Fishing from the Rock of the Bay

For anyone who likes a good laugh, along with a weather-beaten slice of angling life, James Batty’s second book is a rare treat. Would appeal to non-anglers as much as the converted. It’s the ideal volume to dip into as the mood takes.

What a joy to read an angler who not only knows their own mind, but is old and weather-beaten enough not to care what we make of them, and knows how to deliver a great one-liner. The chapters themselves are succinctly organised without detracting from the anarchic sense of fun. Seldom above three or four pages, each section starts with a line from music or literature before a departure into something pithy and amusing. This keeps everything punchy, and whether the next section is on making your own lures or angling and drinking in Dublin, it’s a supremely entertaining and “dippable” read.

All in all, a great find from Merlin Unwin books and another unique voice to join the fray.

James Batty, known to his international army of online followers as ‘Leakyboots’, started fishing at the age of four. In the sixty-some years that have passed since then, he has lived in the Sudan, Tanzania, the Gambia, Botswana, the USA, and the UK; and it goes without saying that a rod never has been far from his hand. He funded his fishing habit by working as a teacher, an accountant, and an international management consultant. Born in Cornwall, James came home about twenty years ago to the rocks and beaches of his childhood, and to the bass he loves to pursue.

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