This month, it’s 10 years since Trout in Dirty Places launched on a (mostly) unsuspecting world. Merlin Unwin Books and Granger’s fly shop threw us one hell of a party, and for a few days, the weird idea of fishing in urban rivers was making headlines across the media, including the Independent, Radio New Zealand, and even BBC Radio 4’s Today programme with Evan Davis.
Urbantrout launched around the same time – designed to run updates and continuity for a book that would be unavoidably fixed between hard covers as soon as it was printed. We like to think that’s worked pretty well, to the extent that the whole original print run of Trout in Dirty Places sold out last year, with e-books available via Merlin Unwin from now on.
Since 2021, in the wider world, a lot of things have changed.
But one thing hasn’t… and that’s the obvious passion of local people for looking after urban rivers. In many cases, these blue-green threads, burrowing their way through dense conurbations, are essential for providing people with their closest and most accessible source of contact with nature: a clear theme in the Rivers Trust’s recent spring conference (Day 1 video here, Day 2 here) and a wider debate which only looks set to intensify in years to come.
That’s why, here at Urbantrout, we’re also aiming to keep you up to date on news of urban river restoration and inner-city fly-fishing for the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, 10 years of Trout In Dirty Places feels like a good excuse for an occasional remix of some of our favourite urban river photos over on our Instagram page – and maybe some focused updates on a few of those Dirty Places for good measure. (If you’ve been fishing any of these recently, we’d love to hear how you’ve been getting on with them, too).
Find us here on Instagram, and stay tuned for more news from the urban rivers!
