We all know that we should keep physically fit and mentally sharp throughout life and with the achievement of these objectives one ends up having an enjoyable and stress-free leisure. It is likely that this will all take place in a very pleasant natural outdoor environment. However, it is true to say that many people expend much time, effort and money seeking these desirable outcomes, often without sufficient information to know if their project is viable or not, given their personal circumstances. Sports, such as ball games, are unsuitable due to being stressfully competitive and require running which, with age, we find increasingly difficult. Games, such as chess, exercise the mind well but do not require fast reactions and are also competitive. Then there is the ‘gym’, which is usually indoors and requires boring, comparatively slow repetitions or running on a treadmill.

So, having taught countless people to cast a fly and had their feedback, Mike Marshall would like to pass on his accumulated knowledge, mostly gathered in parallel with the demands of a senior management career in engineering. This is not a ‘detailed, how to do it’ book, but more a light-hearted anecdotal account of the various key factors leading to successful exploits in a wide range of fly-fishing situations. In this way he hopes to convey the fact that fly fishing, probably unexpectedly, contains all the elements required to create personal physical and mental wellbeing, but is free of the unwanted aspects mentioned earlier.