the compleat Angler is 'a boring load of tosh'... apparently...

[Reedling]

I must admit I have the book but each time I started to read it I found myself moving on through the pages looking for something more interesting than I was reading. The special Trout on the Stour near Canterbury captured me for a while but that is it. I would rather settle down with Mr Crabtree to be honest, simple but satisfying......

[RBTraditional]

Well for a book first published in 1653 and still in print it has stood the test of time and is after the Bible and Koran probably the most published text on the planet. With regards the GSC, they reminded us that angling should be an enjoyable experience and not all about fish.....friendship, the natural world and of course a bloody good pint of ale are all important components to a good day on the bank....

[Vole]

It's worth reading the foreword/intro/preface thingy; Walton says he's not trying to provide a how-to manual covering everything an angler will ever need to know, but to provide topics for conversation and debate and other entertainments for the clubhouse, when it's too windy, wet and cold (and remember, he lived in the "Little Ice Age" and the only waterproof material around then was leather) to go fishing.
He cast his net wide when it came to collecting opinions and ideas; if the internet was around then, he'd have started a forum, but he had to rely on mail by horse, long before a proper post office was instituted, personal visits, and reported conversations, for which he usually gave full credit, I think, and previous books, for which he didn't (not Berners, anyway; and his First Day is largely modelled on the introduction to the Boke of Saint Albans, comparing angling favourably to the other fashionable sports of the day).
Re-set your mind to a time of horrid weather and media limited to expensive books, the occasional painted portrait, stained glass windows, gravestones, and songs which were as long as possible in order to kill as much time as possible*; read slowly and "dippingly" and give the chap a break!

Edit: * -And copious amounts of theatre, and broadsheet ballads, and probably a few other things...silly moi.

[Luga00]

Very wise words Vole.
Shakespeare has had the same bad rap over the centuries but he is still hanging on in there!
I really believe in letting something seep into your psyche. I remember reading Virginia Woolf's 'To The Lighthouse' many years back and thinking what is this rambling drivel? I got through it though. Something drew me back and I decided to try reading each page slowly and dippingly (lovely phrasing) and gradually I started to see and feel the things conveyed. It's an astounding book - in my top 3 I would say.
I find TCA fascinating. It's a 17th century book talking about the hobby we love. I can think of very few other hobbies that are afforded that honour. We should be really glad that we have it.
Russ

[Olly]

The Writer:-

About Keith Elliott

Editor and publisher of Classic Angling magazine. Founder member of UK Angling Writers' Association and current chairman. Former winner of Writer of the Year. I wrote a weekly angling column for The Independent for 23 years, having previously written columns for The Guardian and Sunday Mirror. If it swims, I'll fish for it: marlin or mackerel, trout or tench, salmon or snook. I've written several books on fishing, from one for the Duke of Edinburgh's award to the notorious Catchmore Sharks (don't look at the pictures) and Bob Nudd's autobiography, How to be the World's Best Fisherman. I love exotic travel for fishing (been to Mongolia and Ecuador, the Great Barrier Reef and Arunachal Pradesh) and wish I could afford to do such trips more often. My favourite fish? Anything with fins, though I have a special love for mahseer, and I'm chairman of The Mahseer Trust.

[Beresford]

The GSC has inspired some but it is just a group of blokes fishing. The aura around them comes more from Chris Yates' writing than anything tangible

This exactly. Even as a child at school I could never, ever understand why some of my school friends put certain anglers on a pedestal bathed in ethereal light. To me the very essence of fishing is an anti-thesis to all the nonsense surrounding the cult of celebrity.

That some blokes like fishing and a pint afterwards is hardly an earth shattering revelation nor is it a hard act to follow if you really want to follow. Fishing is surely the perfect activity in which you can be true to yourself free from any pressure to conform in anyway shape or form other than by playing within the rules of the fishery and the law.

I've read sections of TCA – no strong feeling either way but the parody in Waterlog – Mrs Walton's Cookbook used to make me smile.

[Ouse Wanderer]

Not only is T.C.A. "a boring load of old tosh" but these geezers Chaucer and Shakespeare can't even write in plain English!

[OrangeJonny]

Talking of shakespear, at least TCA hasn't been used to ruin the lives of school children everywhere for the last 350 years

[Ouse Wanderer]

I think you'll find that was the teachers, OrangeJonny.

[Santiago]

Apparently, there's a well founded conspiracy theory that Shakespeare never wrote much at all, and that his works were actually penned by a group of writers led by Francis Bacon. Although this theory is disputed by hardent Shakespeare advocates, there's evidence to support it.

I know several English teachers that rave about Shakespeare and they enthuse their students. Adults that don't grasp the Bard either have their teachers to blame for sure, including myself, or are just not able!