Fishing with friends

CS Lewis, author of the Narnia stories which captivated my childhood imagination once observed that "friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another 'What? You too? I thought that no one else did that.' " On meeting and getting to know other anglers, it has been a great relief to discover that I'm far from being the only middle aged man who still gets excited the night before a fishing trip, and that there are other men with families, mortgages and responsible jobs who daydream about lakes, rivers, ponds and fish, and for whom fishing is their "go to" default setting when their minds begin to wander. Over the decades of my angling life I have been blessed with many friendships that have enriched my time spent in pursuit of fish, and among that vast crowd of friends past and present, are numbered fellow members of the Christian Anglers group to which I belong. Nationally, the group is a network of around a hundred members linked by their commonly owned and jointly held passions for both their fishing and their faith, and today eight of us had arranged to spend a day fishing together in the Spring sun. Fishing, in common with every hobby, has its own lexicon of aphorisms, clichés and sayings, many of which focus on the fact that there is far more to angling than simply the catching of fish, and days like today prove the truism true, and so rather than racing to the lakeside to set up our tackle in a hurry of frenzied anticipation, we met first for a leisurely breakfast, cooked for us by Mark, the fishery owner.

Friendships renewed and replete with sausages, bacon and eggs we strolled in leisurely fashion down to the lake and selected our fishing pitches. In the few weeks since I'd last fished, Spring had well and truly sprung, and the once bare trees were now decorated in shades of pink, white or green, their hues retelling the annual story of  fecundity, possibility and the beginnings of new life.

While some members were busy setting up Method feeders and bite alarms my approach, as ever, was simplicity itself, a small bodied quill waggler fished on the bottom with a couple of maggots on a size 18 hook. A few balls of groundbait were introduced to prime the swim, followed by maggots being loose-fed sparingly at frequent intervals. An unseen chiffchaff gave notice of its presence by singing its name aloud, joining its voice with the various other warbles, chirrups and cheeps of the voluble avian choir. The weather was mild and the water troubled only by the merest of ripples, although sadly my float was similarly untroubled as it protruded above the lake's flat surface. Eventually it sunk from sight on a few occasions, the culprit turning out to be either a roach or rudd, beautiful in appearance, but all in the 4-8oz category, with the exception of my largest fish of the day, a plucky little perch of perhaps three quarters of a pound. 

My fellow piscators were also struggling, David caught the day's only carp, a handsome mirror of about 7 pounds (which resulted from his only bite) while Loz and Garry fared best, with both of them registering a reasonable net of roach and rudd. (Garry's being displayed in the photo below) Only one of our number blanked but it was a day when every fish caught was hard earned. 

However, despite the fish doing their best to remind us that "fishing" and "catching" aren't always synonymous everyone remained in high spirits, enjoying the rejuvenating properties of a day in the outdoors and time spent together. Loz made a nuisance of himself sneaking a life-sized model of a heron into people's swims when they weren't looking (as if there were any need to make the fishing harder than it already was!) and bank walking and chatting were as much a part of the day as staring at floats that resolutely refused to slide out of view.

All too soon the day was over, goodbyes were spoken, and tackle loaded into cars for the return trip to reality. Another of angling's well known aphorisms posits the thought that "a bad day's fishing is better than a good day at work." I'm inclined to agree, but don't tell my Bishop!