New Year's Eve perching.

Often it's the poets who say it best. Here's what I mean:

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds.

I come into the presence of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still water

and I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.

For a time I rest in the grace of the world

and am free.

All that I was feeling as I trudged through the wet grass and cloying mud to the Club Lake for my final session of 2021 on the year's final day, put eloquently into words by the American poet Wendell Berry, someone who has never met me, much less knows of me. Such is the power of the poet's pen.

It had been a pleasant family Christmas, restful and happy, but I was still feeling the weight of the year that had preceded it, the Lockdowns and restrictions, the isolation and shrunk-small world that working from home brings, the various waves of Covid, pressures at work and so much more sitting on my shoulders, but in the five minutes that it takes to tramp from the car park to the lake I felt the weight begin to lift. As I tackled up, I admired the winter trees that fringe the lake, the gnarled and twisted fingers of their denuded branches clawing at the unseasonably mild air as they dream of once more being adorned with the pastel colours of their springtime livery.

The target fish were perch, the bait red maggots, and the realistic ambition a nice mixed bag of fish, with the chance but no guarantee of a good sized perch amongst the mix.

I had elected an old ET Barlow's Vortex glass fibre Avon as my weapon of choice, paired with an even more ancient Allcocks Aerial centre pin and chose a swim with some sparse wintry bushes overhanging the water at the margin's edge. Three red maggots underneath a Norfolk reed waggler and impaled on a size 16 hook were lowered next to the bushes' branches, loose maggots were fed and the waiting game began. In truth, the wait was neither long nor onerous and after a few minutes and a couple of missed bites a tiny perch was being swung unceremoniously to hand, the first of a procession of small perch, roach and rudd that obliged me as the swim began to build.

Unusually for me, I was fishing alone, the session being an impromptu post-breakfast decision, but having failed to persuade any friends to accompany me, I managed to bribe a robin to keep me company at the cost of a few red maggots every so often, the chubby red breasted compatriot perching sentinel-like on the branches behind me for the entire duration of my stay. Once more the float quivered and submerged and this time the resistance was more sustained, and after a spirited tussle a decent perch was being drawn over the net. The fish wasn't of sufficient size to justify subjecting it to the indignity of the scales and weigh sling, but looked to be about a pound and a half, a pleasing perch in any angler's estimation.

A few more small perch, roach and rudd followed, along with four carp, each of which ploughed up and down the swim before being landed, and all of which were probably a couple of pounds or so in weight, before I once again found myself connected to a reasonable perch, which proved to be a little smaller than the first fish, but certainly a fish in excess of a pound and possessed of all the bravura swagger and bristling bully boy tendencies associated with this most beautiful of freshwater fish species.

This was to be the last fish of note, and after a couple more perch of insubstantial size I packed up in an unhurried manner, the two hours spent by still waters having had the necessary calming effect, drawing me into the grace of the world and its Creator, and rendering my spirit free.

Whatever unknowns 2022 may throw at me (and for sure there will be some), of this I remain convinced: angling in pleasing environs will be, as it has been to me for over four decades, a balm to heal the soul. I really must go more often next year.

Angling Anemoia

 

I suffer from anemoia. This confession need spread no alarm- the condition is neither contagious nor life threatening. In fact, you've probably never heard of it. "Anemoia" is one of those words that exists and has an established meaning, but is rarely to be found in common vernacular usage. The Dictionary defines it as "nostalgia for a time you've never known", which pretty much describes my approach to angling. I was converted to the gentle art in 1981, and so my formative angling years were in the twighlight of the glass fibre era and the early days of carbon as the mass produced norm for fishing rods. Very occasionally one would see an old chap sat atop a willow basket wielding a cane rod, but such sightings were rare.

These days, I choose to fish almost exclusively with rods of cane or older examples of glass fibre, most of which predate my earliest forays into the world of fishing. The reason is, in part, aesthetic. There is something intrinsically alluring about a craftsman-built cane rod, whether restored to a lustrous varnish finish or bearing the noble scars and patina of over half a century's use, something attractive about handmade floats crafted from quill or reed, and something reassuring about the solidity of an ancient fixed spool reel or the machined perfection of a venerable old centre pin.

Occasionally I question why I have elected to pursue this particular fork in the angling road, but the conclusion I always return to is that the answer to the question goes beyond (although includes) the aesthetic considerations, and is largely accounted for by anemoia. Put simply, I long for a simpler time. I am not blind to the fact that the "simpler time" I yearn for was a time when healthcare was less developed, life expectancy shorter, life for minority groups harder, and we were still slowly uncoupling ourselves from a morally dubious exploitative Empire, but notwithstanding all of that, there's a simplicity in the England of Mr Crabtree and Peter which enchants and calls to me with siren voice. An England less detached from its rural roots than its 21st Century counterpart, an England in which children still roamed wild (but not feral), climbing trees, collecting newts from ponds, chasing hoops down hills, playing football in the street, and not imprisoned in their bedrooms oppressed by screens, phones, social media and existential doubts about their self -worth.

Sir Isaac Newton wrote that "Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things", and he was a man who knew a thing or two about things. Born in the late 1960's, I am aware that I'm (to quote Marc Bolan) a "20th Century boy" in a 21st Century world, and my heart at times yearns curiously for the years before I was, but when wielding a cane rod and centre pin reel both of which are older than I am, I find myself in some small way transported back in time to a time before me, a time when I suspect time itself seemed to move more slowly, as indeed it does while fishing.

I may be a deluded romantic and my anemoia an affliction, it may even be that I'm guilty of remembering the past as it never really was, but the best of it is that, as far as I can tell, the only cure for said affliction is to go fishing, and such a prescription can only be a good thing.

When perch aren't the main thing

I hesitate to deal in cliche, but in this instance I have little choice. We've all heard (and oftentimes trotted out) the tired sayings and aphorisms that declare "fishing to be about more than catching fish" but a thing doesn't cease to be true simply because it's become a truism, and today  the veracity of the statement was incontrovertible. Ostensibly we were fishing for perch and to win our club's annual Perch Trophy, but in reality we were fishing in memory of a friend and to raise money for charity.

We're an unusual bunch, a collection of just shy of 100 anglers with not only a commonly  held passion for angling, but also in the case of  most of our members a strong commitment to the Christian faith. (the clue is in the group's name: Christian Anglers). With a membership that traverses the whole of the UK, much of our contact is via a Facebook group, but we also hold fish-ins and an annual weekend camping retreat, and since our friend John Rellie (pictured below) died in 2018 we have held an annual perch match at the conclusion of which the captor of the biggest perch wins the shield for a year and has his name engraved on the trophy.

The match is far more an exercise in socialising, remembering  John's life with thanks, and raising money than it is a serious pursuit of perch, but our membership contains among its number some seriously proficient anglers (including no less than one of the vice-presidents of The Perchfishers)  and prior to today the match had never been won by a fish of less than 2lb 7 oz despite the rather casual nature of the event. 

As might reasonably be expected from a day in early November, there was a slight chill in the air when the 9 anglers who had booked to fish the event gathered in the car park to draw for choice of swims. Each angler, on their name being drawn from a hat, had the right to go and plant a bankstick in the swim of their choice, and once all of the swims were allocated, the fun could begin in earnest (or something approaching earnestness, while never quite possessing the requisite seriousness to accurately fit the designation!). Draw completed and Pete cooked up some bacon and sausage sandwiches and after an al fresco breakfast the suitably fortified anglers set to work in pursuit of stripe-sided monsters.

As it transpired, the weather was kinder to us than the fish proved to be. The day was overcast yet mild, but the fish in general, and the perch in particular, proved to be in a less generous mood. The occasional small fish was swung in by those electing to fish with maggots, but for those of us who persisted with bigger baits the fishing was an  arduous and attritional affair. 

Roy managed a hat-trick of small barbel, which tested the elastic in his pole and Pete landed a broad backed common that fought hard on his light float set up. Dave and Garry also both lost decent carp at the net, but  rods pleasingly bent in their battle curve were few and far between.

My small perch bob, which had been made for me by Roy, had done no meaningful bobbing for nearly three biteless hours, but eventually it trembled, moved jerkily across the water's surface and then submerged with purpose. The strike met with firm resistance  and after a tussle of two or three minutes a handsome perch was engulfed in the folds of the net. The scales registered a weight of 1 lb 10 ounces, and it turned out to be the only perch of noteworthy size to be caught on the day, which resulted in me retaining the trophy I had first won the previous year.

At the prearranged hour of three o'clock the match was declared completed, and I made a reasonable job of feigning humility on being presented with the trophy. The fishing had been hard, and for only one decent perch to have been landed over a six hour period by nine anglers with more aggregated years of fishing experience than we'd care to admit to was disappointing, but the main aims of the day had been more than accomplished. We had celebrated John's life, enjoyed each other's company, and raised over £200 for a charity that looks to demonstrate God's love to people who are often overlooked, looked down on or judged, yet who are created in His image and, like all of us, are deserving of a new start and another chance in life. As I drove out of the car park I almost thought I could hear John's raucous laugh- after all, on his last visit to the lake he caught a perch of a pound and a half and he wasn't even fishing for perch. "What's wrong with you guys? I can catch them on luncheon meat and you can't catch them on worms and prawns" he'd have boomed in his voluble South African accent. Gone but not forgotten, and today remembered in a way that he'd have thoroughly approved of. 

We'll do it all over again next year, and hopefully 2022's perch will have read the memo.

Three men and a bait

The "Indian Summer" that had been September was well and truly broken as October came around. The rain hammered down in sheets, as if somewhere in the firmament a high pressure hose had been turned on and three middle aged men, old enough to know better, huddled under their large green mushroom-shaped umbrellas focussing their attention on the small tips of bright orange or yellow that protruded above the rain lashed surface of the pond. Three brothers whose angling journey had begun in the school summer holiday forty years ago and who now make an annual trip and travel from their respective corners of the UK to renew the sibling bond and fish together.

It was my turn to host the annual piscatorial get together of the brothers Barrett, and that could only mean one thing: perch.

We each chose a perchy looking pitch and set out our stall to try and fool the hump backed specimen perch that swim within the pond's murky depths. The first hour was mercifully dry (although the diluvian downpour that was to follow more than made up for the benign beginning) and it was during those opening sixty minutes that I connected with the first perch of the day, not a monster by this lake's standards, but a plucky fish of about a pound in weight that fought gamely before conceding victory to me and allowing itself to be slid over the rim of the waiting landing net.

Things were soon to go from "good" to "even better" when Andy connected with a solid fish that gave him a merry run around before joining us on the bank. Weighed, admired and returned it tipped the trusty Avon scales to register a weight of 2lb 7 ounces - a fish whose size and magnificence would have been beyond our wildest dreams when it all began and we were just three schoolboys walking to our local club lake in the summer of 1981.

Andy rapidly followed up the 2 pounder with a second fish, just shy of 2 pounds, and it was following the capture his second fish that the weather decided to bare its teeth and show its malevolent side, and from that moment onward the rain was unrelenting, falling fast and furious and accompanied by a chill (or should that be "ill"?) wind.

We fished on in grimly determined manner, continuing to loose feed red maggots along with chopped prawn and worms, refusing to cede victory to the elements, willing the perch to come on the feed but the fishing was proving challenging, with the fish seeming to take their sullen cue from the moodiness of the weather.

Tim managed a brace of perch, one of about a pound and another of a pound and a half but bites were sporadic and few and far between. 

Worms, maggots, prawns and even tiny deadbaits were all tried on the hook as we rang the changes more in desperation than inspired by any serious hope of provoking the perch. I landed a bonus ide that looked to be somewhere around the 2 pound mark, Tim lost a feisty carp as he tried to turn it as it raced with clear intent towards the reeds, and I completed the day's perch captures with a handsome fish of about a pound and three quarters.

It had, in truth, been a trying session, with our patience, fortitude and angling ability all put to the test but persistence had resulted in us each claiming a nice brace of perch, and our annual get together is always about so much more than just the fishing. Jane Austen claimed that brothers are "strange creatures" and that may well be how three men who by any metrics qualify as "middle aged" running the risk of pneumonia by attempting to catch fish in the pouring rain only to return them immediately to the water from whence they came might appear to any dispassionate observer. In fact, it may not just be how we appear, there may even be some truth in the assertion, but I'm happy to be counted a "strange creature" if it entails a lifelong sibling friendship and a bond of loyalty that includes our commonly owned love of fishing (and football) but is built on the stronger foundations of shared experience and whole life stories that began as children together in a small house on an estate in Reading and that, through all the divergencies of our individual journeys through life still has connection and moments of convergence, the best of which often take place beside rivers, lakes and ponds. To the extent that any of us have grown up (a point which each of our wives might wish to debate!) much of that growing up was done while fishing. We learned far more than just how to fish in those early 80's days on the club lake; we learned to succeed and to fail and to respond to both with stoicism and grace, we learned that fishing is different from  catching, smoked our first under age cigarettes, navigated encounters with other gangs of young boys (sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile)  in the last days of a passing era in which children were allowed to roam wild and   benefit from a "benign neglect" model of parenting, and generally did much of our growing up with a fishing rod in hand.

We were made to work hard for our fish, the weather was miserable, the results in terms of fish landed only modest, but I suspect it may come as no surprise to you to discover that, God willing,  plans are already afoot for more of the same in 2022, and the three of us can hardly wait.

Perching in earnest

A whole month had passed since the session that marked the start of my perch campaign,  the usual combination of work and domestic commitments preventing an earlier return to the bank to resume the quest. I have never previously started my stripy chasing activities as early as late August, but this year impatience got the better of me and my desire for perch caused me to take early leave of the more traditional species of summer and turn my attention to the fish that are never far from my dreams. The intervening weeks had seen a change in the scenery, with some of the green leaves of August beginning their metamorphosis into the russets, golds and scarlets of Autumn on the trees that stand sentinel-like behind the lake, but most still retained their summer livery. The sun burned only slightly weaker in the sky than on my last visit, and despite being the last week of September the temperature was also yet to properly adjust in line with the seasonal transition. Barely Autumn, but no longer summer, a liminal moment in the inexorable cycle of the seasons. It was shortly after midday that I arrived at the pond with my friend Dave and began the necessary process of plumbing the depth at the edge of the reeds less than a rod's length from the bank. There are big perch in this small lake, and they cruise its margins, making use of the available cover and feasting on small fish and the American Signal crayfish population that has colonised the lake's bed. 

I delicately dropped my small perch bob next to some reeds just feet from where I was sat, slightly repositioning the bait every quarter of an hour, each relocation of just a few inches pregnant with possibility. Eyes fixed on the float, whole body alert to its every trembling, the waiting game had begun. Non angling friends who suppose that I fish to "pass the time of day" have failed to understand that I have no wish for the time to pass, but rather wish that I had more time, and if such a thing were possible  I could quite happily spend an entire eternity by the side of a pond squinting at a float and wishing into into submersion. 

I didn't have to wait long for the first few perch to make the trip to the bank, with a brief flurry of small perch who didn't allow their modest size to get in the way of their eating ambitions, each greedily engulfing the whole prawn hookbait. After a handful of pugnacious hand-sized perch had surrendered themselves to me things quitened down, and it was about an hour before my first respectably sized fish made an appearance, a rather splendid hard fighting specimen of about a pound and a quarter.

Dave, fishing to my left, had yet to catch a fish (although by now we had both landed several unwelcome crayfish who had displayed a penchant for prawns), but when the first fish succumbed to the allure of his bait it turned out to be a magnificent striped beast that tipped the scales to 2lb 2oz after a tenacious tussle.

As is frequently the case the pond was in one of its awkward sulky moods, with the fish feeding in short bursts between lengthy periods of inactivity. I and my small bunch of angling companions have enjoyed a pleasing level of success over the last three years, with some fine perch landed, but these fish demand to be worked for and don't give themselves up easily. Matt, fishing the opposite bank had been fishing since 8am, catching three nice perch around the pound and a half mark during the morning (pictures of which he'd gleefully WhatsApped to my phone while I was slaving away at my laptop) but he was enduring a quiet afternoon untroubled by the perch he was seeking. My next perch was my biggest of the day, just an ounce lighter than Dave's fish, registering a creditable 2lb 1oz on my digital scales. At one stage the fish had me snagged in the reeds for a few seconds (which felt like an age), but easing off the pressure and then changing the angle of attack saw the fish free itself as the split cane rod tip bounced and bucked, transmitting the sensation through its length so that the corks in my hand felt alive. 

Dave had added a few more very small perch with "eyes bigger than their bellies" and Matt had landed a fine bonus carp, a handsome linear mirror just shy of double figures, when my small perch bob disappeared for the final time. Another spirited tussle resulted in a perch that I estimated to be about a pound and three quarters gracing my net and bringing to a close a challenging but ultimately successful afternoon's perching.

Of all the fish that swim in British waters, the perch is my favourite by far and any time spent in their pursuit is a pleasure. The first fish I ever caught was a perch, and I have been fortunate in recent years to capture a good number of them to a size that my boyhood self would have thought impossible, but for me the act of fishing for them is just as satisfying as their actual capture, as are the methods I choose to employ while chasing them. I love the iconic shape of the brightly painted round bodied perch bob floats under which my baits are suspended, the vintage rods and reels that are my weapons of choice, and the ambience and sense of mystery that surrounds a good perch lake. For as long as I'm fit and able and for as many years as the good Lord spares me, I strongly suspect that perch will remain my number one quarry and will continue to be the inspiration for much of my idle dreaming.

All things come to those who (don't) wait ...

“Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.”

Sometimes the planning of a thing is better than the doing of it, and the anticipation more intense than its realisation. Conversely, there are times when you simply can't wait, and the urge grows and grows and you just have to jump on in. I had planned to start my perch fishing in September or October, but by mid August I could bide my time no longer, and the search for big sergeants that will dominate my autumn and winter fish bothering activity was brought forward. I'm not arguing with Winnie the Pooh; he makes a valid point, but when all is said and done he's a bear and I'm a man, and sometime's a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

I couldn't spare a whole day, and only had an afternoon to play with, but at midday I snapped the lid of my laptop shut, told the Church of England that it could manage for a few hours without me, and loaded a split cane rod, ancient centre pin, and a modicum of tackle into the car and headed off to meet Pete at our favourite perch lake. If you had to choose any time of the day to pursue perch you probably wouldn't choose lunchtime through to mid afternoon, but instead would opt for first light or early evening, but beggars can't be choosers, and whenever your bait (in this case a prawn on a barbless size 12) is in the water you've got a chance.

I got off to a brisk start, catching half a dozen small perch of about 4 ounces, before the first decent fish of the afternoon put in an appearance, a vision of scarlet finned stripy loveliness of probably just over a pound in weight. The fishing slowed and the sun shone far brighter than is normally conducive for catching perch, but in the absence of further perch I was kept busily distracted by a chunky rogue F1 and a rather splendid ide, both of whom showed a preference for prawns.

Pete, who is normally an accomplished catcher of perch, had been struggling for bites, but eventually he found himself attached to an indignant perch which gave him a decent tussle, trying to find sanctuary in the reed stems before finally seeing Pete's side of the argument and succumbing to the folds of his landing net. The fish when viewed on the bank looked to be a similar size to the one I'd caught earlier.

With the lake languid and languorous of mood we continued to drip in the loose feed, partly as the result of years of accumulated habit and partly because "you never know" but, in all honesty, without a great sense of optimism when somewhat unexpectedly my perch bob float began to behave in the manner its name suggested it should and following a few trembles and bobs it was pulled decisively under the lake's surface. My strike met solid resistance and after a spirited  fight that probably lasted two or three minutes the biggest perch of the day was safely ensconced in the net. This time we subjected the fish to the indignity of the weigh sling, as I always weigh any perch that I suspect of being a 2 pounder, although in the event the fish was slightly under, coming in at a very respectable 1 pound and 14 ounces.

We fished on for a further hour in which Pete caught a succession of small perch and a couple of rudd, before we called time and packed up at a leisurely pace. It hadn't been the easiest of sessions, but with three nice perch banked between the two of us we were up and running and the die had been cast- it will be perch all the way for me from now until Christmas, and far too much of my time when not on the bank will be idled away dreaming of perch and hatching plans for their downfall. I am, I confess, hopelessly addicted to large stripy fish with red fins and spiky dorsals but, as I frequently feel the need to tell my wife, there are worse things for a man to be addicted to. 

Being Peter at fifty three

If your predilection, like that of The Kinks, is to laze on a sunny afternoon in the summertime, then there's no more pleasant way to satisfy the urge than while wielding a fishing rod, and so it was that I finished work early and made for the lake where I was to meet my friend and often fishing partner, Roger and his son Ben. It's rare that the choice of fishing venue is a response to the question "how small are the fish there?", but such was the case in this instance. A while ago a friend had gifted me a sweet little 10 foot split cane float rod, a delicate tool which I instantly fell in love with, but owing its existence to an era when fish were, on average, far smaller than today, care would need to be taken when working out where to give it its maiden outing in my ownership. I opted for a diminutive commercial pond liberally stocked with small fish of a myriad of species, and chose to match the rod with a Mitchell 304, which struck me as exactly the kind of combination that Peter Crabtree might have elected to employ, resplendent in short trousers, sports jacket and school cap while accompanying his pipe smoking father on one of their angling adventures.

The burnished bronze afternoon sun enveloped me in its embrace, its warmth on my skin transporting me back to the long summer holidays of my own boyhood, much of which were also spent engaged in piscatorial pursuits. Summer angling is not only for me a casually indulged in compensatory reward for the serious and dogged pursuit of specimen perch that marks my Autumn and Winter activity, but also serves as a portal to the 1980's and an adolescent version of me, then as now leant forward with eyes squinting and concentrating on the small orange dot protruding the water's surface, and filled with the "any minute now" hope and optimism that is angling's gift to those who fall under its spell.  

Roger, Ben, and I set up in adjacent swims, and dropped our floats into the margins with a gentle pendulum type swing, and waited for them to submerge at the pull of a fish. The wait was not demanding of much patience and before long we were each bringing our first fish of the afternoon to the bank. Loose-feeding maggots and fishing close in, soon saw us amassing a good number of fish, but more pleasing than the growing total was the catholic variety of species that were being drawn over the net or swung to hand. F1's (my least favourite of all fish) predominated, but roach, rudd, bream, ide, mirror carp, crucians, gudgeon and perch also took it in turns to delight, each exquisite in its unique beauty.

The light cane rod performed admirably, with any fish in excess of a quarter of a pound being netted as a precaution to preserve its delicate tip, and as is so often the case when fishing, the afternoon proved to be the antidote to the stresses, strains and busyness of 21st Century life. A combine harvester in the field behind the lake moved up and down in ponderous straight lines, and the gentle sound of cattle lowing carried on the breeze.

My fishing began in the springtime of my life as a 13 year old at a time when I had not yet quite been disavowed of the child's ability to wonder, and now in the early autumn of my years, a summer's day spent chasing fish in pleasant surroundings can once again instill in me (if only temporarily) the ability to find myself lost in wonder, awed at the beauty of creation, and stilled by the sights and sounds of the English countryside.  While the steady procession of F1's would have been an alien sight to the Crabtrees, our tackle and methods would have been familiar and I rather hope they would have approved of the leisurely way we set about our business. There are few better feelings than that of "being Peter " at 53.

Catching carp in the setting sun

 

"If there is magic in this planet it is contained in water" wrote the anthropologist Loren Eisley, who was once described as the "modern Thoreau." Whether Eisley deserved such an ascription I'm not qualified to judge, but having enjoyed two magical evenings at the Club Lake in the last few days, I certainly agree with his premise.

Both were spent in the company of my friend Roger, the first with another friend, David also joining us on the bank, and each of the evenings encapsulated summer evening fishing at its best. The fish were compliant, small carp that almost seemed to form orderly queues behind our floats so desperate did they appear to make our acquaintance, and the grass, trees and foliage that surround the lake wore their livery of emeralds, sages, and jades with flamboyant panache. 

Roger and I always elect to deploy vintage tackle as our weapons of choice at every opportunity when the situation allows (and sometimes when it doesn't- both of us have redefined the notion of split cane and experienced that sickening sound of the wooden fibres shattering and a prized possession becoming kindling!), and on the first evening we both used cane rods (mine an Allcocks Wizard, Roger's one made by the Steadfast company), while on the second Roger persisted with his cane rod, while I gave a first outing of the season to an ancient glass fibre rod manufactured by the now defunct ET Barlows of Thames Ditton. David, our partner on the first evening, eschews our romantic attachments to all things piscatorially ancient, and pragmatically opted for carbon.

The musical score that accompanies the angling activity are the sounds of birdsong and bees buzzing, the former rarely visible but gently audible, the latter very visible in their yellow and black striped rugby shirts, their constant activity and relentless endeavour the antithesis of the somniferous summer evening. The sunsets that signify that the time to pack up and return to our wives and domesticity is almost upon us shift their hue from vibrant, iridescent oranges and pinks to more muted dusky heathers and purples before conceding the inevitable victory to night time darkness.

William Wordsworth was of the opinion that "a lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable", while my take on things, although lacking the poetic grace and less profound than his, is that if you're lucky enough to spend an evening by the lake, you're lucky enough. As others have sometimes remarked I'm easily pleased, and for me spending the cool of the day being led by still waters is to walk  a path that leads to contentment and refreshing of the soul.

Reflections on a sonnet

 

I love a good sonnet. Reading one, that is, not writing one. I have on a number of occasions tried to put pen to paper and give birth to a sonnet of my own, but have never been successful in resolving the tension between form and imagery to my satisfaction. I find the formula of quatrains, alternate rhyming lines, and stressed and unstressed syllables constricts my use of words, and am forced to admit that, although a lover of poetry, I am, sadly, no poet. My experience of fly fishing has been similar- the juxtaposition of fluidity and artistry with the metronomic rhythm of casting was too hard a thing for me to master. I tried twice, caught three rainbows, suffered innumerable casting disasters and returned to taking permanent refuge in my known world of coarse fishing!

All of which is a preamble to sharing with you the thoughts that a recent rereading of Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare (the playwright and poet, not the tackle manufacturer!) evoked in me. It is a strange malady which afflicts me, but I have a tendency to view all kinds of non angling related things through a piscatorial lens, and so it was in this instance.

For those unfamiliar with the poem, sonnet 73 has the poet contemplating his own mortality in the autumn of his years, and eavesdrops on his attempts to pass on to a younger friend something of the impermanent and transitory nature of life and existence. One of the attractions of poetry is the way in which it draws the reader in, and in a manner that avoids feeling egocentric inserts the reader him or herself into the poem, and so it was that the poet's observations around aging began to connect with my own.

In my early 50's, I am far from my dotage, but am conscious that I am in the process of gently transitioning from the late summer to the early autumn of my life as time continues its inexorable passage. I have for long been aware that I fish as much to capture memories as I do to capture the fish themselves, and realise that a time will come when the memories I make will be less for my benefit and more for those with whom I make them. Both of my children are now grown up, but the memories I made while fishing with them as youngsters will live with them for longer than they will with me. Similarly, my circle of fishing friends includes those both younger and older than I, and the memories that we create become the stories that we retell, and one day there will be one less person around the fire, and the stories in which I feature will belong to those who remain.

As a firm believer in life beyond the grave, with a worldview that chooses to locate the cramped quarters of time within the wide open spaces of eternity, none of this perplexes me overmuch, but does induce a mild state of melancholy, although nothing approaching the pathos that pervades sonnet number 73. I find myself once again drawn to the written word, although this time not to poetry but to prose, and the closing words of Norman Maclean's classic novella, A River Runs through it, as the narrator now an old man reflects on those who have enriched his life but who have now passed from time to eternity and observes : "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the raindrops are the words, and some of the words are theirs." 

I am happy to both be a "word" in the stories of others and to accept the gift that is their being a "word" in mine. And so, I grab my rod, reel, and net, and make for the door intent on creating memories of which I am temporary custodian but not sole owner.