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.