Sitting on a riverbank, with rod and line, must count as one of the most relaxing and enjoyable – yet occasionally frustrating – experiences known to man.

Chris Yates discovered the joys of fishing early in life and was quickly hooked by its pleasures. Many years later, he is still content to sit, day after day, observing the quirks of different fish and losing track of time. For him, fishing is much more than just a question of technique; sometimes it’s about listening to nothing but your instincts, and at other times it’s about enjoying the perfect cup of tea. And it’s always about not knowing how the day is going to unfold…

There’s no better guide for the uninitiated – and no better companion for those already familiar with the satisfactions of fishing – than Chris Yates. And immersing yourself in How To Fish is almost as delightful an activity as fishing itself.

Two edited extracts from How To Fish by Chris Yates, which appeared in the September 9th and 16th editions of the Telegraph Weekend Magazine.
 
September 9th
The First Cast is the Deepest

September: one of the loveliest and most generous months in the angler’s calendar. The lengthening nights, heavy dews and the cooler mornings and evenings remind the fish that the summer is almost over and they must grab what they can before winter comes.

In a few weeks’ time, after the equinox and the first serious weather of the year, the river will be transformed from a chain of quiet, secretive pools into a deeper, stronger and continuous flow. All the midstream vegetation will be swept away and the fish will have to change their habits and their haunts.

Changing habits and haunts at the end of summer was something I did all through my formative years, just like everyone else, so maybe my urge to explore new territory today is prompted by a conditioned reflex. Sixteen slightly intimidating Sepembers, each one confronting me with new classrooms, new tutors, new books and new problems, must have left their mark. Alternatively I am seeking new water because of a genetic memory, an echo from those millennia when, every autumn, my ancestors followed the migrating herds southwards.

Heading upstream, I naturally had more chance of spotting fish as I was approaching them from behind; however, the rising sun threw a long shadow ahead of me and, at a turn in the river, it must have been cast across a group of chub because there was a sudden plunging splash. Until that moment, all I had seen since I'd arrived were shoals of minnows flickering through the few weed-free, shallower glides and it was reassuring to be startled by such a walloping commotion. Years ago, when I was a chub devotee, I would have waited all day just for a glimpse of one of those creatures, but today I'm not really interested in them: I have another, more resplendent, fish on my mind.

Fifty yards after the chub hole, I came to a seductive, willow-shrouded pool that seemed to possess all the features I'd been looking for: a shelving riverbed where a steady current slowed and divided around the remains of a sunken tree, the main flow deflected over to the far bank, the rest coming round in a slow idling whirl beneath the overhanging willows. However impatient l am to get to the river, if I’m not completely familiar with it and it refuses to make any promises, hours can pass before I finally decide where to make my first cast.

But once I’ve chosen the place it’s a matter of life and death that I cast immediately. All my expectations, frustrations, all the pretence about being happy doing other things in the days I wasn’t fishing — everything is resolved as soon as the line is in the water and I’m reconnected with reality.

My bait slowly sank into the depths of midstream and I checked its descent by gently tensioning the line so that the worm would come round into the underbank eddy where I thought the fish might be waiting.

First cast into an undiscovered, unknown pool; anything could be down there; anything could happen. The line twitched, began to tighten, fell slack, twitched, fell slack once more. Minnows? Chublets? Even before the line moved I sensed the river might have deceived me with this perfect-looking place; it was perhaps too obviously a lair or a santuary for a big fish. Later in the season when the heavier currents made any deep backflow more appealing, it would almost certainly hold something rod-splitting, but today the river's generally slow pace made it suddenly seem, contrary to my first impression, just too soporific. Finally the line made a steady decisive movement and I upped sharply with the rod tip - and reeled in a bare hook.

Almost certainly a minnow, I thought, or, more likely, a dozen minnows all fighting over one worm. I re-baited and cast again - the second cast less urgent, more leisurely, more considered than the first. Minnows, I told myself, were a sign of a healthy river and, despite their worm-whittling presence in my pool, there was still a chance that bigger fish were lurking nearby.

Once more the line began to hesitantly tighten and slacken as soon as the bait sank to the bottom. Then, again, the steadier draw, but this time I connected - and the curving rod tip told me it definitely wasn't a minnow. Something went round deep down in a couple of tight circles, but though my old cane rod remained nicely bent not an inch of line clicked off the reel and I eased the fish towards me.

I was sure I recognised the soft thump of the tail stroke and identity was confirmed when it swirled and skittered on the surface, showing a lovely blue flank. Mixed up in the spray, the bright red fins looked like radiating beams of light. It came over the net without any more fuss; I hoisted it ashore, dampened my hands on the wet mesh, quickly unhooked it, guessed it at a pound and a quarter and skipped it back into its home - the first roach of the season, but an accidental one.

September 16th
Catch Me If You Can

A full September moon - when visible - is an impressive sight, simply because it's so much more dominant than the preceding summer moons, which ride a much lower arc in the southern sky. The October moon will be higher again, so, though the evenings are closing in, the periods of brighter moonlight must affect the feeding times of a big-eyed fish such as the perch. However, whenever the subject of fishing by moonlight is discussed, there seems to be a general pessimism, the consensus being that a bright moon puts the fish down. But I have landed some great catches by moonlight. One of the best hauls of barbel I ever had was under a brilliant January moon, when the fish were clearly visible as they rolled on the surface, I could even see the little silver ripple that my line made in the water.

I remember once meeting an angler who, rather than being keen on a particular species or obsessed by a personal Moby Dick, was in thrall to the moon. He wasn’t in the least romantic about it — his was a scientific passion. He was convinced that every single moment of a fishing day was not so much influenced as governed by the moon. I told him that, if the moon can heave an ocean halfway up a cliff, it can obviously cause a measurable shift in the waters of a lake or river. It must also subtly affect the buoyancy of a fish; but only a true lunatic would calculate his every cast according to the influence of its gravity.

Fishing in moonlight shouldn’t, anyway, have to be reduced to an exercise in scientific theory; it should be more an appreciation of mysterious scene shifting and if a fish gleams into view, let it be regarded only as a needle to stitch the magic together.

About this time last year, I went fishing on the evening of a full moon and became so absorbed in the river that, when the moon appeared, I didn’t recognise it.

I arrived at the waterside an hour or two before sunset, thinking that the perch would probably begin to feed in earnest at dusk. There was more strength in the current than today, but the river was still clinging to most of its summer growth. I fished my way downstream, getting a small — a very small — fish on my second cast, then hooking and losing a much bigger one. My nose twitched when I was walking along a high bank towards a usually productive pool. I hesitated a moment, then flipped out the bait.

The sun was setting; every colour was smudging towards blue or gold, while the river seemed to be softening from liquid to velvet. The high bank made for awkward fishing, mainly because I had to keep low to stop myself being skylined. There were too many reeds to use a float, so I just fished free-line, letting the worm drift into the narrow clear channels. Being up above the bankside vegetation, however, meant I had a better view of my surroundings, which was why I became aware of a dull amber dome beyond the eastern tree line. For a moment I couldn’t understand what I was looking at. The colour was so deep and the object seemed so close that it couldn't have been anything other than an anchored hot-air balloon or a weird, circus-sized tent. Then I refocused properly and, as it rose gradually out of the trees, I wondered for the umpteenth time why proximity to the horizon should make the moon appear much larger when it's high overhead. It was the heavy, lustreless colour that, for a  moment, convinced me it was earthbound. As it rose the amber brightened into gold, then pearl, then a radiant white that created a whole new world of shadows.

Something snicked at the line and made me jump. I struck and reeled in a fabulous gudgeon that must have weighed all of two ounces. He glinted at me in the moonglow and I could even see the speckles in his silver sides. Having plopped him back, I went down to the broader, more open pool that I'd intended to fish in the first place. I'd not long cast into it, however, when I felt a cold, chilling movement of air and within a few minutes a river mist began to form. All the brittle silhouettes of reeds and overhanging trees thinned into ghosts, and as the mist thickened, spilling over the banks, I almost lost sight of the water altogether. Only the vague reflection of the moon kept it in view.

I'm sure it wasn't because of the moon that I didn't get any more chances. Water may take much longer to cool than air, but if the process begins abruptly - and it was a very sudden chill - the cold-blooded fish usually respond in a cold-shouldering manner.

My hands became numb and I could feel the dank evening crawling down my back. I soon realised that unless I got bored with the fishing I would surely die. Also, it once happened, after I fished too long on a night of dense mist, that I got hopelessly lost trying to cross an open field, ending up going round in impossible circles and twice almost falling in. But last September was different because, when I finally walked away from the river, the moon was looking down over the head-high fog, guiding me safely home.

The River Talks in Ripples

However eager I am to start fishing there is something about the first glimpse of a river that never fails to stop me in my tracks. Even on a wet winter's morning when I'm hurrying with all my gear across an open field a river will flag me down before I can find a sheltering tree and for a few moments we have a silent conversation.

First I must have the news, although, with a river, it's mostly old news; how the water has risen or coloured since the storm of four days ago; how the weed along a chosen pool has almost disappeared since a gang of swans mowed through it last week; how the flow has lost it's energy after a month of clear skies. Obviously this kind of information is important, especially if it feeds my optimism rather than makes me wish I'd stayed in bed, but the factual stuff is dealt with in seconds; I must wait a minute longer for whatever else the river has to say.

I am looking at the water now, but it was a morning ago and at a different place that I had any first glimpse of it. I was standing in a sloping field overlooking this small lowland stream as it meandered between high banks overgrown with willow, sedge and alder. I could see that the level was low for the time of year and therefore knew the current would be correspondingly slow and the water probably crystal clear. There was an early morning breeze breaking up the reflections of the trees. A few fallen leaves were floating downstream, but no fishes rippled the surface, nor was there any sparkle in it as the September sun had yet to appear above the hills to the east. As I looked down on the sweeping bend below me something in my memory or my bones made me instantly decide that I should head upstream rather than down towards the more familiar water where I'd intended to go. I had never explored the upper reaches of this particular stretch before, but it seemed that today I would be casting into new pools.

The slow breeze swam along with the slow current, making smooth ripples that said it was easier to follow the flow than go against it, especially first thing in the morning when everything must be effortless. Yet below the ripples there was this contradictory voice, a countercurrent, working like divination, but probably triggered by something less mysterious. I think the morning's weather and the morning's light had combined with the river to release the flow of all the countless other rivers I'd ever fished. One momentary glance and there was an unconscious welling up of historic waters, superimposing themselves one after the other on the present scene until there must have been an almost perfect match because why else was I suddenly trying to remember a different river that ran through a day similar to this one, but maybe ten, twenty or even thirty years ago?

Happy to be acting on a whim – or a seeming whim – I turned left and began walking upstream, keeping my eyes on the water as much as I could, although there were occasional willow thickets, hedges and ditches where I lost sight of it and had to turn aside to find a new path. Even when the banks were reasonably clear it was still sometimes difficult to see much of the river. Despite the first witherings of autumn there are sections where bulrush and lily beds remain like bristling forests and gently swaying swamps stretching from bank to bank. In the quieter glides and shallower runs, long streamers of ribbon weed are all yellowing at their tips, making them appear semi-transparent as they weave in the current, but they still obscure much of the actual riverbed and, as I watchfully made my way upstream, they were also concealing what I was looking for.

September: one of the loveliest and most generous months in the angler's calendar. Even if the weather doesn't change much after a hot dry and miserly August, the lengthening nights, the heavy dews, the cooler mornings and evenings remind the fish that the summer is almost over and they must therefore grab what they can before winter comes. In a few weeks time, after the equinox and the first serious weather of the year, the river will be transformed from a chain of quiet, secretive pools into a deeper, stronger and continuous flow. All the midstream vegetation will be swept away and the fish will have to change their habits and their haunts.

Changing habits and haunts at the end of summer was something I did all through my formative years, just like everyone, else, so maybe my urge to explore new territory today was prompted less by a vague memory of another river and more by a conditioned reflex. Sixteen slightly intimidating Septembers, each one confronting me with new classrooms, new tutors, new books and new problems, must have left their mark. Alternatively, I'm seeking new water because of a genetic memory, an echo from those millennia when, every autumn, my ancestors followed the migrating herds southwards.

Heading upstream, I naturally had more chance of spotting fish as I was approaching them from behind; however, the rising sun threw a long shadow ahead of me and, at a turn in the river, it must have been cast across a group of chub because there was a sudden plunging splash. Until that moment, all I'd seen since I'd arrived were shoals of minnows flickering through the few weed-free, shallower glides and it was reassuring to be startled by such a walloping commotion. They must have been quite large fish – it looked and sounded as if someone had just heaved in a sack of potatoes – but I'm convinced they were chub. Several bow waves shot off in different directions, some of them sweeping into the reed bed on the far bank making the stems jostle and sway, which is typical of chub if they're spooked. I crept up to where the ripples were subsiding and waited a few minutes to see if anything was going to reappear.

Years ago, when I was a chub devotee, I would have waited all day just for a glimpse of one of those creatures, but today I'm not really interested in them: I have another more resplendent fish on my mind.

Fifty yards after the chub hole, I came to a seductive willow-shrouded pool which seemed to possess all the features I'd been looking for: a shelving riverbed where a steady current slowed and divided around the remains of a sunken tree, the main flow deflected over to the far bank, the rest coming round in a slow idling whirl beneath the overhanging willows. There were some frayed late-season lilies and a thin weed bed, but the shade had obviously suppressed their summer growth and, apart from the timber reef, the pool was reasonably free of obstructions. Despite the clarity of the water, the depth, the shade and the reflections made it almost impossible to see if any fish were at home, so I set up my rod and reel, tied on a hook, baited with a worm and cast out.

However impatient I am to get to the river, if I'm not completely familiar with it and it refuses to make any promises, hours can pass before I finally decide where to make my first cast. But once I've chosen the place it's a matter of life and death that I cast immediately. When I get the feeling that this is the spot, there's no fiddling about with fancy rigs or sophisticated presentations. I might sometimes muster just enough restraint to allow a float or a weight to be attached to the line, but if anything takes longer than about thirty seconds to set up I feel as if a prison door is closing on me. All my expectations, frustrations, all the pretence about being happy doing other things in the days while I wasn't fishing – everything is resolved as soon as the line is in the water and I'm reconnected with reality.