ABOUT US
“Catch The Image” was Simon J. Ward’s original idea and was born out of many a frustrating fly-fishing adventure through not being able to bring back good quality images of his adventures with a fly rod. From a nipper in short pants Simon has always been a passionate angler. Twenty short years ago he picked up a fly rod for the first time and his life changed forever. After working for over ten years as a river keeper and fully qualified fly-fishing instructor and guide on the chalk streams and stillwaters of Southern England, while gaining immense experience in a very short time, he needed a change. Now, able to go fly fishing for his own pleasure again and with professional video and still cameras with him to catch those special images. For a further five years he worked in a regional television newsroom, it was during his time in regional news with Meridian in 2004 that Simon got the green light from his news editor to film and produced a feature called Country Mayfly, this was made as a tribute to his dear friend and fishing chum Roy Darlington who at the time was celebrating his 30th anniversary looking after the historic chalk stream fishery at Abbott’s Barton on the river Itchen in Hampshire. This was broadcast on Meridian Tonight in July 2004. This five minute feature was nominated for two national news awards. Simon left the newsroom in 2008 to concentrate on Catch The Image. In concert with his river keeping and guiding Simon, through endless research, has become one of the worlds leading authorities on the history of the Southern English chalk streams and the gentlemen who developed dry fly fishing on them in the nineteenth century. Writing a series of widely acclaimed articles based upon his tireless research into one country gentleman’s life and times, one, George Selwyn Marryat. These acclaimed articles written in the mid and late nineteen-nineties are reproduced now for the first time on the Catch The Image website.
In the course of Simon’s research he has travelled to South Africa (twice) not only to fly fish their wonderful mountain streams, and to give fly dressing demonstrations to the ‘Transvaal Fly Tyers Guild’. He also gave illustrated lectures to the ‘Cape Piscatorial Society’ and FOSAF the ‘Federation of South African Flyfishers’ about the historical evolution and the development of fly fishing about the chalk streams of Southern England. The transcript and images from those lectures are now reproduced on this website, along with all the articles. More importantly as a result of his research, Simon travelled to South Africa to meet with some descendants of Marryat who had much to tell about the man and his life. It is a fascinating story of discovery.
In 2002 Simon was commission by the Oxford University Press to write the first official biography of George Selwyn Marryat, the largely unknown dry fly fishing guru from the nineteenth century. This appears in the new edition of the vast (45 million word) ‘Oxford Dictionary of National Biography’ published in 2004.
With his creative mind and talented adaptability, fly-fishing has taken Simon to many exotic locations. His first love are the sparkling chalk streams of Southern England and to other far flung locations around the world to catch brown trout and rainbow trout; Atlantic salmon in the highlands of Scotland, in Iceland and in south-east Ireland. And in home tidal waters to cast and catch sea bass and the thick-lipped grey mullet on the fly in the estuaries along the south coast of England. Simon regularly fly’s out to the tropics to cast for the elusive silver ghosts, the bonefish and the temperamental permit on the shallow tidal flats of the Florida Cays, Cuba and Eluethera in the Bahamas. In March 2006 for the first time and again in April 2007 and 2008 Simon explored the wonderful flats fishing at Mango Creek Lodge on the island of Roatan in the Western Caribbean. Now with “Catch The Image” Simon is the videographer using that same creative mind to produce many high quality videos and digital images from around the world. And he still finds time to catch a fish or two.
