Whatever happened to Jill Orme?

Somewhere, I once read that fishing magazines are more than 99% bought by men - and the other tiny percent is when women are buying copies for men! And it has to be said that very few women feature in Course fishing magazines - when they do it is usually in an advert. Indeed, having been reading many fishing magazines from as long ago as 1976, I have to say that much of the advertising is very sexist, though I did like one advert that features a scantily clad wife greating her husband home. He has his hands behind his back like he is holding a present for her, but he is actually holding a bottle of bait flavour. The caption reads - "and all because the lady loves squid and octopus"

One way that females that fish do feature in fishing magazines is when their husband is writing an article and decides to illustrate his catches with pictures of his wife. This started as long ago as the late 70s with John Bailey's wife Sharon, but reached its peak in the early 1990s with a number of articles by Andy Orme featuring his rather gorgeous wife, Jill. In part this was probably to help advertise their rod making business, Seer rods

I met Jill and Andy at some sort of angling show (one of the specimen hunter shows) and bought one of their rods - the specialist rover. This is an absolutely superb rod and is the one that I use for almost all my fishing on the Windrush and Evenlode. I even had an evening on the stretch of the River Teme that they managed (Haven fishery near Bromyard), catching a rather nice 7lb barbel on rolled cheese paste.

My sorting out of fishing magazines has reached Course Fishing Today, where most of Andy Orme's articles appeared. And there is Jill, looking totally gorgeous with various fish. Indeed, the pictures below feature Jill with my favourite fish - barbel, chub and pike. At times I have wondered what it must be like to share one's life with a real soul mate - someone you can talk to about bolt rigs for small river barbel, pre-baiting strategies for boilies, strategies for low and clear rivers in the summer - the things that really matter. I can't help thinking that Jill would have had many interesting views on such subjects.

Seer Rods appears to be no more. A post on an angling website said that Jill and Andy split up and that Andy runs a big game fishing boat in Kenya. I was pondering the other day on buying a new fishing rod - perhaps an 11 - 12ft, 1.5lb test curve rod for big barbel to medium carp. Sadly it will not be a Seer Rod it would seem.

Jill and I are the same age but she is (was?) a much better angler than me!

Jill Orme with barbel - perhaps my favourite Jill picture.

Cover girl Jill with another barbel.

Mighty meat indeed - Jill with chub

An early, possibly pre-Andy picture. Jill with pike. Has there ever been a more attractive wearer of waders?