Blog 10 (where did that lot come from?)- instead of just a-wishing
The title of this blog is a give-away – it’s an old song (I mean old, really old. So old it old when I was young and that ain’t yesterday!) I believe was sung by a duo of old, etc. singers from post-war America – not their war the other world thing part 2. They were called crooners, I never understood the term properly just that crooners were like the last generation pop stars, singing the same song and mumbling the words ( I nearly wrote lyrics but it sounded as if I knew what I was talking about.) and becoming famous, earning mega bucks and disappearing into obscurity all in one generation. One of the geezers sung about a white Christmas hardly original as in Canada I understand that they have white Christmases from September to April (guess what I haven’t got a clue truth be known – It just sounded good). I think the second singer was nick-named after a schoolbag used for carrying books. Either they were way in front of their time or the song appeared in a movie (remember movies – America, films UK) I just remember seeing people singing about when they were gone to – that said are you still here?
So where was this Xanadu, this haven of peace, this Shangri-la, this corner of paradise or (paraphrase) could this be heaven?
All the above can be found in most, local tributaries, I say that because it was in one of these that I made my first exploration.
I think you’ve guessed it – it’s ‘Fishing’.
How does it start local? Well other than Dad taking you out very early morning, sitting shivering on a river bank for hours on end, telling lies about the mysterious ‘one that got away’) during which the magnitude of the creature was expressed as being beyond belief, or you started like I did with a couple of mates, a 1/- fishing net and the obligatory jam jar with a string handle.
So armed with all this hi-tech equipment we would toddle off down to the local water course be it pond, stream or river in search of ‘the one that gets away’. Sounds like he going on hols. The targets of our ventures were of the species, minnow – very small freshwater fish, stickle-back (this species was particularly exciting as there are two varieties) either a three spine or ten spine. All the above are about an inch long (look it up) and weighed next to nothing, so with our trusty nets we caught loads but still no weight. So at the end of the days fishing (about 30 minutes) with cold wet feet – we wore sandals, couldn’t afford wellies, and socks and the sleeves on your mum’s hand knitted pullover doubled in size, we took our prizes home for all to admire, to be greeted with ‘you can’t keep them here, there’s too many in the jar, it’s cruel to keep them that way’ followed by the sound of said jam jar being discharged into the toilet, under the pretext that the water discharges back into the stream. If I knew then…
If our enthusiasm wasn’t diminished, as time moved on we progressed to a ROD and line, essential equipment for catching big(ger) fish. This piece of equipment involved things like poles, in my case bamboo garden canes. 3 of which connected to provide ‘the rod’. Until I was older I never understood why I had to tie my rod together when all the other lads just poked one piece into the next. Having said that, why was my fishing line tied onto the 3rd cane?
And when fishing with rod and line you use stuff called bait, which in my case was worms cut into pieces, whereas the others used their dinner, you know Spam (I won’t be distracted). On one of these trips, I had sight of what I thought was a sea dragon but turned out to be a perch. All I could think about whether this perch would be too slippery for the budgie to stand on.
I stopped fishing after that for a long while, and couldn’t see the fun in it.
Numero years later I started river fishing with some in-laws. Bl---- lunatics got up at three in the morning to be on the river as the sun came up. (my favourite river was the great Ouse which run through and by Flatford Mill, yes the place in the painting – magical) These guys were serious fisherman, you’ve seen them, big bags for bait and hooks and floats and spare reels and swim feeders the list is endless. When fishing in a river you ‘cast’ your bait and hook upstream (still don’t know) and ‘trotted’ the float downstream until it passed you and got dragged underwater by the current. At this point you wound your line in (I had a reel by this time) and repeated the whole cast- trot- reel-in thing dozens of times unless you caught a fish (dream on you crazy ), at which point we packed away all the equipment and headed for the local pub.
This went on in a similar manner for a few years when I finally gave up.
But circumstances changed when I had interest revived I me, and I gave in and said ‘I’ll start tomorrow’
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