The late Doug Larson, a Wisconsin based journalist who specialised in writing about outdoorsy matters, once wrote that "If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles." The man had a point. 2023 had been a year when, for me, fishing had been relegated to an only occasional activity due to a combination of factors around work and family life, but one of my resolutions for the New Year was that there would be no repeat of such a state of affairs in 2024. Far too often in our lives we allow the urgent to squeeze out the important, and while fishing takes its place behind both faith and family in my hierarchy of priorities, it occupies a pretty close third position. So it was that today, accompanied by my adult son (who doubles up as my favourite fishing partner) I visited a lake with which both of us are well acquainted and where we have fished together since he was just a boy. We had our first night fishing adventures here (see pictures below) and this was one of the lakes and ponds on which he cut his angling teeth and remains his favourite lake, more for reasons of nostalgia and shared memories, I suspect, than for the fish it offers which are often plentiful but rarely of particular noteworthiness in terms of size.
The day didn't get off to the best of starts, as the once innocent looking youngster in the photos above now works as a firefighter, and five minutes before his shift was due to end his crew received a call out to an incident which resulted in us arriving at the lake an hour and a half later than initially planned. We set up in a swim cacooned by the trees that line the lake's banks and prepared ourselves for what we hoped would be a day's fishing busy enough to indicate a modicum of success but relaxed enough to allow for good conversation - what one might aptly describe as an exercise in purposeful idling. As is our wont, I was employing a set-up that would not have disgraced the venerable Mr Crabtree, cane rod and ancient centrepin, while James opted for a carbon rod to pair with his own centre pin. Our floats were lowered into position in the margins in the hope that they would soon be being pulled beneath the lake's surface with pleasing regularity.
Our previous visits to this lake have more often than not resulted in large numbers of roach and rudd acquiescing to our baits, but today the fish were in reluctant mood and although we did catch roach, rudd, perch and gudgeon, we caught far fewer than anticipated and each fish was hard earned. The highlight of the day came when James struck into a fish that was clearly more substantial than its compatriots and a lively tussle resulted in him guiding a none too pleased but very handsome perch of a pound and a half into the waiting embrace of the net.
The sky remained clear, a visiting heron treated us to an impressive flying display, and our conversation was only occasionally interrupted by the capture of fish. By mid afternoon we were ready to call time on what had been a highly enjoyable exercise in proving the truism that "there's more to fishing than catching fish."
At some future point when my end draws near I will, doubtless, have some regrets but time spent fishing with my son will not be numbered among them. Here's hoping for many more years of fish, coffee, conversation, and adventures in idling together.
