The stories here have generally been written by John Black.
Originally a journalist and demographic researcher, John took up fly fishing in the early nineties, after leaving the Australian Senate.
The pictures have usually been captured by Warwick Powell or Jeanine McMullan. Their mix of outstanding action shots and more sensitive contextual work is much appreciated.
The pages include articles not just on hunting trout with a fly, but also on salt water fly fishing. Despite being fly fishing fans, but not snobs you understand, we even entertain the odd piece on on bait fishing, for example when we’re talking about six foot long sturgeon which tend to mooch about 30 metres down in fast flowing and freezing cold rivers. Until someone designs a fly which weighs a pound and smells like salmon eggs to a prehistoric creature with four ultra sensitive inside-out noses on the tip of its snout, sturgeon will need pretty special bait to be caught (and released).
Responsibility for editorial content is taken by Australian Development Strategies Pty Ltd and copyright is also held by ADS unless specific arrangements have been made by ADS. Thanks to those publications, including FlyLife, for permission to use articles and photographs originally prepared for that excellent magazine.
Reviews of Lodges, Guides and Airlines will be written fairly and objectively and generally, if we didn’t enjoy it, we won’t write about it. We’d rather share good experiences than dwell on the others. Some places we liked may have declined or improved over the years, so we give the year of the review. We can’t visit all of them annually, although we give it our best shot. If you have any reviews or comments to contribute here, send them in.
Fly fishing has been around for a couple of thousand years and its standards when describing fish and lines are often based on the old pounds and feet, rather than kilograms and metres. It’s changing slowly, but a ten pound trout will always be a ten pound trout.