Chris McCully

Welcome to the web pages of the writer, Chris McCully. Chris's work spans poems, essays, reviews, memoirs, textbooks...and a great deal of work about (fly-) fishing. In 2008-09 several new books by Chris will appear: Old English Poems and Riddles (translator, 2008); Sketches with Fishing Rods (2008, with illustrations by Ad Swier); The Sound Structure of English (2008); Polder (poems, 2009); and Pike Lures (2009).

In 2010-12 further titles authored or co-edited by Chris appear, including a Selected Poems from Carcanet (2011) and Chris's major study of detachment and disaffection, The Last Sane Places on Earth (2012, also from Carcanet).
 
Clicking on the buttons above will access information about all Chris's writing, including comment, translations, work-in-progress, and samples of both poetry and prose. Information about alcoholism and recovery will be found by clicking on 'Prose'. Clicking on 'Fishing diary' will bring you to words and pictures relating largely to Chris's current angling projects.

Chris's e-mail address will be found at the foot of each page.

I have limited stocks of all my previous books (to my astonishment, most of them are still in print), and in due course I'll also be able to sell limited numbers of the books scheduled for publication in 2008-09. Should you wish to order any such copy or copies directly from me, please don't hesitate to get in touch by e-mail.

    Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis
        arboribusque comae;
    mutat terra vices et descrescentia ripas
        flumina praetereunt....

    The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
        And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
    The river to the river-bed withdraws,
        And altered is the fashion of the earth....

(Horace, opening of Ode VII, Book IV, trans. A.E. Housman)

       
[Photo of Chris, right: Fergus Wilde, 2005.]

[Photo: James Sadler, 2007.]

These days, up to half of my working life involves angling or angling-related work. Among the journals in which I published in 2005-07 are Trout and Salmon, Waterlog, Fly-fishing and Fly-Tying, Journal of the Grayling Society, and Vissen (Amsterdam). In 2007 I completed a month-on-month series for Trout and Salmon, called 'Meetings with Memorable Fish', while in late 2007 and early 2008 I ran a set of linked feature articles in the same journal on sea-trout and salmon fishing in the west of Ireland, the result of a trip in July 2007. And in 2007 I published my first full-length feature article in Dutch, in the journal De Roofvis ('The Predator') - see 'Expeditie naar Groenland' in issue number 60. This article is about fishing for charr in river systems near Kangerlussuaq and Nuuk.

In 2008 I shall be visiting some of the English chalkstreams; make further visits to the Danish coasts for sea-trout; complete another stint after sea-trout in parts of the north and west of Ireland; and make my first forays with the fly-rods after bass.

During much of the year I fish for pike, but over the past three years I've also fished for brown trout and sea-trout in Scotland, Ireland and Denmark; grayling in Denmark, Hampshire and Wiltshire; pike and grayling in Sweden; Arctic charr (as mentioned above) in Greenland... and half a bonito in Kenya (a shark had the other half). Of late I find myself going back increasingly to my first great angling love, which amounts to an obsession: sea-trout (see above).

The 'Fishing diary' here includes entries on pike and zander, pike lures and streamers; middle-aged exhaustion; some literature and tackle reviews; stuff about trousers; angling reports on the Swedish Arctic, on Denmark and Ireland; some nice camera shots of General Relevance, whose purpose is Moral Improvement; nothing about Scouting for Boys; plenty about tackle-making and fly-tying; a picture of a man in very large wellies; a picture of a boy sitting on a rock; various unhealthy heraldic and etymological obsessions; a great deal of fatuous whining about work, and how it gets in the way of fishing; and, fortunately or unfortunately, much, much more....

Note: please feel free to download, share or cite anything in these pages, including photos. If you do so, however, please include an acknowledgement of the source in the new context, eg. 'Text: Chris McCully, 2007' or 'Photo: James Sadler, 2007' or 'Photo: Chris McCully, 2007'. You'll find the images already have both captions and acknowledgements, and so will be able to cite the source accurately. Thank you.

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