To celebrate the new season, and as part of our ‘Rivers Month’ celebrations, we asked the great and good of FishingMagic (or should that be the good, the bad and the ugly…) to say a few words on their hopes, thoughts and aspirations for the months ahead. And who better to start than Kevin Perkins who looks at the glorious sixteenth in his own inimitable style…
Well, it’s coming round to ‘that’ time of the year again. For those of us of a certain age, it is still a welcome and indeed longed for date that heralds the start of the fishing season proper. For us old hands, it was probably as exciting as Xmas Eve is to toddlers, the build up and anticipation usually far exceeding the actual outcome. Although I am betting we can all relate to a fair few other situations where this happens to us, even now…
Back in my early teen years where the blanket shutdown was rigorously enforced, March 14 loomed as a black day indeed. For someone like me who was a confirmed fishing fanatic, the three month lay-off was absolute purgatory. Even the two weeks until the 01 April trout fishing season kicked off seemed to consist of 40 hour days, not that I was actually permitted to go trout fishing.
There was a chalk stream within cycling distance of my home, and it certainly did contain trout. But should I have been caught trying to catch said spotty inhabitants with a free-lined worm rather than the proscribed dry fly I may not have been welcomed with open arms by the brotherhood of the angle that controlled said exclusive beat.
So, other than a spot of poaching, the only other option to three months of overhauling and honing tackle, not difficult when you only have one rod, one reel, and all of your other ‘bits’ fitted into an Oxo tin) was to move to Cornwall. For some reason my parents were reluctant to consider a 200 mile relocation. Apparently the lack of a close season in that county at that time was not considered sufficient grounds to warrant the upheaval of the entire family just so that I could go fishing.
A bit mean, I thought. I know It meant selling the house, re-mortgaging, my parents giving up stable jobs, new schools for me and my siblings, and my dad’s insistence that he wasn’t going ‘tin mining or cabbage picking’ those being the only two careers available in Cornwall, according to him. And my begging to go on holiday in Yorkshire in the first two weeks of June also received short shrift. Again, dragging us kids out of school and paying for two weeks holiday just so I could go fishing as the Yorkshire season started on 01 June was not deemed reason enough. It’s no wonder I think I had a deprived childhood…
Anyway, that was a long (long) time ago, and I’m over all that now. Whilst June 16 still resonates with me, I am more of a lure fisherman these days and the traditionalist in me looks forward to 01 October when pike fishing starts. Now I know that this is not a date set in tablets of stone, but somehow, I just don’t feel comfortable fishing for pike until autumn is upon us. I have enjoyed some glorious ‘Indian summers’ when you can fish in shirtsleeves, but the calendar still tells me that the time is right.
But last October, it didn’t happen for me. New spools of braid are still sitting inside the top of my lure box waiting to be spooled up, and the rest of my gear has lain untouched, gathering cobwebs. At the beginning of October, I was involved in a quite serious traffic accident which left me having two long metal plates and seventeen bolts holding my right leg together. It appeared the other driver did not stop, so I could not make any insurance claim, and being immobilized for two months meant I didn’t get paid either.
You would think that sitting with your leg propped up for weeks on end would give you plenty of time to look forward getting out again, and act as a spur to speed you recovery. Someone like me could also have used all that spare time to knock up plenty of articles for FM, but that didn’t happen either. I lost count of the times I opened up my laptop and just ended up staring at a blank screen. There were times when I began to doubt that I even wanted to go fishing again, indeed I had even started to make lists of my gear in preparation for selling it all on eBay.
Those dark days have thankfully passed; maybe the impending new season has triggered something positive to look forward to in my subconscious. Indeed, if I needed something to qualify that feeling, just in the last week I have been out and about a lot and have driven over the Trent, Witham, Derwent, Aire, Gt. Ouse and Nene and they all look to be in fantastic condition, so I hope it all holds together for you river anglers.
For me, my first trip will be to a small tree lined pond quite local to me. I have a brand new, and as yet unused, lightweight float rod brought with part of the small inheritance left to me when my mother passed away recently. This will be teamed up with an equally virgin centre pin reel that was presented to me when I left my employers and relocated, so both items have a sentimental attachment. And yes, I will be using a red topped quill float, just to complete the ‘Crabtree-esque’ picture. The one thing that I won’t do is to go fishing on June 16 this year.
This also happens to be Father’s Day, and by coincidence is the anniversary of the day my own father died, Sunday 16 June 16.
He was the man who introduced me to fishing, took me places so that I could go fishing, and to his eternal credit, had absolutely no interest in the sport at all. In memory of this, and maybe out of a sense of respect, I won’t be out on that day…
Make sure you keep in touch with all of our Rivers Month celebrations and check out the thoughts of all of the FM regulars during the next couple of weeks…
