"There's more to fishing than catching fish" ....... An old saying that I reckon is worth quoting
It's funny how our fishing evolves, we enjoy the moment of catching our first fish, next perhaps is that day of catching more than one, then we might dream of catching numbers, say half a dozen, or ten, or twenty! Thoughts might then move on to a big one, which can of course lead to personal bests and the search to better them. What about species, yes I've caught a few trout, but can I catch a Sea Trout, Salmon and Pike ..... we can find ourselves hooked on the need to tick boxes. Tactics and locations can come into play in this journey too, can I catch them on dries, oh for a day on that beat on the Dee, could I fish a full season with just these six flies? The journey is never ending!
Care must be taken with ones thoughts, something that does not appeal today may well turn out to be a future passion. Knocking somebody else's sport because it doesn't fit in with our own personal journey is a very easy mistake to make, I've been there myself! Back in the early 90s I can remember reading the magazines and looking at the photos of folk holding up large, not very pretty Rainbows which they'd apparently caught on what I thought were not the bonniest of flies, how could catching a stocked Rainbow with an Orange Fritz compare with a nice Brown on an Adams. I didn't want to go there and frequently said so to my friends. Then, one dour evening on the river, my friends decided to pack it in and head up to a local stocked fishery for some sport. I said that I would just head home and they knew that I didn't like "stocky bashing", but after a lot of badgering about being out with friends and being a grumpy purist "F.....", I gave in and joined them. The trout were rising when we got there, but what would I do, I didn't have any of those Fritz flies, or Cats Whiskers and I felt totally out of place! My rod was still set up with my river dries, so I decided to cast these to the rises. I had a great time with a dry Adams and Sedge tempting numerous trout, this almost felt like "proper fishing" and was actually quite enjoyable
........... and that specific evening was probably the point that lead me to running my own stocked trout fishery for more than ten years! What a turnaround
I've come to realise, that for me, it is all about being on the water, or simply being out there. I've enjoyed a few evenings on the river with Sandy recently, Sandy has a knack for not picking the best days for this and it has usually poured with rain
He is patient, I take a while to get kitted out and get my waders on, as I lack that urge to get started and we enjoy the walk in to the beat as there are usually deer, otters and the like to be seen. On our last trip we moved slowly up the beat searching the water for rises, just how we were going to spot fish in the heavy rain I'm not sure, but we went through the motions chatting along the way. Having not seen a fish, we decided to sit on the bank at a spot that has usually been productive and wait for them to come on. We sat chatting away for a good while and saw no signs of any fish, but then spotted another angler further down our bank, slowly working his way towards us. When the angler had covered the water a couple of pools below he then wandered up the bank, it turned out we both knew him and hadn't seen him for a while, so he sat down and joined us for a chat. After a while we invited him to fish through the pool and we wandered back down the beat. We spotted a rising fish at last and once we'd studied it for a while I nodded at Sandy to wade in and have a go as he likes this particular spot, I continued downstream to a couple of known lies and sat and watched them for a while, but saw nothing rise. The rain was getting heavy now and the light had gone, I heard Sandy coming through the growth behind me and we decided it obviously wasn't going to happen that evening and that it was time to head back to the car. We chatted all the way back as usual and commented about how it had been a most enjoyable evening on the river. I realised when I got home and after a cuppa to warm me up, that I didn't have a single cast that evening ...... but yes, I had thoroughly enjoyed my fishing!
Looking forward to the next one!
Mike