Tradition

Does two years on the trot count as a tradition? I hope not. I don’t want to have to get up every Christmas morning and write something on here. It just so happens I was awake with at least two hours to kill before there are any signs of life in the household. Well, me and Albert are awake, or he was before he fell asleep on my lap to leave me in peace while I tap away.

It’s raining…so what’s new? I often dream that when I win the lottery I will buy a house with a lake or river, or both. But seeing the floods on the news this year may make me revise my dream. Once is bad enough but recently it seems to have been every other week for some poor people and it’s especially tragic at this time of year.

This last year was, for me, quite a hectic one. For some reason I found myself doing something fly casting/fishing related nearly every weekend from February right through to July or August. Everything except fishing. I have tried to work out how many times I actually went and it may be as little as five times. That’s bad, even by my standards.

I popped my demonstrating cherry at the spring show at Detling thanks to Charles Jardine being unavailable. I did another one at Peterborough, thanks to several people being unavailable!. The IFFF event in Munich was a blast, great location and great people. Scotland was great (twice) and Wales and Southern Ireland and so were the various places I cast in England. If I had never got caught up in this fly casting lark I would never have gone to any of these places or met such a group of wonderful people.

The highlight was only a few weeks ago when we had the first meeting of the, as yet unnamed, group of fellow instructors at Reading. I was astonished at the support and very grateful to everyone who made the effort to be there. There will be a piece about it in the January issue of Eat, Sleep, Fish. The one benefit of the group is that I may actually get to do some fishing. There’s a novelty.

Have a Happy Christmas and a successful New Year. I hope Santa was kind

Back To The Drawing Board

I want to go fishing. Perhaps not so badly that I am willing to go out in the pouring rain and a howling gale but badly enough that the moment it eases I am off….maybe. Something always seems to get in the way at the moment. I did actually set off the other day, hit a puddle hidden pot hole, smashed a wheel and buckled another. Volvo alloys are bloody expensive! I am fed up with fishing puddles for stocked trout so my target is Pike. I have the Royal Military Canal quite close. I used to fish it a lot in my course fishing days. I don’t expect any big fish. I suspect ten pounds would be as big as it gets, but it should be fun. I have tied up some flies, dug out my seven weight and await an opportunity.

I have joined AAPGAI as an associate member. Because I am an IFFF Master I would be entitled to take their Master assessment. I think that’s a bit presumptive so I will aim for the Advanced. When I think I am ready. I have to get my head (and the rest of my body) around spey casting. In the IFFF we only need to show we know the basics but I believe the AAPGAI assessment is 60% or more geared to speys in their various forms so I have a lot to catch up with. I have commented before that I don’t have much use for spey casting in my normal fishing life, plus I have very limited locations where I can practice on water. Mind you, there are some big puddles around at the moment. It’s no longer a stroll to the bottom of my garden to get to the cricket field. Grass has its uses but spey casting isn’t one of them, unfortunately.

Albert the wonder dog shows no sign of being easy to teach. His natural inclination is to chase the line around and, if he catches it, chew it. Either that or chase birds, which don’t seem to see him as a threat. They just fly ahead of him just out of reach, which spurs him on to greater effort. My God he can run, he is like a mini Wippet.

I am going to create a blog dedicated to ‘The Group’ over Christmas. I say I but I mean she, Robyn, my son’s girlfriend. She does this sort of thing for a living and knows about these things, which is more than I do. I suspect my neighbors three-year old son knows more than I do. I visit other blogs, like Jim Williams and Marc Fauvets, and envy the many pics they put up. Another skill to learn.

I hope you all get want you want for Christmas. Don’t get too drunk.