Perhaps this should be better entitled The Barbel That Saved Me. My pike failure on the Wye that I mentioned is neither here nor there. Of course, there is no triumph without tears, and who wants a prize easily won? Achievement only comes from hard work.
No. In the big scheme of things life can just wear you down from time to time. I’m not alone. I’m not whining. I appreciate my good fortune. Yet, we are encouraged to “open up” these days, and for many of us the past two years have been tough and are getting tougher. It is hard for virtually all of us to shrug the endless setbacks aside, but there is an answer. Fishing.
December 16th. I had been at work, grinding words and thoughts out, feeling I was getting nowhere. I took a walk in the garden to refresh the bird feeders and I realised that at 1.00pm, the day was spring-like mild. The river? A December barbel? Why not, I wondered? Why don’t I do this barbel thing for myself I wondered? Why should I always guide, and why don’t I at least try for myself just for once, I asked myself? I even had a stab of guilt! At my age! Why on earth should I not enjoy a possible barbel session whilst there is breath in my body?
The river was fifteen minutes away, and the light and the peace and the seeping smell of water were enough to lift the clouds from my aching mind. Just to sit and watch and think were enough excitements for me but, lo and behold, the rod tip went round and I was fighting a silver-sided chub that ran me ragged, like only a five pounder can do. Such was the commotion that I felt any chance of a barbel had been lost but, hey, I mused, why rush back to the torment and stress life has become? No rush, I told myself. Let’s rewind the past thirty years of my life and go back to a more innocent self, a time when I could idle an afternoon away.
Now I am touch legering so that I can watch everything around me. There’s a gentle pressure on my finger tips that is easing that pressure on my mind that I desperately want and need to escape from. What a wonderful world I am thinking. A mouse scuttling past. Two buzzards catching the last light. Swans eating a crop on the far bank. A salmon crashing mid-stream and a violent pull on my finger. Has a seven pound barbel ever fought harder? Has success ever been sweeter?
I photograph the fish on the dead reeds, just a snap really. No posturing. No posing. Just a memento of a fish that has just saved me in a very real way. I’m actually laughing as I drive home. Can anyone who isn’t an angler understand a word of this? If there is a better medicine than a December barbel, then I have yet to be prescribed it.
