Hugh Falkus

He was born in Surrey during a Zeppelin raid on May 15, 1917. His father retired early from the city and lived on boats, first in Essex then in Devon. Falkus loved the life and roamed freely with either fishing rod or gun in hand. He caught his first fish, a whiting, at the age of four and shot his first duck at the age of six.

He had learned to fly when he was 18, and by 20 he was in the Royal Air Force flying Spitfires, where he was a brilliant if headstrong pilot. One night he was scrambled to intercept enemy bombers and managed to shoot down two and damage a third before running out of fuel over France. He was taken by the Germans, who surmised that he must be a spy because of his kenspeckle dress . . . pyjamas under his flying suit.

He was interrogated, beaten, and taken out to be shot. As the firing squad raised their rifles, Falkus turned his back on them in a gesture of defiance and concentrated his attention on a trout rising in a nearby stream. The expected shots never rang out as, at the last moment, an English educated Wehrmacht major-general drove up and took Falkus away. He spent the evening drinking champagne with his saviour, but the following day was taken to a prison camp.

He suffered the horrors of four years in camps in France, Germany, and Poland but always there was his characteristic flash of spirit. He caught and cooked the camp Commandant's favourite cat and added further insult by making himself a pair of cat-skin mitts. Naturally, he was in solitary confinement for much of his time, but when he mixed with his fellow prisoners, he worked tirelessly on methods of escape, including the famous Wooden Horse tunnel.

He finally escaped in 1945 and got back to England just 10 days before the war ended. His years in prison camps had left their mark and he resolved that in the future ``no-one else is going to give me another order, no-one is ever going to shout at me again''.

He was an actor for a short time after the war, then a scriptwriter with the BBC, before forming his own production company with a view to making wildlife programmes. One of his first, Drake's Island (1950), received great acclaim. He had separated from his first wife Doris Walter shortly after the war and had married Diana Vaughan, editor of Argosy, in 1952.

While making Shark Island the same year, tragedy struck. Filming off the west coast of Ireland with his wife, their boat was either overcome by a squall or hit uncharted rocks and sank. Falkus's wife and three crew were drowned. He survived by swimming for eight hours to the shore of Achill Island where he was found by local fishermen.

He threw his efforts into film-making thereafter, making several for the BBC's Natural History unit and narrating all 40 episodes of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. In the 1960s he worked closely with Professor Niko Tinbergen on many innovative wildlife films. Signals for Survival won the Italia Prize and the American Blue Ribbon, an achievement of which he was justifiably proud. And few will forget his wonderful Salmo the Leaper, the story of the life of the salmon, where he threw himself fully clothed and waded into a river to show how to survive.

His film-making was accompanied by formidable writing. His seminal observations on the life of the sea trout were first published in 1962. Sea Trout Fishing, where his acute observations of the fish and its habits resulted in a cogent and effective strategy for fishing for this most thrilling quarry at night with new lures and techniques, has been in print since then, with a revised second edition and has been reprinted almost annually. It is the sea trout anglers bible. And his simply titled Salmon Fishing - A Practical Guide is the same for the salmon angler.

He was a true sportsman, speaking out against commercialism in angling, against competitive fishing, and vehemently against catch and release which he considered demeaning to fish, reducing a sport, which he believed involved the hunt and the kill, to the level of a game and fish to the status of playthings. In his latter years, he only fished for or shot what he and his friends could eat.

He was thought by some to be outspoken, egotistical, and intolerant but those who knew him well found him to be loyal, compassionate, and generous. Arthur Oglesby, who knew him well, enjoyed his friendship over the years, although they spent many hours drinking the Scottish nectar and agreeing to disagree on certain facets of the sport of angling.

Falkus pioneered the art of Spey casting and his Speycasting: a new Technique has enabled many to enjoy the pleasure of casting a well-presented fly.

He will be remembered as a man who re-wrote many of the perceptions of angling, spending much time in fishing hard, but also in observation and experiment.

That day at Norham Bridge was the only time I met him. We leaned over the parapet, looked at the River Tweed and shared a dram. Neither of us had taken a fish, it was early November and cold and grey. I asked him how he was keeping and he said he was a bit stiff and sore with the cold weather, but there was nowhere on earth he would rather be, fish or no fish. A mighty man.