FRANK SAWYER: MAN OF THE RIVERSIDE. By Frank Sawyer and Sidney Vines. Illustrations by George Woodford.

(1984) 1987 paperback reprint. 8vo paperback (156 x 234mm). Pp204. B/w illustrations.

"Frank Sawyer was a man of Wiltshire - fisherman, river-keeper, inventor, naturalist, writer, broadcaster and countryman. He seldom strayed far in his 73 years from the villages of the valley of the upper Avon where he was born and died. But his fame spread across the world... He will be remembered for the way in which, with his tiny nymphs, he advanced the delicate art of fly fishing; but he was much more than a fisherman. He was a true countryman, full of wisdom and country lore, and loved the river Avon and the wild creatures who lived by and in it". Chapters include: Part One - Boyhood: Early days at the Mill Cottage; Snaring big pike with father; Tickling trout; Fly fishing and the pike that bit; An idyll at Latton; The untearable suit; Disaster with a wasps' nest; sunstroke, moorhens, and jackboots; 'Alfy's in the water, Alfy's gone'; The great eel; The end of boyhood. Part Two - Manhood: Sawyer in his teens; The Twenties and Thirties; Sir Grimwood Mears; Fishing for television; Keeper of the stream; How to tie the Sawyer nymphs - Pheasant Tail Nymph, Grey Goose, Grayling or Killer Bug; Fishing the Sawyer way; Relationships - Charles Ritz, Alex Behrendt, Oliver Kite, Howard Marshall, Wally Read; The river keeper - how the Avon was revived; The buried treasure; The humane trap; The Sawyer that I knew.