What’s our voice and vibe?
This is a journey for freedom, a unification of the like-minded, a starting line that allows us to remove our lifejackets and enter deep water.
We are a collective of angling obsessives, misfits and creative geeks, planting a seed for nothing other than the ‘love of It’.
Two constant looping themes will be evident throughout this angling journey, and both form the backbone to our book. Like an intertwining DNA helix, we shoulder no shame for sharing our passions and devoting our energy to them.
Nature is our being; it’s been this way from youth. A longing to be outdoors in wild spaces, we need no excuse to stand by the water’s edge, blagging parents and bending rules to squeeze one more cast out of the fading day. All the while, fully aware of the mission that lay ahead, and the twilight return home. Cold to the core and piss wet through, without a crumb in the rucksack, it was all worth it for the crack and adventure, an inherent need to be connected to the wilds – we never grew up. That light continues to burn bright, against a backdrop of the modern world, we’re still out there doing it. This remains our compass, bound to nature’s seasonal rhythms. We ebb and flow like the tidal sea, outdoors amongst the elements, nomadically switching from species, to venue, when the natural world presents its subtle signs and cues.
Our second commitment to the project is ‘The Truth’, in both our images and words. Like any movement past or present, it spawns from a deep passionate cause, one that builds, spreading like wildfire. Be it scooter rallies, VW campers or motocross, northern soul, 90’s acid house or any other underground vibe, it was fuelled not only by narcotics and petro-chemicals, but a deep desire to push for something, test one’s abilities, soul-searching, and more than this, it is a bonding of like-minded folk.
Sometimes we over gun-it, pushing hard for the result while testing family life and minds to the limits, red-lining the engine, but it’s the nature of our beast. Let’s be straight……when was it meant to be easy? To make it so is to desecrate its very soul. This journey is real, hardcore at times, but we remain alert to the fact it’s always about the buzz, don’t take it too seriously, we are all a long time dead! Our aim is to keep the foundation concrete by maintaining the site as a central hub, our bat-cave to the operation. We don’t want Swanshot to consume itself or us in this process, this will ultimately lead to self-destruction for all involved. Chasing our arse’s on social platforms is not our game, we will only be swallowed like Jonah & the Whale. Nothing more than small fry in a big pond, this project is for the ‘Love, not the Likes’.
A creative thread runs through our bones, regardless of the medium, it’s a deep desire to craft something by hand, a thing of beauty to be adored or cherished, not soulless, machined and mass produced shiz from the land of the rising sun. We want to bring some of these crafts closer to home, using this platform as a hub to connect with other artistic brothers who share the same passion and flavour for the creative vibe. Plenty of bespoke, limited gems will be spawned from this venture. In-house resident artists and respective collab’s will unfold, and this part of the game is what we are fired up for.
We aren’t bound to one species, yes, carping dominates a big part of our season, but come the first hoar frost with rosehips left hanging like Christmas decks on bare hedgerows, we know there’s better things to be doing than sitting behind frozen buzzers. Spiked dorsal’s, sandpaper skin and lip hooked live baits. Perch bob’s, canal bridges, drop-shots, swan-shots, and trebles.
Stick floats against the flow, chain mail flanks, purple sails, and adipose fins, quivers held high, nodding to the beat of flowing H20.
We love our silverware, triple rows of metallic darts and gunmetal scaled winter flanks. Hands close to frost bite, gnawing into your bones, we punish ourselves at times for reasons unknown.
As winter subsides, snow melts away to deliver bird song and wildflowers, our focus is that single day in the calendar year when we will be treated once more. Keep Christmas, and shove that dull birthday card up your cakehole, nothing holds a candle to dreaming of pinprick bubbles, forgotten estate lakes and mist-blanketed meres. Mr Red Eye lay on the mat with a swollen, gravid belly, nestled amongst the carp sack as dawn breaks, a salute to June 16th in all her glory.
So, for all the huckleberry fins out there, this one is also for you brothers. Jam jars and giant Gonks, record breaking Stickleback’s, Bullheads and Stone loach, we’re all in….balls deep
We’re an eclectic bunch with a colourful past, walking in light and shade in equal measure. Out and out specimen hunters and multi species anglers from day dot, we find motivation in so much. Happiest stomping miles, bino’s in hand or an SLR over our shoulder, soaking up the vibes of our environment are some of the many facets in our angling journey that carry so much merit.
So, here’s to the dawn raids, the unknown or unobtainable. Swanshot was born to trespass, flick the middle finger to the conventional or accepted. Ditch the scales if it makes you happiest, it’s a fist pump to the silent players in the game who keep it schtum, to the lads who have fallen by the wayside, burnt out from the commercial juggernaut that’s throttling the game.
If you connect with our words, you have found home, if you get it, we’re on it, all over it, for the love of it.
Be Free
Swanshot