Fathers and sons

The lake is beginning to look quite lovely. In another couple of months it will be at its high summer best, lush, green and verdant, the water's surface dotted with lily pads and the trees groaning under the weight of their foliage. I'm inordinately fond of the Club Lake, although it isn't a venue to catch big fish from (although I haven't given up on the idea that the winter capture of a two pound perch might be a distinct possibility), but rather a place you visit for its peace and tranquility, and immaculately conditioned smaller fish. The carp (of which there are too many) average about a pound or so in weight, the rudd are of reasonable size but chiefly significant for their colour and beauty, and the whole experience is a leisurely antidote to the hectic ant-like scurrying that constitutes most aspects of modern life. The Club Lake is fishing that's good for the soul.

We had celebrated my 53rd birthday slightly prematurely, with weekend gatherings in both my own garden and that of my parents-in-law, each restricted to just six people as is the legal limit in these plague-aware days, but on my birthday itself I switched my computer off at 3:00pm, turned my back on my lengthy work "to do" list, and accompanied by my son, James,  headed off for the Club Lake. While fishing is not for him the passion that it is for me (slamming into people on a rugby pitch is what gets his heart racing faster), he has been an angler since the age of three, and usually manages to catch as many or more fish than I do. Some of my most prized photos are of him fishing as a small child, complete with the "old man's cap" that he insisted on purchasing from a charity shop.

Now almost twenty one, he's turned into a fine young man and sometime whisky drinking partner. Parenthood may be the ultimate game of roulette, with children from good and loving families going "off the rails", and the whole thing seeming like a game of trial, error, and random chance, but whether by luck or judgement or merely God's good providence, my wife and I have been blessed to have emerged from the intensive "hands on" years of parenting with a grown up daughter and son to be proud of, and I have full trust in both of them that when the time comes to pick a Care Home for me that they'll choose wisely and well!

I always enjoy the two minute walk from the car park to the lake, taking pleasure in that moment when it appears in its small hollow, trees standing sentinel-like along its edges, and the sun dancing on and dappling its surface. We elected to share a swim, knowing that the sacrifice in terms of efficiency and the halving of the number of fish we each stood to catch would be more than compensated by the conversation and company. As is our usual practice, we were both using centre pin reels, mine matched with a split cane rod lovingly refurbished by my Devonian friend Michael, with James employing a modern carbon float rod.

We fished for three hours as afternoon gave way to evening, and the fish proved to be in an  accommodating and compliant mood, although not as extravagantly so as is sometimes the case. Tactics were simple, with float-fished sweetcorn being all that was required to provoke a steady stream of mostly carp to join us on the bank before being slipped back into their watery abode. Double hook-ups were common, and the evening proved to be the perfect way to round off the marking of my entering my 54th year of existence. 

The American novelist James Baldwin once said that "if the relationship between father and son could be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons." I think I know what he meant.