THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BILL QUINLAN by Bob Buteux
Price: £ 19.95

I was lucky enough to receive Bob’s book ‘Fishing With The Famous’ last Christmas, so when I heard that another book was out, this time about Bill Quinlan, I was keen to see the result.

At the NEC, Paul Morgan had copies in stock at £ 19.95 so I treated myself. Tom O’Reilly of The Little Egret Press is steadily establishing a low volume niche of affordable books. These are partly reprints of long out of print yet sought after books such as some of those by Dick Walker and ‘BB’, and also books like these that would find it difficult to make headway with mainstream fishing publishers such as Merlin Unwin and Crowood. For avid readers of fishing books like me this is no bad thing though such books are unlikely to reach a wide audience.

I have known the name Bill Quinlan since Bill’s seventies exploits on Redmire, yet this forms only part of the book. There is much, much more including chub, barbel and tench fishing.

This book came into being because Bob had so much material for his first book, and much of that left over was related to Bill’s adventures that Tom O’Reilly saw the opportunity for this second volume.

Set against a Hugh Falkus’ book this one seems almost amateurish yet it also contains a wonderful slice of real life, of angling adventure and memories of an angler that lived to the full.

You’d better hurry if you want a copy, from www.l-e-p.com, or Paul Morgan at www.anglebooks.com or phone 01654 702837.

FISHINGmagic VERDICT

This and Bob’s other book (now sold out, I believe) are acquired tastes; at times I wish Tom would get a decent sub-editor to drop a few commas and full stops into the prose and generally knock the thing into shape, but for all of that a distillation of one angler’s trials and tribulations.

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