T C Ivens
Thomas Coleman Ivens was an English reservoir fly angler and author.
Tom Ivens was born on 22 May 1921 in Northampton and studied at Northampton Grammar School and Seale-Hayne Agricultural College. Between 1944 and 1947 he was in command of naval minesweepers. He was on the staff of the Fishing Gazette from 1953 to 1956. A biography of Tom Ivens entitled The Fly Fishing Legacy of T C Ivens was published in 2021.
Fly Fishing in England and Wales
Although fishing on rivers in England goes back many centuries, fly fishing on stillwaters has a more recent history. It began at the turn of the twentieth century with the construction of the water supply reservoirs which were stocked with trout; the first ones being Thrybergh Reservoir around 1880, Lake Vyrnwy in 1891, Ravensthorpe Reservoir in 1895, and Blagdon Lake in 1904.In the early days English reservoir fly anglers copied the method currently being used on the Scottish lochs of employing large and colourful ‘fancy’ flies that were retrieved quickly in an attempt to attract the attention of the trout. There was, in general, little attempt to imitate the trout’s natural food.
That is how things stood until Dr Bell of Wrington began to fish Blagdon Lake in 1920, shortly after his return from WW1. Dr Bell and adopted a different approach by studying the natural creatures and mimicking them in both form and movement. When Tom Ivens returned from WW2 he took a similar line, by offering flies that the trout would take as food.
Reservoir fly fishing
Contribution to innovations in fly fishing tackle
Davenport and Fordham Ltd of Ware, Hertfordshire produced a series of split-cane and later fibreglass fly rods designed by Tom Ivens bearing his name. To match the rods Davenport and Fordham introduced a range of 'Superflyte' shooting heads that were developed in conjunction with Ivens.Being able to deliver the flies a long distance is irrelevant if the leader does not turn over and straighten correctly. To facilitate leader turnover Tom Ivens developed a series of tapered and double-tapered nylon leaders appropriate for a variety of conditions. Advances in fly line design have to some extent negated this necessity today.
The 'Stillwater' boat manufactured by Thanetcraft of New Malden, Surrey, designed in collaboration with Ivens, incorporated several unique features for a fishing boat: high seats for a better casting position that were well-spaced apart, fixing rings for the mooring ropes, anchors and drogues mounted on the exterior of the hull, and a snag-free interior to avoid fly line tangles.
Later years and death
Tom Ivens' legacy is best summed up in the words of Conrad Voss Bark in The New Encyclopaedia of Fly Fishing as follows: 'His aim was to put reservoir fishing on as scientific and simple a basis as possible, and his book and his whole philosophy had an instant appeal to large numbers of men who were being attracted to reservoir fishing for the first time since World War II, as well as those who had previously been fishing traditional wet flies without knowing quite why.' Reservoir fly fishing has evolved considerably since then but the foundations laid in those early years are relevant today.He died in Northampton in 1988, aged 67.
Published works
Stillwater Fly-Fishing by T C Ivens, Andre DeutschPond Culture of Food Fishes by T C Ivens, Seale-Hayne Agricultural College
The Art of Angling edited by Kenneth Mansfield, Caxton Publishing Co.
The Angler’s Year No. 2 edited by Peter Wheat, Pelham Books