This is my sort of fishing!
It’s well known to my chums that when I take over the world I’m going to commandeer St. Francois Atoll in the Seychelles where I will fish for Bonefish and Giant Trevally to my heart’s content. I want to catch a 10lb bonefish only marginally less than I do a 3lb roach so I looked forward eagerly to playing this DVD.
In reality (and I am aware that I am paraphrasing Harold Macmillan here) this is a modest little DVD with much to be modest about – I was disappointed.
Flats fishing is completely wonderful. If you haven’t tried it, and funds permit, then you really should. I suppose it’s the wonder of this environment and this fishing that the producers of Casting at Shadows hoped to show and they do, to a point. The camera work is very good indeed and the background music is mostly well-chosen. So why was I less than impressed?
Well, for a start the narration is delivered in very flat, almost monotone voice. I’m sure the producers would have done better to pass that job to someone with a better understanding of how to sell a story: and the story is that flats fishing is very exciting indeed. It doesn’t have to sound hyped-up like a Shopping Chanel commercial or, much worse, like Robson Green being a shrieking idiot in his Extreme Fishing series; but something between the two extremes would have been better.
Then, the angler himself appears to be quite bored with the proceedings! Well I don’t suppose for one second he was actually bored; I can tell you from blissful experience that anyone connected to a Bluefin Trevally on a light fly rod is likely to believe that he’s gone to Heaven but this angler looks as though he’s quite detached from the moment.
And finally there’s the matter of the running time, which is 35 minutes, quite a bit of which is taken up with scene setting, some moody wading shots, and unmoving bent rods. For the asking price of £18.98 delivered, I’d have expected much more.
There are some very nice moments in this DVD, but it does not do justice to the glorious reality of the flats experience and there are several better DVD’s on the subject.
John Olliff-Cooper
