because you're 75 and got, you know, dodgy knee, then you shouldn't be in the canyon. Okay. That's so that is a critical question. And actually more recently. Imagine one that people don't think of either. No. And it's happening, I wouldn't say more and more, but people aren't telling us about their fitness levels accurately. And it's causing problems because they can end up in places where they're struggling. Yeah. But if we don't know and then sometimes I get calls like, why have you sent this guy here? And I'm like, because I didn't know he had a heart bypass last week or whatever it is, you know. But you know, if they don't tell us, you know, we ask, but if they don't, and you know. So that is a really important question. Okay. And let's talk a bit about conservation, which is obviously a very critical part of your life. Yeah. Where are we with regards fishing? Who's helping? Who's not? What can be done? And maybe we could start by just pointing out that all the time you're talking about catching fish, there is a catch and release protocol. Is there? Yes. I mean, I did a catch and release campaign, I think in 1995. Yeah. And I argued that it was part of the solution. And it's been part of The solution but there isn't actually a solution because the solution the problem is much greater than whether you return fish or not but I feel interestingly one estate agent and Trout and salmon magazine with the only two people who had real issues with that campaign Which is odd but Generally people really responded and I think fishing abroad helped that because pretty much everywhere else was catch and release and I think We do a great job of catch and release in Scotland anywhere now I don't think the Brits have an issue with catch release at all But the problem is much greater than that the biggest problem is the salmon farming Which is you know we talked about the mercury Where I've caught my first salmon you know though there are so many rivers on the west coast that are just huge victims of the salmon farms and they're You know growth and expansion is relentless You know it's huge in Norway Even the Icelandic government which Just defies belief is allowing the salmon farmers into Iceland now and Iceland will go down as a result Okay escapees and you had this crazy situation where a whole lot of fish Escaped in September in the autumn of I don't know if it was 22 or something and you had all these young people young fishers who are basically mostly guides Going to the areas where they thought the fish that the escape fish would run the rivers and dilute the The gene pool of the wild fish right and they were getting in with scuba kits and spears and nets and anything they could to catch the farm fish to get them out of the rivers and They froze them all and they brought them and they dumped them outside the Icelandic Parliament But it was pretty impressive to see these young people and Patagonia made a film about it these young people just desperate to try and remove as many farm salmon as they could From from these rivers But the government hasn't listened. They're about to pass yet another law. Okay, so That's conservation and the government they're not helping You know Iceland no, okay in Scotland no, I think I mean, I don't know what the intimacy It's intricacies are in Scotland, but you know a lot of people are trying to do a lot of good things from Wild fish to the my great-reasonry Foundation to NASF North Atlantic salmon fun to Atlantic salmon trust You know to all these organizations are trying to do but but the the the might of the salmon farms is overwhelming. Yeah, and government sees as his employment the government's worried that it's gonna go elsewhere because the direction of travel for salmon farms is to Raise them in closed containers, so you don't have antibiotics going into the sea You don't have crap going into the sea. You don't have sea lice going into the sea etc. etc. So really We just simply shouldn't be eating it in this country at all at all. Yeah And it's not good for you either because it's full of the antibiotics and yeah all the rest of it So that's something we could all do But you know you've got the problem of water quality I Think a lot of the good work that people have done Has the results have surprised them in that they've realized that maybe half the problem is in the rivers whether it be water quality or predation or Whatever the reason I think that's been a bit of an eye opener and What do they do about that? so There's a lot of people trying hard, but they are really swimming up against it. Okay um Favorite fishing memory My god I need to tell you one which isn't very fishing-oriented, but it's really amusing fine You know when I worked in russia it was like I was like Chief vital statistics. You know in the asterix. Oh, you read those books There's thought he has us two hours in the middle of the tundra doing our thing and you are literally the chief of the village and um In the early days the mi2 pilot will surge his wife worked in the kitchen and He came to me and said look could I have a job in the in the camp and I hear you you Because when I took over I ran it for 10 years when I took over It was an honesty system in the bar and it was just being abused So I decided that we'd have a barman and he'd be in charge of the economics of the bar He said I I gather you gonna take on a barman could could I be the barman and like surgey You're a helicopter And he's like yeah, but I'll be with my wife and I'll make double Yeah, I think I think I his opening salary was $400 a month. He said I'll make double or triple what I'm making is as a helicopter By that if you'll give me the bar job He was ex sort of special forces russia as well. I mean he was a very very skilled man In many ways and he he took his bar job incredibly seriously um And he did have a sense of humor, but he was pretty scary behind the bar. Yeah And as we got to know it was like hey surgey um What's your What's your favorite weapon You know in the old days and he and he'd pull out this knife with a better five-inch blade high knife And you go surgey have you have you killed anybody? Kill him kill anybody with that knife you go 67 people Okay So we used to use him and and you know when he sort of painted himself up with all his you know camo stuff I mean he he was pretty He looked pretty cool and um so we used to send him on sort of anti-poaching missions And one year we had a couple of you know 18-year-old just out of school students that some clients had asked us to Let come to Russia and do some work and stuff like that so they they came and we had them digging long drop toilets and repairing stuff and doing whatever and then they'd give fishing in the evening and um We sent surgey on a mission and uh they're like oh Surgey and you know they saw him all sort of painted up and off he goes into the tundra and they they came back um Into the little office that we had in our little wooden shack but camp the next day to my um manager and i said uh Roddy you know did surgey catch the poachers and Roddy was like oh you two right um i've got a job for you um i want you to go to the back of the banyah i want you to Walk into the tundra at Maybe 25-50 paces and i need two big holes And he's got these young boys are like oh my god Of course it wasn't true But Roddy you know said this with the and because of where we were and how things were I mean we used to run little Sorties to the mouth of river cut the nets that some poacher had put in Jump back in the helicopter and fly back to cask and you know it was the wild west but because it was a big thing I mean it wasn't a big thing but it but you know if if the fish stopped coming You know when the fresh fish were coming and they stopped coming the chances are there was something blocking them got it so we would and we weren't allowed to go there because there's a military zone So we would low-level fly just above the tundra Drop in find the net cut the net with knives jump back in the chopper fly back to camp the foam would be ringing and it would be Julie who's our girl in a mat camp what are you been doing? So In that context when Roddy told these guys to dig a couple of holes They believe you know I'm supposed to go in marvelous um back to the best fishing stories. Oh my god. I mean there's so many great fishing stories but I fish with a guy in Norway who is just so relaxed and we've done so many years together and I fish I've been very lucky I started fishing there in 1991 when I was 26 and I fished there every year since. And the year I started one of the brothers was one of my boatmen and since I fished with him and his dad and I now fished with him and his brother and they have become like brothers and we've had so many adventures and massive battles and just extraordinary times but with my fishing friend who's just got a great sense of humour we just spend our time laughing and particularly on that river but I came back to what you said about Mortimer and White House is if you can have fun while you're fishing the fish almost take care of themselves. And it's why I encourage people to perhaps be a bit less obsessed with Atlantic Samward I think in the UK we've because it's such a struggle to catch a salmon these days we've forgotten to have fun and that's why I try and encourage people to go to Brazil and catch 20 peacock bass in a day for a week and just go and you know all visual top of the water takes and you know in a cool place in the middle of the Brazilian jungle go and have some fun because that's what it's all about ultimately instead of this almost you know pilgrimage to maybe catch one salmon. It's become a mission. I think that I'm going to go home having learnt plenty, having russled around in your brain and your memories and your experience but I sort of know that we've only really scratched the surface I reckon we could probably do a whole series on this so come back again. Well thank you. I think I like to we touch on conservation but I think there's more to be done especially when it comes to rural conservation full stop. Because I know that that's something that is very special and important to you. So I'm glad we managed to touch on now to show that the fishing has that aspect to it but I think that we can dig a little deeper so please do come back but in the meantime thank you so much for coming along and sharing your experience and look forward to seeing you when you come back. My pleasure. I remain Tom Chamberlain and this has been the luxury dispatch. The podcast that explores how luxury so often lies not in excess but in attention to craft to place and to the rituals the give life is texture. My thanks to Takwin Millington Drake for taking us to the shore. If you've enjoyed today's episode please do like, subscribe and leave a comment. We read everyone. Tell us your own river stories, agree or disagree with what you've heard or suggest the passions of besiege to you'd like us to explore next. Thank you for listening and as ever happy dressing and casting. [Music]