Success, failure and chasing fish

There is a myth that Vicars are universally wise, and that when presented with a problem, whether a personal and pastoral one forged in the fires of real life suffering or a hypothetical philosophical, or theological one, after a few seconds of thought and earnest chin stroking words saturated with insight and profundity will fall from their lips. I am living proof that this is not the case. My best efforts at gravitas usually disappoint, and while I firmly believe that there is a satisfactory "God-shaped" answer to any question, I often struggle to find that answer, much less to articulate it. However, of one thing I am certain: once rescued from the tyranny of chasing success, it is impossible to fail at fishing.

Here's what I mean: as long as enjoyment isn't dependant simply on fish caught or targets achieved (unless that target is simply to have fun) then failure ceases to exist as a concept because of the multi-faceted nature of any fishing trip.

For starters, there's the natural beauty which surrounds us as anglers, and into which we insert ourselves, when fishing. The ripples and reflections, the backdrops of trees, woods and fields, the changing of the seasons, and the musical accompaniment of birdsong. Then there's the discernible slowing of pace, as the pressures that constitute so much of modern life recede and time seems to realign itself to the speed at which it passed in childhood, when minutes felt like hours, hours like days, days like weeks, and the first sixteen years of life seemed to last longer than all that has followed in the (in my case thirty seven) years that have followed them. Many times I've fished and lost all sense of time, with only the movement of the sun and the drawing in of darkness providing a clue to the fiction displayed on my watch. 

Further pleasure is derived from the tackle we use, in my case accentuated by the aesthetic pleasure of my self-imposed decision to almost exclusively use either genuine vintage tackle or (in the case of floats) traditionally styled equipment with a retro feel. The latter is, of course, merely my own choice, and perhaps to an extent an eccentric indulgence, but any angler's tackle box, whether they choose to follow the traditionalist's creed or the latest fashions in carp fishing, is an Aladdin's treasure trove of accessories and gadgets that almost demand to be regularly re-ordered and rationalised in their position in the box and fiddled with and fettled, adapted and improved. Every man becomes a boy again when faced with a tackle box full of accessories and the ephemera that we convince ourselves is indispensable for a day at the water's edge.

Add to the above the angling company that we keep, and the notion that failure is a redundant concept for the angler continues to become more compelling. Over recent years I have realised that my angling is as much an exercise in creating memories as it is in capturing fish, and the pleasure of making those memories with good friends multiplies the sense of enjoyment. As I've grown older the friendships associated with my fishing have grown in importance, and I've had as much pleasure making modest catches with my closest angling associates as I have catching far more notable fish when on my own.

And then, finally, there are the fish themselves. Each of them, whether large or small, a thing of wonder and beauty in its own right and our protagonists in the game of underwater chess that holds us spellbound and enthralled. Sometimes we catch them in prodigious numbers, sometimes to great size, sometimes we only succeed in fooling tiddlers, and at times they keep us humble and aware of our fallibility by eluding capture altogether, while always maintaining the power to keep us trapped in our happy addiction.

And so I return to my opening premise. If fishing is understood in holistic terms failure is an impossibility because the "doing of the thing" is its own reward, and fishing contains too many charms to simply be reduced to being viewed through the lens of fish caught. I gave up playing competitive Saturday league football at the age of 30, and I sometimes miss it, but mostly can live very happily without the smell of liniment, the banter of the changing room, the sliding tackles, goals, and half-time orange slice and cigarette, but if anyone were to deprive me of my fishing I really wonder how I would cope. It's been a fortnight since I last fished ..... it's been too long.