Would you live like this for fishing

[mikench]

For the past few weeks I've been buying the Angling Times. It hasn't changed much but has been featuring items which previously would not have appeared. One today is about self isolators and makes for interesting reading. I can understand single , eccentric guys who look like Catweasel and live like Robinson Crusoe but a married one?

One guy called a Peter Ralph, cashed in his pension, bought a large bivvy and moved onto the banks of a fishery called Orchard Lakes on Oxon. He pays 6k pa for the privilege. He lives with his dog and fishes for carp. He remains married and his wife phones daily and visits monthly to provide clean clothes and supplies.

He has been there 10 years. He has a holiday each year with his wife.

There are other examples of a life I couldn't accept. I like fishing but not 24/7.

 

[flightliner]

Not for me Mike , maybe a day or two when I was much younger
but an overnighter would be the maximum.
Living is what life is for not fishing 24/7/12.
I once saw an angler doing something very similar , he looked the proverbial "bank tramp", unkempt , unclean, definitely a loner.
That said your given example to many must sound like married bliss!

 

[steve2]

Is he still fishing during lockdown, according the lake website it is shut?
Interesting that he does not show up on the big fish records for that water. Is he fishing or just getting away from his wife.

Not my idea of a life, more a waste of a life. But then each to their own.

 

[mikench]

I assume he is but he is self isolating at home so what's the harm? Good luck to him and his wife.

 

[Mark Wintle]

A few of those that have done the camping by the waterside have usually encountered health problems (brochitis seems common) within a fairly short time. It's too damp and cold and often the diet they survive on is far from a good one. A couple of examples include John Sidley and Alan Wilson.

Although I retired a decade ago I'm happy to fish two or three times a week for a fairly short timewhen conditions are fair to good with the benefit of a warm comfortable bed every night, good food and company.

 

[rayner]

Home comforts are far too much of a pull to me. When I was a fair bit younger I couldn't get enough time on the bank. Working took too much of my fishing time I thought. These days fishing is a long way down the list if it's my age, I think it could be.
Corona doesn't help. I don't believe things will ever be the same as it were, we will have to change our priorities.
So to live in a tent, I couldn't think of anything worse, I'll bet his wife is getting her share whilst he's in his tent.

 

[S-Kippy]

A few of those that have done the camping by the waterside have usually encountered health problems (brochitis seems common) within a fairly short time. It's too damp and cold and often the diet they survive on is far from a good one. A couple of examples include John Sidley and Alan Wilson.

Although I retired a decade ago I'm happy to fish two or three times a week for a fairly short timewhen conditions are fair to good with the benefit of a warm comfortable bed every night, good food and company.

I was just thinking that meself. It rarely ends well when somebody decides to do nowt but fish. I beieve Fred Wagstaff was another casualty....and Jack Hilton walked away from it too I think.

 

[nottskev]

I'm inclined to think such a monomania expresses psychological problems. Even with the the things you like most, isn't it always about the rhythm of doing it and not doing it? Would you really want to watch football all the time? Even, have sex all the time? Going to live by a lake sounds like one of those "careful what you wish for" outcomes. Wouldn't it undermine any successes, too? Catch the biggest fish or the best bags, and people would surely say, not surprised, mate, you flippin' live there.

 

[sam vimes]

I backed away from ending up a bank tramp several years ago. It was my decision, no one would have stopped me. I simply tired of one track angling, multiple nights on the bank and a bad back. I'd be lying if I didn't enjoy it for a time, but it ended up being a chore.

I'll still fish seven days a week at times, but it will rarely be for as long as 12 hours. I don't recall doing an overnight session in at least two or three years and I'll rarely endure dismal conditions unless the fish are really playing ball.

Fishing a single venue, often for extended periods or concentrating on just one species/angling style to the exclusion of all others is often what sees people dropping out of angling altogether. I'm sure it would have done for me.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

I used to really love 3 or 4 nights in the bivvy fishing away from everything, but full-time for that long? Nope, for me it wouldn't be fun any more . . . .

 

[Philip]

Perhaps someone should tell him Arnie died years ago.

...one for the Carp fans. ;-)

 

[steve2]

I haven't done an all nighter for over 30 years I realised I caught more by fishing at the right times and fishing local was the way to go for me. So early starts over all nights.

 

[flightliner]

Wasn't it Ray Webb who back in the sixties retired from full time work and went to live in Ireland to fish the rest of his life away while at the same time becoming a roving angler /reporter for the Angling Times.
If I recall he had a self made boat called the "Black Pig".
He eventually returned to England where on one occasion he was at one of the old NASA conferences when he announced he was going to run up to Scotland for some pike fishing on his old motor driven bicycle (a bicyclette ???). There's a famous pik of him setting off with his gear hanging from his back that included his landing net frame that was was an old bicycle wheel frame !
The last I heard of him was where he lived in a small caravan down in the fens, all alone and largely forgotten .

 

[S-Kippy]

Wasn't it Ray Webb who back in the sixties retired from full time work and went to live in Ireland to fish the rest of his life away while at the same time becoming a roving angler /reporter for the Angling Times.
If I recall he had a self made boat called the "Black Pig".
He eventually returned to England where on one occasion he was at one of the old NASA conferences when he announced he was going to run up to Scotland for some pike fishing on his old motor driven bicycle (a bicyclette ???). There's a famous pik of him setting off with his gear hanging from his back that included his landing net frame that was was an old bicycle wheel frame !
The last I heard of him was where he lived in a small caravan down in the fens, all alone and largely forgotten .

Ray died in 2001 according to a post on here from Ron Clay. A real eccentric....Ray I mean not Ron...er,well.