Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 31 October 2018
6 weeks ago a pretty resistant bakteria got inside my rod hand and ate a significant part of my skin all the way down to the bones. Antibiotics didn't work and due to that I had a serious surgery. Being in the hospital for 8 FUCKING days I almost was freaking out! Then I decided to no longer listen to the doctors. Instead I went home in order to try fishing again, which didn't work out the way I wanted it to.
I simply wasn't able to use my rod hand at all. Ok, casting left handed wasn't a problem. But playing a fish (carp and asp) without being able to use any line hand was as difficult as was retrieving the line. It was impossible, to be a bit more precise. Thanks to my good friend Hansi (giving me his two helping hands) I was able to catch a few fish anyway.
Now since 10 days I am teaching fly fishing for pike in German Pike-land again. Great to be back in my office of course! Still I have to work hard every day to recover very slowly. Yet I can't hold my fly rod at all, nor can't I hold the line with my right rod hand. So I decided not to have any casts at all myself. Luckily though I managed to help all my clients so far being able to land some nice fish. Some "first pikes on fly" in between.
It really is tough to put down a front page with my left (non dominant) hand and therefore this will be a pretty short one this time. I am looking forward to a longer one next week - hopefully presenting you a picture of me holding my fly rod again. ;)
You may enjoy some fine pictures of our past days below. It was tough work to get them done this time. I did my best though!
I wish you all a great fly fishing week - hopefully without any pain crossing your way!
All my best
Bernd
P.S.: Loosing the dominant hand for a while and being under constant pain isn't nice at all, but hey - there are so much worse things that can happen in life. I am just happy to be back in my fly fishing school. Life is fantastic as long as I can be in the water!!!
By the way the pike above was 115cm and was caught by one of my students who had his very first fly casting lesson just this year. What a fish to start with!? (happy teacher included for sure! ;) )
