A day out with an old friend
I enjoyed a day’s fishing with an old friend last week, an angler I had not fished with for quite some time. I noticed that, unusually for him, he was using a nine foot rod and a six weight line. This was departure from his usual because he has always extolled the virtues of his expensive collection of big fly rods which range from nine and a half feet up to an eleven footer.
His faith had always been firmly pinned on long casting, getting out all his line and fishing for trout in areas where us mere mortals could never cast. I was curious to find out what had happened, why he had changed his fishing techniques and beliefs.
He confessed that two things, quite separately, had combined to change his ideas; a heart attack and boat fishing.
The effects of a heart condition
The heart attack struck suddenly and without warning; no previous history. This is a man of medium height and slim build, non smoker, sparing drinking and good lifestyle in terms of nutrition, work and leisure activities. He was not the usual candidate for a heart attack. However, he did suffered a severe attack but, fortunately, made an excellent recovery and was restored to a fairly good state of health after several months rehabilitation.
He resumed fishing and quickly noticed that after a short time his heart began to beat with a weird and irregular rhythm. He went back to his doctor and was thoroughly checked out and given a clean bill of health. Presumably the doctor thought it was all due to the excitement of the actual fishing. We’ve all experienced those rushes of adrenalin when a good fish takes the fly, followed by the anxiety of fighting a five pound rainbow and getting it safely to the net. It’s enough to make anyone’s heart pound strongly.
The same thing happened each time he went fishing; an unnerving, irregular heart beat within minutes of starting the session. He put up with it but remained worried until he went into his local tackle shop and got into conversation with the owner. The owner had heard similar accounts in the past and told him to scale down both his tackle and his efforts and see if it made any difference. The advice was taken and it worked like a charm. He began to use five and six weight rods and the symptoms disappeared. The stresses and strains of using heavy fishing tackle were to account for his heart beat problems.
Boat fishing
Not entirely convinced that his fishing would not suffer, he went boat fishing on a couple of occasions, literally to get to those parts of the water where the new, lighter rods and lines would not reach. By the third session afloat, a sudden realisation hit him. He was taking the boat out and finding that the fish were nearly always between the boat and bank rather than out in the middle of the big reservoir. In fact, he was fishing within three or four yards of the bank on many occasions – and catching good fish. If he had been bank fishing he was catching well within range of his lighter tackle.
The realisation gave him renewed confidence. He no longer pined for the big rods, he no longer tried to cast ‘to the horizon’ but was happy matching his skills to the water available to the smaller rod and line. Best of all, he was catching plenty of fish.
An unexpected catch
There’s nothing new about fishing in the margins. Trout fishermen generally recognise that there are many catchable fish close in and a quiet and careful exploration of the bankside water will often yield very good results. Last week, as well as my trip with the afore mentioned friend, I was also fishing at Cowpe reservoir on a windy, blustery morning with little sun. I gazed out over the discouraging expanse of Lancashire water for some minutes and, with not a sign of fish activity anywhere, my spirits dipped a little.
I tried one or two likely spots, got a couple of half-hearted ‘tugs’ and became more and more depressed. After about an hour I walked across the dam towards the tower. Half way across I considered a change of fly and decided to effect the change before arriving at my chosen fishing spot. I put my bag and net down on the ground and released my fly and tippet from the containing ring. I misjudged the flight of the fly in the wind and it blew out of my fingers and in to the water. I tipped the rod up to aerialise the fly again. Damn it! The fly was stuck in the stone work! No it was not! It was stuck in the mouth of a bonny five pound rainbow that did not realise for some seconds that it had a hook in its jaws.
The fly was only in the water for two or three seconds but long enough for this big fish to take it less than three feet away from me and without me even seeing it. I can’t claim that I caught the fish, only that I successfully landed it. It had been quietly browsing in barely twelve inches of water and it turned out to be the best fish I’ve netted this month. The sun wasn’t shining but the complexion of the days had changed dramatically.
