Fishing on the Frontline

Nick Sawyer is a young soldier and fisherman. His military career has already taken him to 22 different countries and whether he is peace-keeping amongst the burning villages and mass graves of the Balkans or being attacked by hornets in the jungles of Malaysia, he always has a hook and line to hand. In between soldiering duties, he slips away to fish. Often he meets locals by the river, and the common language of fishing cuts across the bloody backdrop of the war. Nick Sawyer, grandson of the great Wiltshire riverkeeper Frank Sawyer, takes the reader on a fascinating trip to the heart of some of the terrible conflicts of the modern world - yet he also shows the humour and camaraderie of soldiering. It doesn't matter whether he is raiding a terrorist's house at dawn or dodging bullets in a grotty third-world street, there is always a humourous quip to make light of the situation. He fishes for trout, huchen, kelah, mosquitofish, tilapia and sheatfish with nets, rods and traps. 'There are no half-measures when it comes to the dedication of a fisherman or a soldier,' he writes.