I find myself sitting around with time on my hands having just had a large lump of titanium and assorted bolts and screws removed from my leg, the clinical insertion of which was caused by a motorbike accident some years ago. So, Plan A, which was hatched just before Xmas has had to be scrapped, and I’m not sure when or even what Plan B is at the moment.
Plan A came about due to one of those cathartic sessions when I decided to finally sort through all my tackle and divest myself of items that were no longer required. This was brought on by the slightly sobering thought that my ‘three score and ten’ years is now not a million miles away and realising that there won’t be that many more seasons on the horizon. Added to that I suspect, like a lot of us, I have some tackle that I have either never really done justice to, or indeed will never get to see the water’s edge in my hands.
Plan A also included an admission to myself that I really need to get out fishing more regularly. Maybe some of you are lucky enough to go out every weekend (or even more frequently) or change your piscine quarry as the seasons unfold. Perhaps you take a break when the Close Season is upon us, take up fluff-flinging or head down to the coast in order to get some rod action to cover the gap.
Looking back, my dedication to the sport has waxed and waned over the years, going from the maniacal, meaning I had to be out fishing at every possible opportunity, to blithely disinterested, when I don’t wet a line for months on end. To start with, in my very early teens I lived in an area with no local coarse fishing, meaning I would bike for miles, most evening and weekends to get to the nearest canal or catch buses to travel even further afield.
With mates we would often ‘camp out’ over the weekend, although where we stayed meant going without tents or sleeping equipment as we really shouldn’t have been there and we had to ready to move sharpish if our presence was discovered. Due to the dearth of local fishy places, I also scoured O/S maps for signs of possible venues, streams, farm ponds… in fact muddy puddles were tried in search of angling Nirvana, but all without any real success.
One memorable fifteen mile expeditionary bike ride with all the tackle I possessed strapped to the crossbar and slung over my shoulder revealed that the large and fairly remote (always a good thing) reservoir I had spied on the O/S map proved to be of the underground variety. My parents were surprised to see me home the same day as, given the amount of gear I had taken, they hadn’t expected me back for at least a week.
Despite – or maybe because – of all this frenetic action, or perhaps due to the somewhat rudimentary tackle at my disposal, catches were sporadic to say the least, and they certainly didn’t include anything memorable. Not until I got a paper round and was a) getting paid and b) able to scan through the Angling Times before popping it through the letterbox of No. 74 did I start to really want to fishing seriously.
But now we move to my mid-teens when first girls, then cars move into a young boy’s world, and for some inexplicable reason, fishing gets sidelined. Girls, it seems, don’t want to go on bike rides that involve fishing, nor do they enjoy long bus rides for the same purpose, and whilst sleeping under the stars might be considered romantic by some, it is not apparently, when maggots and a complete lack of basic amenities are involved. Likewise, once you have a car, girls will certainly go for rides, but not if that then involves sitting on a riverbank in the pouring rain, because it involves getting wet (didn’t have a fishing umbrella in those days) maggots, complete lack of amenities etc. etc.
So, a lull in my fishing brought on by the above, but also a change in personal circumstances and location meant that the rods didn’t get picked up again until my mid-twenties. Whilst not going out every weekend, trips were regular enough to begin to start thinking about what I was fishing for, rather than fishing for bites. I started reading the weeklies, buying better tackle and even making and/or improving items. Still very little success, but at least I was now going out fishing with the thought that I should have the knowledge and equipment to enable me catch something rather that blind optimism of my early teens which usually evaporated after ten minutes of willing my motionless red-topped float to disappear.
This on-off approach went on for many years until relocation brought the opportunity to string together some proper fishing time. Now it was tench in the summer and pike in the winter, with some fly fishing in between. No every week, but again, enough to learn from what I was doing, and particularly with the pike fishing, starting to believe in what I was doing. Although, with pike I suspect that just when you think you have cracked a particular venue or method, the rules get changed and you seem to be back to knowing nothing.
Anyway, a dozen or so fairly productive years passed, and another change in circumstances and location and the fishing urge died away again. A few half-hearted attempts to get back into the swim (pun intended) left me bemused as a trip to the tackle shop presented all manner of items I’d never heard of and certainly didn’t know how to use. The weeklies seemed full of mostly carp-based articles, referencing both specimen and commercial fishing. And then there were mentions of hair, zig, and helicopter rigs along with pellet wagglers and method feeder, let alone the required degree in alchemy to concoct baits.
Seeing all this, I decided not to join in, as I can look stupid enough without turning up somewhere with the wrong tackle/bait/method etc. so I went down an alternative route and became a lure fisherman. Firstly because it was something I could still do, the tackle is fairly basic, apart from the choice of lures. However, happily for me, Mepps spinners and even Colorado spoons will still fool pike and perch who over the last 50 years have not managed to evolve as much as carp which have learned to avoid the likes or par-boiled potatoes and honey flavoured paste. Lure fishing does have its limitations in that summertime brings the problem of weed and you have to choose your venues as other static angling types tend not to appreciate you flinging treble hook infested bits of metal and plastic within a hundred yards of ‘their’ swim. Obviously casting a few lures around causes an unwanted commotion in the water, unlike the aerial bombardment of Spodding, Bagging Wagglers and Method Feeders equates to something more like the attraction of the dinner bell to Pavlov’s dogs.
But usually, if you get two hundred yards from the car park you can have the bank-side to yourself, as not having to haul barrow-loads of gear around leaves you free to walk just that bit further, miles in some cases, and cover an awful lot of water.
However, once the glories of autumn have passed, lure fishing gets that bit harder, as one angling writer succinctly said ‘spinning can be cruel’ as no matter what type of gloves you wear, your fingers tend to freeze, and lure fishing in freezing January or February is not very productive.
Right then, back to Plan A, which was lure fishing in Summer/Autumn and dead baiting in the colder months for which the clear out has shown that I needed two new rods, and Father Christmas – for once – obliged with the exact presents I asked for – result! Except, here I sit with staples and stitches half way down my leg, not expecting to be properly mobile for weeks, and at the end of that, I am off on holiday (booked in advance before knowing about the operation, and now scheduled as ‘recuperation’) which takes us up to March 15th.
So, the new rods will now have to wait until next year to be christened, hence the ‘Impatient’ part of the title. There is a nagging doubt that the during my lay off from dead-baiting that pike may have wised up to mackerel, lamprey and smelts etc, so I may have to scour the fishmongers for red snapper or cuckoo wrasse, but I did come across my fly fishing gear in the clear out, so I may not have to wait too long after coming home before I can get back on the banks….
Kev Perkins.
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