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Jon Berry's new book...

Andy Frances

Andy Frances

Administrator
Staff member
Hi everyone,

Jon Berry, a mate and member of the BFW team has just had a new book published!

The new book, Beneath the Black Water, has just come out and is available from Amazon, Waterstones etc, or direct from the publishers, http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk. The book is all about Jon's hunt for ferox trout in Scotland.

Best of luck with the book Jon, looking forward to reading it myself.

Cheers,

Andy F
 
Thanks for putting this up Andy - and thanks to those who have been in touch and wished me well. Ferox trout are definitely a niche interest within angling, but the central themes - wild places, obsession, passion and so on - should be familiar to most of us.

To those who do buy it, thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy it. I loved writing it and the research (weeks on end in Scotland, Ireland and the Lakes) wasn't too much of a chore either.

best,

Jon
 
Oversize trout fascinated me as a child when I managed as a 10 year old to catch a monster of around three pounds from the upper reaches of a tiny welsh river which ran through my grandparents land. This was an exceptional fish for a stream where the fish rarely grew over 1/2 a pound, it was brown as a Brazil nut and had a huge kyped jaw. When we cleaned it we were fascinated, as only small boys can be, to find a number of smaller fish in its gut and even today whenever I get together with my cousins and we talk fishing the story of the cannibal trout comes out and of course, as in all fishing stories, as the years go by so the fish gets bigger.
It wasn't until the late 80's that I found out there was a thing called a Ferox when I read John Baileys 'In Wild Waters' and the sequel/sister volume 'Casting for Gold. While reading those volumes in my suburban semi I dreamt of heading for the wild places and hunting down a few of these monsters for myself, but for many reasons, not least that I had a wife and family and a limited income with little spare, this has been an unfulfilled dream.
It's good to see there are still those willing and able to get out there and not only live the dream but write about their adventures.
I'm sure this book will fly off the shelf and look forward to seeing a copy.
 
Adrian Williams said:
I dreamt of heading for the wild places and hunting down a few of these monsters for myself, but for many reasons, not least that I had a wife and family and a limited income with little spare, this has been an unfulfilled dream.
It's good to see there are still those willing and able to get out there and not only live the dream but write about their adventures.
I'm sure this book will fly off the shelf and look forward to seeing a copy.
Click to expand...

Adrian, I hope you do get a chance one day; Ireland or the Lake District are your best bet for a one-off and lend themselves to something resembling a family holiday...just about. There's something surreal about a giant wild brown trout - they just look impossible, but beautiful. As I say, I really hope you get to experience it.

I'm not sure it will fly off the shelves, i've no real contact with trout forums or the trout fishing media (they wouldn't have me!) and am just glad to have seen it published. Every sale is a bonus - tiny, in terms of money, but fantastic in other ways.

Jon
 
Jon Berry: "i've no real contact with trout forums or the trout fishing media (they wouldn't have me!)"


The Chairman on Wednesday


Nor me - well, not since I began dynamiting them and their hand-wringingly manicured, Knight Frank / Savills fly waters. You are probably suffering from "Trout on trolled plugs in some appalling lake...? Ghastly. Quite beyond the polite pale..." syndrome. Just be thankful Ferox don't regularly swing into the shallows and up feeder streams, in numbers and happy to grab a fly: you'd have to hack a way to every known Ferox-holding water through massed, newly built and set up full-service lodges and City Boy early retiree guides!

Which reminds me - better feed the Guests in the Cellars ... forgot yesterday ... or was it Sunday...


As ever,

B.B.
 
I'll have one of these Jon. I'm planning a ferox trip myself for next year and I'm sure this book will help get me going! Good luck with the sales.
 
Jon

You have had my private best wishes for every success with your new book now you can have them publicly - I have yet to read it cover to cover but I know it will be a great read.

Good Luck mate

atb

Les
 
The Chairman on Tuesday


Well chaps, a very few minutes ago something dropped through the baronial brass letterbox here, and, as I happened to be passing at the time and seeing that it might be for me (plain brown wrapper - likely to be mine), I snaffled the thing and toute de suite disappeared into the Library with it for a discreet ogle.

The right choice of room it turned out, for it was a book: Beneath the Black Water - The Search For an Ancient Fishy by that Berry chappie.

You devil, young Jon!


As ever,

B.B.
 
Dear Chairman,

I do hope the book hasn't distracted you too much from your sterling work with the infamous Lady Guides or the voluptuous Olga.

Please do pass the book on to Young Paul when you're done, I'd value his thoughts on it.

If Kevin gets his hands on it, he can colour in the pictures in the middle.

Kind regards,

Jon
 
The Chairman on Wednesday

I have put the the thing (the book, nothing else, I assure you) into young Paul's hands, Jon, together with a message from Kevin's young lady, Natalya (our published person here in the Hamsters), namely one to the effect that "Eef 'e wants it seer-ee-alised in Whoppers, Bair-trum, tell eem that I could, ow you say?, arrange eet. But 'e would 'ave to "sex it up" - the readers of Whoppers are not interested in feesh unless they're mudsharks...".

Hmm. Very odd. Lovely gal, though.

Just a thought, anyway.


As ever,

B.B.
 
Well, I'm afraid I can't say anything about the voluptuous Olga, though I am sure I wish I could, just to say though Jon, you've had a wonderful book published there.
It has a depth of feeling to it that a very many books don't.


Damian
 
The fact that I rarely read books of any description but read this cover to cover on a twelve hour nightshift between sporadic outbursts of work speaks volumes. A real grasp of what drives an angler right from the young lad to obsessional adult frittering away what some consider valuble time and energy chasing dreams of an illusive monster. Brilliant Jon
 
Just to let folks know, I am on a stall at the BS conference on Sunday, and will have 20 or so books there. Signed if required, cheap as chips (or at least as cheap as the chips served at Hinckley...)

Jon
 
I can't make it this year Jon. My wife has decided this weekend is the weekend we have a pitch at the boot sale and clear the loft, (a bit like Fred's second hand tackle stall). Perhaps we'll have a stall at the show next year.
 
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