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The Catch

Fishing for Ted Hughes

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The Catch

By: Mark Wormald
Narrated by: Mark Wormald
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Bloomsbury presents The Catch written and read by Mark Wormald.

‘An absolute gem . . . I was delightfully lost by the river throughout’ Paul Whitehouse
‘Marvellous . . . The Catch leaves both its writer and its reader wonderfully "lost in water"’ Robert Macfarlane
‘Penetrating and poetic, filled with honeyed prose and thoughtful criticism’ The Times
A brilliant blend of memoir and biography, The Catch is a stunning meditation on poetry and nature, and a quiet reflection on what it means to be a father and a son.
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It is in the midst of a swirling river, casting a line, that Mark Wormald meets Ted Hughes.

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.©2022 Mark Wormald (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Animals Biological Sciences Outdoors & Nature Science Thought-Provoking Fishing
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Critic reviews

Penetrating and poetic, filled with honeyed prose and thoughtful criticism. (Cal Flyn)
Astute and fluent, The Catch wears its learning lightly… Compelling (David Profumo)
Way above a mere fishing book, combining nature, personal recollections, biography, poetry, imagination and much more - BOOK OF THE YEAR
Whilst Hughes’s love for angling is relatively well-known, Wormald makes a deep and sustained claim for the link between Hughes’s poetic thinking process and the act of fishing. … [But] The carrying streams of this book are not only those of Hughes’s life, and those of his family and friends, but of Wormald’s too. … Wormald’s own prose is sprung and striking [and] The Catch becomes a subtle meditation on what it is to be a father, a son, a brother. (Rob St. John)
Wormald’s scene-setting and imaginative, close reading of the poems uncover new aspects of Hughes and his work, which is no easy task … Hughes thought the all-absorbing experience of fishing was much like writing poetry, and such descriptions will have the fishermen among this book’s readership nodding along. (Richard Benson)
Electrifyingly good (John Clegg)
A beautiful book … Wormald is excellent at prising apart Hughes the myth from Hughes the man. (Alex Diggins)
A profoundly reflective examination of Hughes’s fishing life, layered over with Wormald’s own … Wormald has an engaging, lyrical style, by which it’s easy to be beguiled into appreciative enjoyment and even wonder. (Ettie Neil-Gallacher)
As a feat of scholarship, angling, and creative empathy, this book is an extraordinary achievement (Seán Lysaght)
Beyond biographical and instead a complete immersion into the mind and life of one of our greatest writers … A dip well worth taking (Kevin Parr)
What a marvellous book The Catch is: a time-slipping, genre-shifting exploration of lives and landscapes, in which poetry, memoir and biography swirl and braid most beautifully together. Obsessive, passionate and deep-pooled, Wormald's pursuit of Hughes becomes, over its course, unexpectedly and movingly personal: a journey inwards in spirit as well as backwards in time, moving against the flow. The Catch leaves both its writer and its reader - to borrow a phrase from the book itself - wonderfully "lost in water". (Robert Macfarlane)
Here is a book and a writer and a sense of the world and of language which are all as marvellous as the subject deserves. (Adam Nicolson)
An absolute gem ... Mark Wormald's love of angling and of Ted Hughes’s poetry come together beautifully. I was delightfully lost by the river throughout. (Paul Whitehouse)
All stars
Most relevant
If your into fishing you’ll get this ….
Im finding this intoxicating…. What a gift … passionate, listening too this is like romantic meditation a master piece

Magnificent truly amazing

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After hearing Mark read a part of his book at The Arundel Arms, I was delighted it was on audible. knowing some of the rivers but having never read any of Ted Hughes' poetry this book has not only introduced me to Ted's work but also changed the way I see the rivers I fish like the West Dart and Taw.

A wonderfully read book that I thoroughly enjoyed

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I don't fish myself but I love any book that promises to transport me to a natural landscape and immerse me in a meditative activity, like fishing. I'm also an admirer of Ted Hughes's poetry so The Catch was a rather obvious choice for me. I have not been disappointed. Mark Wormald's passion for his subject - I should say subjects: the book centres on Hughes the man, the poet and, above all, the fisherman - is evident and compelling. He transports his reader back and forth in time, drawing careful, tender comparisons between Hughes's life as a fisherman, father, poet and his own. The touch points are varied and interesting: the same room in a Cambridge college, Devon rivers, poetry, a deep and abiding love of salmon and pike and, most touchingly of all, the deep and unfathomable love between father and son. Wormald explores these complex and vast themes with a searing compassion and honesty. I thoroughly enjoyed his dogged pursuit of Hughes: following his footsteps across meadows, rivers, counties, countries and even continents in his efforts to pin him down; each journey peppered by stillness, by reflection and the kind of deepening Hughes spent his creative life searching for.

A compelling and unforgettable read

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