The 16th of June, once a hallowed date in the coarse angler's calendar passed barely noticed by me today. In years past such a statement would have been unthinkable. As a boy (and I'm referring to my post voice breaking teenage boyhood here, not the days of early childhood) the days leading up to the "glorious 16th" were accompanied by growing anticipation, butterflies in the stomach, the drawing up of plans, and sleepless nights.
The 15th would find us camped out by the lake on florally patterned early 1980's bedchairs with inadequate clothing and thin sleeping bags willing the clock to reach midnight. The quarry? Almost certainly tench.
How times have changed. Now it's only the Norfolk jacketed split cane fundamentalists who practice a self-enforced closed season, and the river anglers for whom the 16th holds any special place. The rest of us are year round anglers, and the day has no significance beyond the recollection of past triumphs and a bygone era.
The actual period of angling abstinence, with its intention of providing spawning fish an uninterrupted period for procreative activity was always slightly arbitrary- most June caught tench contained spawn and many pike had spawned before the previous season ended, and I enjoy the opportunity to angle throughout the year, but I can't help feeling I'm missing out somewhere along the line.
At least in the old days remembering the season's first session often involved the recollection of a misty dawn giving way to a sunny day - now it's usually a best forgotten January blank in freezing conditions.
Like the man sung: "Those were the days, my friend"...
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