I have always thought of myself as a level-headed, fairly rational and sane sort of bloke. Until recently, that is. Every so often there comes an event which shatters the cosy world, derails the normal thought processes, and generally gives pause for thought.
One such happened recently – to me. I had originally intended to wait before putting pen to paper – until such time as I came back to earth and regained my faculties. I would talk about it as soon as my return to sanity was complete. Sadly however, it may never be so. I may spend the rest of my existence in some kind of mental limbo where paranoia rules, where fear of what horror may lurk round the corner takes possession of the once calm and rational mind.
So now is probably as good a time as any to tell the story.
A couple of years ago I was given the opportunity to spend a day on a noted chalkstream in the south of England, as the typical description goes. It was an extremely varied bit of water, with suitable habitat for all species: trout, grayling, roach, and of course chub. It was the prospect of chub, that former hate-object of the chalkstream game angler, which excited me most. In late February it was light enough to fish until five thirty. There was time to try a number of swims and rove around a bit. As ever on such rich waters, there was the chance of a really good one.
On arrival I tackled up with fairly stout float gear to cope with chub or anything else substantial which might happen along. A nice lump of breadflake was the offering I confidently thought they would go for. And in the event, I was proved right. I set off, with a light load and in a supremely optimistic frame of mind. Wandering upriver, I spent an hour on a couple of eddying swims noted for holding good fish. The result was two chub: one three, give or take an ounce, and one approaching four pounds. A good start, with the prospect of better still to come.
A few more swims failed to produce a single bite. The next near-bank eddy however quickly yielded a brown trout of around four pounds – a fish in superb condition, but not exactly what I had come for. So I decided to wander on and look for prospective swims. There were a few more back-eddy areas, but none seemed quite right. The only reward was one medium-sized grayling. Again, not quite the fish I wanted…
My upstream wander led me in due course to a bit of well-bushed bank. And beneath the bushes there curled a lovely current, the pace of which was just right for old Chevin. The water moved along at a steady pace along the margin; the surface was slightly broken and not at all boiling – a classic swim indeed. It fairly screamed chub at me. And as is so often the case, it was the kind of area most anglers would walk past without a second look. But not me! Practised and immersed as I am in the ways of chub, I decided quickly that I would prepare it all now: depth, feed and approach. I put in a handful or two of bread particles, and decided to return in an hour or so to put in more, before returning a third time to fish. Standing well back, I lowered the baitless tackle into the swim under the tip of the long rod and soon found the depth to be five feet or so. It also seemed likely that the bank was undercut – all perfect for chub, I reflected. I was beginning to feel something akin to a premonition of success. It was a feeling I have experienced but a few times in my angling career: that strange, irresistible sense something very special was about to happen. And sometimes it has actually worked out that way…
So I went off and fished a few other swims, with some success, until four thirty, the time I had mentally set aside for the great encounter.
The appointed time saw me feed the swim a little and lower the float tackle carefully into the head of that superb swim. The big, fat-tipped trotting float went downstream three times without incident. On the fourth trot, it suddenly halted for an instant before sailing away in no uncertain manner. A firm strike, and all went agreeably solid. With steady upwards pressure, the dead weight became live, then surfaced and thrashed momentarily. In that fleeting instant I had a glimpse of the blunt, breathtakingly huge head of a chub, the weight of which I hardly dared estimate. Then the fish simply powered away from me and planted itself somewhere in mid-river, immobile and heavy.
There was only one way to cope with this. I would have to move downstream and coax the fish towards me. Otherwise I had visions of perpetual stalemate, the huge beast simply sitting head on to the current like a big salmon and not yielding an inch. I would be found next day, rooted to the spot, rod at forty-five degrees, bent into that fish with grim determination, and probably covered in frost. So I began to take a few paces downriver, keeping the line taut and well clear of intervening bushes. How fortunate, it occurred to me, that I was using that fifteen-footer, what foresight I had exercised! It was just the job for steering around bankside growth…
So, convinced that my manoeuvre would shift that fish from its mid-river position, I continued. Then disaster struck. A large goose, which had been lurking unobserved a few feet from the near bank, suddenly caught sight of me, squawking loudly in blind panic. In that instant I was rendered immobile and helpless; I was filled with dread at what I could clearly see was about to happen.
And happen it most certainly did. Those cumbersome wings began to beat, shedding water droplets in apparent slow motion, but in reality with lightning speed; the uncomprehending, long avian head and neck craned resolutely skyward, and the whole ungainly creature went quickly airborne. Its trajectory was surer than the most deadly accurate heat-seeking missile. There was a hard slam on the rod, and my vision of horror suddenly became stark reality: I was in an instant now playing a beast which spent its existence above the surface of the water in place of one which lived below it. And that, as they say, was that.
The fish – of course – came off. The goose just flew on blindly after quickly breaking me, its panic-stricken squawks rending the peace of the late winter afternoon. Reeling in the flapping line, I added my own extremely loud, near-monosyllabic, and decidedly blue contribution to the general cacophony of distress.
So with this I have taken the first step to what I hope may one day be a full recovery. The telling has already eased the pain somewhat, but the full healing process may take forever. The possibility of a recurrence cannot be ruled out.
Even my sketchy knowledge of psychotherapy tells me that one day I will have to grit my teeth, return to that swim and endeavour to re-enact a close encounter with a huge specimen – this time of the fishy kind.
And I will have to win.
Until one of suitable size is safely in the net, weighed and photographed, preferably held by its proud, smiling captor, the nightmares will, I fear, keep returning.
Rod Sturdy
