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The Wye 16th June 2020
Baiting Up
Casting Off West. 26/03/2021
As some of you know, after sixty years in Norfolk, wife Enoka and I made the extraordinary decision to up sticks and relocate two hundred and fifty miles to the West, on the edge of the Wye valley. We have been here around three weeks now, and it has been the usual stressful time that accompanies all removals but, for an angler, the pressures are perhaps greater than you’d expect. Of course, all the usual considerations have to be sorted. Where is the supermarket? Where to find a doctor, a dentist, a handyman, a skip, even a lawnmower that does not have to be carted home in a box and self-assembled?
But for an angler like me, the real killer challenge is where do I go fishing? How do I find the waters I crave? What about tackle shops? And fishing mates? It is not starting from scratch, I realise, though it feels like it in my down times. The problem is that Norfolk had become so easy, so comfortable, and the fishing so guaranteed that I always knew where to go, who to ask, what to take, and what swim to target. There were no surprises but equally, no disappointments or traumas. I should probably have let my life jog to its natural conclusion, while I trod the banks I had enjoyed since boyhood. That would have been the safe, sensible route. Which I spurned.
My friends didn’t help dissuade me. They weren’t the ones casting off into the semi-unknown, so their advice was all positive. Perhaps they wanted to live vicariously, looking to see how I might fare, might succeed, or fall flat on my fishless face. But I think not. I believe they saw in me the need for a last new challenge, a burning need for something raw and different and demanding. I’m not saying they swung the decision we made, but their wise nodding of grey heads confirmed the momentous step should be made. And I thank them. I think.
So, what I am proposing is a diary of my fishing life out West – and Enoka’s too, as she did not win the title 'Barbel Queen' by luck alone. How do you start on new waters? Who comes to your rescue? How do you evaluate advice? How do you rate waters, and find those that fulfil your ambitions? Once again, as some of you know, I have been writing a regular piece in this site called Roach Obsession Diary. I’m not done with that long-term, but it struck me that in the river close season, there was not too much to tell. Not compared with the efforts that are dominating my mind and waking hours now.
Obviously, I hope that you find my journey interesting. I hope you share any triumphs I might achieve, and sympathise with the mistakes I am bound to make. Perhaps you might be in a position to help me, or to put me right on issues that I don’t get my head around? Who knows, I might inspire you to consider a similar plunge into the void? Covid has changed many lives. Only yesterday one of my cappuccino-drinking Metropolitan friends astonished me by buying a farm in Devon! I did not think he knew milk came from a cow. One friend has left Manchester for North Wales, and another Hertfordshire for the Outer Hebrides, so what Enoka and I have done is on the humdrum side of insanity. I just hope the lot of us don’t come to grief.
So that’s the premise of all this. Next, I’ll kick of with a round-up of where I am in my quest, and the early days of finding my feet. I’ve received help, advice and a warm welcome, so I am up, running and raring to get at it. Always bearing in mind it is dangerous to run before I can walk!
The Gear is Ready