A CLACKS author who got hooked on fishing at the Delph has released a book to whet anglers' appetite ahead of the 2022 season.

Drew Jamieson, who went from fishing with a garden cane to fisheries administration, has independently published An Angler’s Rambles: Among Scotland’s Trout and Salmon.

Part descriptive and part reportage, the book touches on the past, present and future of Scotland’s game fisheries and takes a look behind the scenes.

Along the way, the author considers some of the issues and challenges of conservation and the water environment.

Featured from Drew's boyhood, the author also takes readers back to the time he spent in the Ochils, around the Devon and elsewhere in the Wee County.

Drew said: “I got hooked on fishing on the Delph at Tullibody where my grandad took a cane from the garden, ‘borrowed' some of gran’s best cotton thread and dug a worm from the garden.

“As the saying goes: 'Give a boy a fish – and you feed him for a day; give a boy a rod – and he disappears'.

“I disappeared.

“First to the Ochil hill-burns with good friends, then the River Devon.

“Over the years my rod has taken me from the Tweed to the Orkneys; from the Hebrides to Angus – with diversions into fisheries research, management and administration – the rest is history.”

Beyond Clacks, the book contains chapters on specific issues such as the Loss and Recovery of Loch Leven; the Return of Salmon to the Clyde; Safeguarding the Arctic Charr; Helping the Wild Trout.

Those of a nervous disposition may also enjoy “Fishing in an ‘Unco’ World” – the irrational fears of angling in lonely places.

Drew – a geographer, aviator, angler, conservationist and writer – is a fellow of the Institute of Fisheries Management and has been involved in the management and conservation of Scottish game fisheries for the past 50 years.

The 175-page book, the eighth title in the author's series called Scotland's Salmon and Trout Fisheries, is also a nod to Thomas Tod Stoddart's An Angler’s Rambles and Angling Songs from 1866.

It set Drew, who was the angling reporter at The Scotsman for many years, off on an odyssey for trout and salmon around some of the haunts Stoddart described all those years ago.

During his 70 years of rambling and angling, the Clacks author has fished some classic waters and is bringing his unique background knowledge to this volume.

The book is available on Amazon.