I’ve been meaning to sit down and write this piece for a long time now but, by the very nature of the subject and, perhaps more importantly, the very personal nature of the subject, it’s not an easy one to deal with. However whilst everyone else is enjoying Christmas and I’m the ‘sad’ one who treats it as ‘just another day’ I thought it was probably opportune to at least make a start to address the issue; if nothing else it should at least make for some entertainment on the FM forum until the New Year and that will, at least, be a pleasant nice change from the rights (or otherwise) of canoeists and of the close season exploits of Bob James…
After a long period of not enjoying my fishing I’m slowly, very slowly, beginning to come through the other side of what was a great depression, a time when I would dread having to get my tackle ready, when I would hate having to set the alarm for an early wake up and when I would much rather be doing almost anything other than going fishing. I hated it with a passion.
Even now I’d much rather be working than fishing, I’m certainly happier watching someone else fish than fishing myself and fishing still doesn’t rank in my top ten ‘hobbies’ but I’m getting there and I did actually manage to go fishing in the past twelve months – albeit sea fishing – and, what is more, I loved it!
Many question how such a passion, the love of your life, can turn into such a nightmare but you only have to look at the divorce courts to see how a love that once burned so brightly can end in acrimony and hate and so it can be with any facet of your life. I’ve never been through divorce but angling and I have been through a long period of separation and only now are we beginning to even contemplate becoming bedfellows again.
Everyone who loves their fishing as a hobby, or as an escape from work/home/stress etc, finds it difficult to comprehend my current situation but the thing people fail to realise is that ever since I left university – some 20 years plus ago now – angling has been the work, home and stress from which I have had no, or little, escape.
Angling is the only job I have ever had and for a very long time it was the only hobby I had too; all of my friends were anglers, most of my girlfriends were anglers too and I only ever moved in angling circles. Fishing at work, fishing at rest, fishing at play; you can only have so much of a good thing…
Work is work be it fishing or not and anyone reading this who has worked in the same industry all of their life, day in day out, without any form of escape – even after ‘working’ hours – will, perhaps begin to see where I am coming from. It makes me smile when people say they would love to fish full time – I’ve never actually done that, but I’ve been a full time angler (there’s a big difference), and believe me you really wouldn’t want to fish full time for any length of time – there is a big world and a life out there of which angling is but a very small part.
I managed to keep my enthusiasm for angling going when many other industry professionals had long since given up, or eased off, their fishing but the final straw eventually came with my appointment as the ‘Angling Adventures’ feature writer in Angler’s Mail.
‘Adventures’: a weekly four-pager to deliver describing, both in words and high quality self-taken images, a single fishing session. No matter how dire the conditions, how desperate the fishing, how sick you are, you MUST catch week in, week out without fail. No pressure there then…
Well actually no, at the end of the day fishing is easy (we have a brain the size of a small melon, they have a brain the size of a small peanut – there is only ever ultimately going to be one winner) so it is always possible to catch – the problem for me was not so much the catching, more the not being able to fish where, or for what, I wanted to catch.
I love targeting, and catching, big fish and even if I do say so myself I’m pretty damn good at it. ‘Adventures’ meant I had to fish for bites – sure big fish, some very big fish, cropped up along the way – but I had first and foremost to catch ‘something’, ‘anything’ and that often jeopardised my chances of catching the fish that I really wanted to catch. It meant I was not able to target a specific venue either, no getting to know a lake or section or river, a different venue to fish each and every week. Variety in your fishing is great, and I recommend everyone has it, but every session on a different fishery…
It got to the stage where I simply looked to get it all over and done with as quickly as possible and I had more than a few strange looks and comments from angling friends and companions when I would go fishing, catch a ‘reasonable’ fish first chuck – or at least soon after arriving – and then, rather than stay on and keep fishing for a better one, or for the pure enjoyment I would pack up and go straight home. Read back through most of my old columns and you will see I mostly only ever caught one fish in a session – main reason not so much the conditions or my inability to produce another bite but rather as soon as I had caught one I usually legged it!
Again many fail to understand this concept but why on earth would I want to ‘stay at work’ once I had ‘done my job’ for the day and had a chance to go home? If you are in your office or workplace and are told that you can go home as soon as you have completed a certain task would you hang about when you were done or would you get the hell out of there and enjoy some time off? Look at like that and you perhaps begin to see it all a little differently. Angling is no different to any other job, believe me – the same stresses and pressures – and usually for a lot less reward!
Ok so there were times when it was great: overseas ‘Adventures’ were largely good with India, Thailand etc stunning but even there it was a case of only being able to relax when the job was done: only once the fish was/were caught, the images taken and the words written could you relax and begin to enjoy the experience and you only had a short period of time in which to do it. If it didn’t happen, if things went wrong, it was just as tough as a bad day back home, albeit usually (but not always) in better weather conditions!
I remember the torture of days trying to catch giant stingray from flooded, weed-filled and largely unfishable Thai rivers, chasing across the country from location to location without the hope of a fish. I remember sitting it out in extreme gales on vast Spanish lakes waiting for comizo barbel which could have been literally miles away. The adrenaline rush when (and if) it finally came good is what drove me as much as the satisfaction of having done my job well; and boy what a rush!
In the examples above the first stingray came mid-way through the stay following a detour in pursuit of other species to fill the pages just in case and the comizo arrived, out of the blue literally as the car to the airport was arriving on the final morning…Both treasured memories now – but at the time they were desperate!
The other joy of overseas trips is that there was little to do in the way of preparation and that is one of the key reasons I tend not to fish now; it’s all too much like hard work! For an overseas trip it was (and is) simply a case of getting the camera equipment sorted and packing a bag with a few changes of clothes; no tackle to sort, no bait to prep, no venue research to do just arrive, meet up with the fishery owner/guide and fish.
Getting ready to go fishing is one of my real nightmares these days; it just takes far too long. If I was a single species angler it would not perhaps be too bad as there would only be one set of kit but fishing, as I do, for just about every species I have tackle – and bait – for all of them. As much as I have separate tackle boxes for every different species I fish for it is still a massive challenge sorting through dozens and dozens of rods and reels, hundreds of spools of line, racks of leads and feeders, trays and trays of hooks, shelf upon shelf of accessories, cupboards full of bags and rucksacks and, literally, a shed full of bait.
To make it worse my tackle room is a converted loft so it all has to come down (and go back up) both a steep flight of stairs and a ladder…A bare minimum of two to three hours is what it takes me to get properly ready for a fishing trip…I’d much rather be doing something else – anything else!
These days the fishing which appeals to me more and more is the light roving session with a bag of lures. Rod, reel, net, bag of lures; ready in minutes – job done! Mind you there is rack upon rack and box after box of lures in every action and pattern to sort through…
I desperately need to re-discover the pure pleasure of going fishing again – and I shall. Outside ‘work’ sessions which I still fish when I have to test new kit etc I have only coarse fished for ‘pleasure’ some three or four times in the past three years but one of those, in the company of Bob James, was a total delight.
We sat side by side on the river (it was open season folks…) with the kettle between us putting the world to rights just getting up every few minutes to play a chub or barbel – in fact there were far too many fish, they spoiled the flow of the conversation, but the social aspect was a joy and I was under no pressure to write about or photograph the session either. It is that social element which will ultimately get me back into fishing and I’m in the process of lining up a few good friends to ‘make’ me get out and fish with them in 2013. I shall probably resist and find excuse after excuse but (and you know who you are Will, Steve, Adrian, Nelly and Bob…) keep nagging me and I’ll eventually give in…
To finish off with a bit of controversy and really get that forum buzzing there is also a new issue creeping into my fishing and that is part of my lifestyle which has more than a bit of the ‘Good Life’ to it. I’m an unlikely Tom Good I know and I’ve not got a cow in the back garden (yet) but growing, rearing, foraging and cooking are real passions and I particularly like to eat fish; one of the reasons why I enjoy sea fishing more and more. As well as sea fish I have eaten carp, pike, perch, zander etc and have no issue whatsoever with taking them home for the pot when caught legally from a public water… That aspect alone could just get me back into my fishing!
That’s it for this year; whatever you are doing this 25 December have a good one!
