BIOGRAPHY OF T C IVENS (1921-1988)

Research into to the life, times and achievements of T C Ivens is currently being undertaken and this biography will be updated and/or corrected as further information becomes available.

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THE EARLY YEARS

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Thomas Coleman Ivens (1921–1988) was a highly respected English reservoir fly angler and author. He was born to Thomas E Ivens and Ella R Ivens (née Richards) in Northampton on the 22nd May 1921.

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Tom Ivens' schoodays were spent at Northampton Grammar School.

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During the latter years of WW2, between 1944 and 1947, he was in command of naval minesweepers. In 1941 e married Ruth Ivens who drew the line drawings for his book.

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After his war service he enrolled at Seale-Hayne Agricultural College, Newton Abbott, Devon. In 1989 the college merged with Plymouth Polytechnic to form the Seale-Hayne Faculty of Agriculture and later became part of the University of Plymouth, in 1992.

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It is known from the prefaces to the various editions of his books that at various times he lived at Northampton, Hemel Hempstead (February 1963 & July 1970) and also in St Albans (April 1973).

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His first and only complete angling book, Stillwater Fly-Fishing, ran to four editions and is considered by many to be an angling 'classic'. He also contributed several pieces to anthologies and wrote articles for a variety of fishing magazines and was on the staff of the Fishing Gazette from 1953 until 1956.

 

RESERVOIR FLY FISHING

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When Tom Ivens returned home after the hostilities of WW2 had ceased he resumed the sport of fly fishing which he had practiced before the war and he regularly fished two Northamptonshire reservoirs, Ravensthorpe Reservoir and Hollowell Reservoir, both of which were at that time stocked with trout. Hollowell Reservoir has since become a coarse fishery due to the large population of pike.

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Ivens' approach to fly selection was based on the premise that no matter how accurate the fly-dresse’s attempts at 'exact imitation' of the trout's food were, they still fell short, in both form and movement, of closely imitating the natural creatures present in reservoirs. He considered that 'attractor' patterns which gave an 'impression' of life and of being food, but do not specifically imitate any food item in particular, would prove to be a more successful approach.

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Most of his flies are 'nymph-like' representations that need to be recovered slowly to complete the deception and they should be used whenever the conditions allow. He also designed a few ‘flasher’ attractor patterns for those occasions when the wind and weather conditions are such that the use of slowly moving deceivers is impractical. His Jersey Herd pattern remains one of the most popular lures today.

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A number of his second set of flies are somewhat more imitative in construction than the original series and his Buzzer pattern is a fairly accurate representation of the natural creature (it also bears a very close resemblance to the Buzzer Nymph designed by Dr Bell of Wrington which was created a generation earlier). He also produced a fairly imitation of the Daddy Long Legs.

 

FISHING TACKLE DESIGN

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Ivens was instrumental in the design of a range of fly rods capable of casting the long distances necessary on reservoirs, especially from the bank, as well as a range of shooting head fly lines.

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He also innovated a series of single- and double-tapered nylon monofilament leaders that were designed to enable the flies to turn over correctly in a variety of wind and weather conditions.

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Ivens was employed as a consultant in the design of the Stillwater fishing boat manufactured by Thanetcraft of New Malden in Surrey.

 

LATER YEARS AND DEATH

 

Conrad Voss Bark summarized Tom Ivens' considerable legacy 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'.

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Tom Ivens died in Northampton in 1988 at the relatively young age of 67