Hardy & Greys - Alnwick, England

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1. Flyfishing
   1. Flyfishing
   2. Coarse

I don't think I'll be doing the travelling that I did even five years ago. Everything has changed in the world and in my own mental make-up, too. The cost of diesel has rocketed. The cost of flights is all over the place. You're looking at weird exchange rates wherever you go. The fact that Norwich International Airport now has flights only to Edinburgh and Amsterdam doesn't help either. But it doesn't bother me. I'm tired of long haul, of endless check-ins, of crowded motorways, of a life in constant motion. I'm happy, these days, at home!

The fact that home is Norfolk should be of interest to all of you. Norfolk is a lovely county, very unspoilt but it's not famous for its game fishing. If I can find stuff to keep me occupied and excited here, then there are openings for you countrywide. I won't be doing anything mainstream. Everything will be higgledy-piggledy stuff, off the beaten track. Looking for little windows of opportunity. To a degree, that's how I like it. I've always like to plough my own furrow, do my own thing. This could be fun.

Norfolk has an endless supply of tiny, overgrown chalk streams. Very few people fish them or even bother walking them. There are exceptions (the excellent Nick Zoll and Charles Rangeley-Wilson for example) but most of the time, on most of these waters, you can pretty well guarantee you are going to be on your own. If you can find it, it's cheap, cheerful fishing and often the farmer will give you permission for just a bottle of whiskey or two. It's like going back to the 50s!

Often the fish are tiny - little wild browns of eight or nine inches in length. But fishing in Lilliput doesn't have to be dull. Every fish presents a challenge. They're as clear-sighted as Hawks. The tiniest mistake will have them diving for cover. And, whisper it, here and there, there be monsters. Even in the tiniest of these little streams, there are occasional two, three or even four or five pounders. To hook a five pound brown on a three weight rod, on a stream a couple of yards wide is something to blow your mind away.

And, once again, I will put myself to the eternal quest of a Mullet on the fly. Our marshes up here teem with the things come summer. You can get to within a rod length of them. They're massive. They're everywhere. The water is often crystal. It's as exciting as bonefishing...or it would be if only the bloomin' things would bite! Still, I know guys who've done it and they've told me how. So, give me an incoming tide any time between 4am and 10pm and I'll be there on the marshes, fly rod in hand, heart pounding in anticipation.

And if I can't get the Mullet, well there are the Bass and the Mackerel to fall back on. You haven't had a Mackerel on the fly? Shame on you! Pound for pound, if there's a tougher customer in the world's seas, then I haven't met up with him.

Come the autumn. I know that I'll be down on the River Wensum, fishing the shallows with tiny dries for Dace. I love Dace. They're the prettiest of fish. They don't have spots or an adipose but who cares about that? Wensum Dace had been going through a bad period but now there are ‘doubles' back... fish of ten ounces or above. They're not going to strip the reel but on a two or three weight, you certainly know you've got one on. But it's the beauty. The challenge. Those lightning-quick rises. As Hugh Falkus once said to me, every fish is a pearl of nature and a twelve ouncer is something just beyond compare.

Okay, I will travel now and again and I'll certainly be down on my beloved Wye. I messed around years ago with Barbel on the fly without ever quite nailing it. Thirty fish over two or three years was promising but not proof conclusive. I'm going to be back, doing it all over again, starting from the bottom and working back up. I've got new stretches that should be perfect for the job, all quick, gravely runs, three to five feet deep. Barbel on the fly are never guaranteed but it's eye-popping, gripping stuff where you've got a shoal in front of you and your nymph is bouncing past their noses.

Back here in Norfolk, as the autumn draws on, I'll also be fishing the popper for Chub. How they love it. They just smash into something that, to them, probably looks frog or shrew-like. To see the shape of a big Chub appear from the depths of a pool and those and those great white, slobbering lips engulf your lure is a thrill you never tire of.

I can keep my gear in the back of the Golf. A three weight Greys XF2 Streamflex, a six weight and a seven/eight Hardy Marksman 2 for the Barbel and Bass, waders and accessories - I'm ready to face all those challenges that will make 2012 such an accessible, exciting year.

Readers in the UK can buy the Hardy products mentioned in this article online from Hardyfishing.com - click here to shop online.