He stands where the poet stood, forty years ago, because fishing was Ted Hughes s way of breathing – and because the poet s writing has made Mark understand that it has always been his way of breathing, too.

Using Hughes s poetry collection River and his fishing diaries as a guide, Mark returns again and again to the rivers and lakes in Britain and Ireland where the poet fished. At times, he uses Ted s fly patterns; at others his rods. It is an obsession; a fundamental connection to nature; a thrilling wildness; an elemental pursuit. But it is also a release and a consolation, as Mark fishes after the sudden death of his mother and during the slow fading of his father.