Introduction to loops

But to convey the struggle, of me, seeing a man holding a fly rod and being told the line is the weight and trying to comprehend the casting action needed, when my only experience is self-taught casting of a tiny spinning rod, and without weight it would go nowhere.  So the lacking of convenient handy references to inquire or explore, all seems somewhat incomprehensible and naïve, when viewed from this, our present age. 

Wherever you find yourself on this shrunken planet we share now, all the information you need is available at your fingertips. To grasp the lack of it and the isolation, requires some reminding; or explaining of where the world technically was, back in those days.  

In ‘72 when Bowie penned the lyrics.

“With snorting head he gazes to the shore
Once had raised a sea that raged no more
Like the video films we saw..” 

The first two lines were a typically incomprehensible jumble of recognisable words, but what in hells name was this word ‘Video’? …That really foxed us!

This, still a few years away from seeing my first huge clunking lump of recording machine in a wealthy friend’s house. And ages before video rental stores with their “BE KIND AND REWIND” labels were opening on every highstreet of every town.

No mobile phones , or even text pagers,  and days long before answer machines, or Fax machines had come like a bright new dawn, promised much, and then quickly faded into obscurity.

As for internet searching, or ‘You Tube’ instructions, they were not even a figment of a boffins’ imagination back then. Cripes even the SS Enterprise searched the galaxies and ‘boldly went’, controlled by dials,  buttons, sliding levers, and flashing coloured light bulbs

Three channels on TV, the window to the world beyond our seaside towns’ boundaries, if you didn’t see programmes when aired, they’d gone, you’d missed them.

So, if you’d heard about a thing called Fly Casting and wanted to witness it. Unless you knew of someone, you were stuck. The local public reference library that had books on fishing, tailored to the needs of our particular area. Sea and Course fishing. But Spinning and Fly fishing didn’t exist on our planet or in this end of the universe, and the town boundary was precisely just that!

An eventual discovery of the mysteries of fly fishing, happened completely by chance in a doctor’s surgery, or more precisely his waiting room. Waiting for my mum, bored and browsing the piles of old donated periodicals, I stumbled upon a really old copy of Trout and Salmon magazine. Prior to this, I had no idea such a thing existed. A revelation, and a must have! It was all black and white news print in the pages and very few grainy photos, but lots to devour.

I begged the receptionist to let me take it, and to my delight it was mine.

(Picture of trout and salmon)

Begging my parents didn’t work, they were not paying out two shillings and six pence a month; or actually now post decimalisation, 25p, on a magazine for a hobby that would inevitably lead to shelling out for rods and reels etc. They knew this slippery slope of a new hobby routine all too well.

Eventually, when old enough, I got a paper round that paid for my monthly fix of Trout and Salmon magazines ( and Led Zeppelin albums) it didn’t get me closer to doing it, but it was preparing me with knowledge, while keeping the flame alive. 

That’s it dear reader, our dark ages of innocent and naivety before Google search made your life so much easier, filled  with images of cute kittens, dumb dogs, and young girls with bloated lips and bottoms taking selfies in front of the mirror.

Days of ignorance and confusion, when you needed imagination; and girls, they were a complete mystery.

There is a place in the Lake district called Tarn Hows.

It is so picture perfect especially from one view point, that its image appears on just about half the postcards, tea trays, coasters, dish towels and tins of fudge that leave the gift shops for many, many, miles around. Surrounded by none-native conifers and Silver Birch, a tiny lake of many bays and picturesque islands, nestled deep into a dip, and is completely man produced. A rough concrete block the size of a car and rusting old sluice wheel at the head of the tarn testifies to this, an ugly blemish upon this beauty spot, they never bothered to conceal and makeover.

( post card picture of Tarn Hows)

Here damming a little stream they created a Disney-fied Lake District., The winds and the breeze pass high over the trees, so there’s often a mirror on the water reflecting the ‘loveliness’ into a syrupy double dose.

Thankfully there’s no shops nearby, so really It could have been much worse. Just big carparks hidden in a dip in the trees and then lots of friendly grass slopes for family picnics.

It was benign and accessible, a space for couch potato tourists, tentatively venturing into the open air with no shopsor cafés for safety and respite. Rather than them suffering the mountains, wild fells, and deep cold lakes surrounding this ‘safety zone’; encounters with which would have no doubt, left them panicked, stressed and longing for Blackpool. They could gather here after a short stroll from the car to become sun-lounger potatoes, while there unruly kids ran amok in relative safety.

I hated going there as a kid. An anathema to everything that I loved and desired about the Lake District; its wildness; the ancient feel of the land and its occupation; that sensation of being surrounded with myth and legends. The colours on those craggy rocks, ancient boulder walls and deep dark dangerous waters, and the encounters with wildlife that only came with the solitude that you could create there. And the Greens, the diversity of every shade of green imaginable. All wiped off the slate in Tarn Hows and completely sanitised.

One time I tried wandering in the birch woods away from the throngs to explore, and saw what I guessed were two families of kids playing some strange game in a frenzy, beating the ground with sticks and branches. There was an ominous rising hysteria in them, a feeling of Lord of the Flies menace. Unhinged delirium in their excitement, then screaming, flipping between fear or rejoicing, like playing with flames.  

As I neared I found they had discovered a small sleeping Adder snake in the ferns, a rare living wild creature here, and decided to destroy it. One held its now lifeless remains aloft on a stick triumphantly, they cheered and whooped in delight. The poor creature had been little more than a foot long and of no threat to anyone. Myself at that age. I’d have spent hours watching it, etching it deeply into my memory, they are such a scarce treat to see in the wild. I remember every precious and privileged encounter with them.

I hated children and I loathed Tarn How’s and my snobbery for the people it attracted is now rather embarrassing and amusing.

You couldn’t even fish in peace for goodness sakes. Children and dogs played and splashed along the lakeshore seemingly instantaneous, wherever you set up. And then the fat old men, like pink peeling Walruses, got loud and embarrassingly macho, splashing up a wake while showing off to their kids and no doubt the other fathers around the lake,  their suffering wives shrunk in embarrassment on the cheap folding sun lounger. Some even shunned you away with your fishing tackle to another spot as that was ‘their’ bit of shoreline today!!

“Go away,…You’re ruining our view!”

This was England’s Pleasant Valley Sunday, and I loathed it!

So when that year, my father’s car pulled into the carpark at Tarn Hows my heart sank lower into the back seat and I winced with dread. He circled around looking for a vacant spot, for a moment my spirits lifted, looking like we may have to leave for some alternative choice, with solitude, and maybe a real lake. But though the car park was crammed full, he somehow saw a gap of level ground between two tree trunks and manoeuvred the old Hilman back into it.

I don’t know what a ten year old’s version of “Oh for pity’s sake!” is anymore, but muttered it no doubt, and felt the early symptoms of a growing, potentially, day long sulk, eating into my demeanour. I would play no part in making this a good day for one and all.

Before we took out the picnic and deck chairs and clambered down with our paraphernalia to find our pitch for the day. The family as a group wandered up the little ridge to look down on the Tarn. It was heaving with families, barely a space of spare grass to be seen, you could hear the dogs and joyous laughing screaming children from here. I was Dante on the mound looking down into 9 circles of torment before descending to my inferno. My own personal Hell spread out below, complete with Tupperware boxes, thermos flasks, toys and magazines.

This thankfully was too much for any of us and my father suggested there was a nice walk we could do. As an alternative option this was as inviting as spending along wait in a dentist reception listening to the distant sounds of drilling, dreading the inevitable invitation to “open wide”before a thumb, yanks down and locks your lower jaw. Abject misery always follows along with pain. And that’s just how I predicted this day would go for me.

I loved walking in the Lake district, I did it every month at school in a group throughout my teenage years. Up many of the mountains and into some really dramatic landscapes,stunning views and in the wildest of weather. Places your imagination could really run wild, and were mildly dangerous without given the due deference.

My dad’s walks by contrast were prescribed from a book kept ready in the glove compartment of the car. A title something like ’50 favourite circular Lakeland walks’. They were always easy, for my mother, and a loop, so you came back to the same place, uneventful, and safe! And because they were prescribed in a popular book, other people were also doing them. They would pass you with a smile and a cheery ringing, “Hello, fine day for it!” and while my parents responded in like.

I would smile too, yet in my imagination mimic their cheery, happy smiley voices in my head offering a silent… “ Bugger off, I hope you twist your ankles!” back at them, and then grin sweetly.

Adventure was not on the itinerary, with any possible wildlife encounter gone long before we got near. These walks would always contain one or two views or vistas to be taken in; usually featuring water. For me to truly appreciate water, without exploring with a fishing rod, was futile and added to the frustration and the misery of this child. 

So I wasn’t  listening to the description of the upcoming route and the views to be expected, I was facing a wasted day and now had a strop on.  Suffering from that “Yeah Whatever!” attitude, on a spectrum that descends, or cascades, all the way through belligerence, to a full on slapable pain-in the-arse for everyone around.

Off we rambled down the gentle slope through the woods along the well-worn, and often trodden path towards a distant road, which according to the book, had to be crossed. One big happy family loving the freedom of the great outdoors, and one brooding spoiled brat shadowed by his personally chosen dark cloud for that day. 

We soon found and crossed the road, dutifully walking in line facing the oncoming traffic. Into a V shaped, tree linedvalley of high conifer plantations we strolled; which, even at that age, though I’d heard them described as sterile and mostly lifeless, I had to admit, now close up, they had an atmosphere and a beauty.

I hadn’t noticed the coming break in the tree-line along our side was soon replaced with a wall, a few feet high, stretching into the distance. Nor was I aware that the wall protected a sheer drop of 10 feet or more. My attention instead was taken by a row of unnaturally planted conifers immediately by the path leading us off the road to the left. These trees now towering over us, the thick trunks almost touching each other; a barrier, a partition created by a screen of soft, warm cinnamon brown, corky bark.

These were impressive trunks and I was in danger of forgetting to sulk. A path guided down to the left. We descended to be greeted by a warm light reflected brightly upwards, off a becalmed, mirror like lake, my personal dark cloud evaporated away in that light. This sparkling, glistening illumination after the trees, dazzled our eyes, warmed our faces, and my spirits stirred with the prospect of imminent enchantment, unless I was very stubborn.

Nestled into this long valley, the shore line to the east, lapped up against that tall wall that ran along the roadside and, until the last moment, obscured this Tarn from view. Across that road, a mixed forest of tall leggy trunks raised and held aloft the cathedral like canopy high above, this vaulted ceiling appeared to span across the road to end over the water’s edge.

The western shore was more naturally nipped and pecked by the landscape and these waters, a series of occasional large tumbled boulders and receding small bays. These picture book promontories with precarious trees seemingly stood aloft the large rocky outcrops, their weeping ancients boughs arching down towards the water’s surface, creating shaded arches to contrast with the gentle sunny bays. Steep slopes of mostly Larch trees rose from that shoreline up high, and then, from where we viewed this, were towered over by higher mountains and the fells behind.

Seemingly a few football fields distance away, the northern shoreline was indistinct, soft, distant, and mysterious. A thick fringe of tall sandy coloured reedbeds blended into the surface like a creeping, rolling mist, interspersed with stands of short coppiced Hazel bushes and a sprinkling of stark white trunks of stunted silver birch. On the gentle rise up the valley behind this soft fringe, the next layer up was a thick band of dark emerald Conifers, tall and triangular pointed; then up again to the pastel shades of the low fells of bracken fern; heather; mountain thyme; and gorse bushes., A winding high pass snaked through this distant fell and came down into the valley, and then, high in the distance; the mountains of the Langdale Pikes pierced the sky.  

This whole vista repeated in the perfect mirror of the water surface in front of us, every single pointy conifer; every striking white birch trunk; every soft feathery reed that existed, was then perfectly reflected and doubled back to us in sharp detail. It was mesmerising, but that calm in the valley that created this wonderful illusion was about to be my nemesis.

( the mirror quality of Yew tree tarn)

I found my ears pricked up and were again working when my father announced this was Yew Tree Tarn.  For me, this was meeting a celebrity, I had read that name so often in my book The Trout by Frost and Brown,  I knew about and memorised its much studied Trout, I’d looked at its shape on my father’s maps and imagined it often, and now here, spread out in front of me, longer and thinner and far more beautiful than my mind’s eye version. Suitably enchanting, framed tightly into the boughs of that steep valley, with a clear narrow window of sky light opening up above illuminating its waters. The real version came completely unexpected and was breathtaking.

We wandered forward to the shore line still beneath a canopy., we were at a concrete and drystone dam wall some thirty feet long with a sluice gate controlled by a big old wheel, behind was the gentle sounds of the overflow, cascading away down into a small stream that disappeared into the darkness of the trees. And then, across the dam, just a few yards away in a small bay,  I noticed the boat.

A tall, and rather elegant, middle aged gentleman in tweed jacket, was stood on the shoreline with a rowing boat. Behind him on some flat clearing, slightly above the watersand nestled between some trees, was a bazaar shelter, like a small bungalow, with glass walls and timber frames. It would be years until I saw Japanese architecture, but it immediately reminded me of this dwelling by the lake when I finally did.

The boat’s wood was thickly varnished and obviously cherished, pulled half up the shore, and resting across its gunwales two long elegant wooden oars, and a long fly rod!

I wasted no time, I left my families side and got to him to perform a quick Q and A and extract some much needed answers .

Q:“Is that your house?”

A:  “It’s my boat-house”.  

Q:”Is it where you keep your fishing tackle too?” A:  “um…Sometimes”

Q;”Do you ever sleep in there?”

A; “ Oh No never,”

I told him …”I’d sleep in there. so I could be by the Tarn and I’d fish it every day if it was mine”.  

“Oh, would you.. So do you fish?”

“ I do, but where we live we only have little Roach and Rudd and Eels and some Carp”. 

“Oh sadly we don’t have any of those here, we only have Trout, but there maybe some eels” 

“I know about Yew tree tarn Trout, they are smaller than the average growth rate in the UK, but they are still bigger than Wastwater, and Hawswater Trout. They mature to breeding size at 4 years old.  They live until they are six and  they get to 9 inches in length.”

His jaw dropped. ”What!.. Where on earth did you learn all that from? I didn’t know any of that”

“I learnt it in a book I have about Trout, I know what they eat here too” and then quickly added. “I can’t find any information about fly casting though, and I’ve never seen anyone do it, and I really want to learn”.

“Well sadly they don’t  feed  on my flies when there’s no ripple on the water and now the winds dropped fishing is over for me  I’m afraid . Maybe next time you’re here you can see me casting.”

The Tarn was indeed still like a mirror and not a ripple to be seen.

“You won’t be fly casting then today?” 

“No I’m sorry, with the trees around the banks and those high walls by the road, I can only cast out in the lake, and I’m putting the boat away now. Next time your passing maybe”.

(the location of the old boat house now gone, sadly. taken on a recent winter's day.)

I turned away dejected, I probably, knowing me, shrugged and sighed and huffed; portraying my dejection dramatically, and very publicly. I trudged slowly  back towards mum and dad, a little drama queen lumbering along, head down and bottom lip dragging on the floor, while grumbling to myself….

“What is it about these bloody grownup’s.. all I want is to see someone cast a fly line and he could have shown me so easily. When I finally find a man with a fly rod, it’s always “Oh not the right conditions today… it’s not enough water, or not enough wind to catch fish.” These grownups use any excuse going. I don’t want to see them catch a fish I just want to see how they cast the bloody rod! I’ll probably never get to see another fly fisherman where I live …. Etc etc ….with many “It’s not fairs” thrown into my moan.

Half way back across the short dam wall I finally looked up at mum and dad. Mum was watching her dejected looking junior, no doubt wondering at the nature of this latest disappointment, and considering how she would distract me from it. Dad, however was watching something going on over my left shoulder he looked at me and nodded for me to look around.

The man had slipped back into his boat and had pushed himself out into the little tarn, with a few strokes of the oars he pulled himself far enough from the banks to be clear of the trees and  I still can’t believe that he stood up in his boat, obviously to give me a clear view of what he was doing. Under the window framed by the steep slopes of tall trees cascading down to the tarn on either side, and those distant peaks, immediately in front of me a tall wiry looking gentleman gracefully lifted up a fly rod and the movement caused light ripples to grow out across the mirror away from the boat, before settling and again blending into the perfect surface.

I was mesmerized before it even started. It was like the stillness of a conductor gathering his thoughts before releasing a symphony. I concentrated hard as he first flicked a few coils of line  loose out on to the surface, and then dropped some coils loose into the boat to start casting, finally it was about to happen in my life at last!

From a slow graceful start he lifted his rod and gently swept the line back to the side of the boat and stopped with the rod high and still, the line curved down gracefully and settled,glued on the water surface, and then he just flicked the rod effortlessly forward and up, at this the line shot out straight ahead in the air and then, floating down, gently landed kissing the mirrored surface without cracking it. In that simple moment he had seemed to effortlessly cast further than I could with all my might with my little spinning rod.

For a brief second I thought this was the cast, it was unforced, graceful and without understanding the mechanics of what had occurred, it seemed magical, and complete. But then with his left hand he was stripping more line of his reel and dropping it into the boat at his feet. Everything went still and the mirror closed in with the new calm.

From close to the water surface he raised his rod upwards  and it bent gracefully in an arc as the line followed the tip up free of the surface, in a final flourish he seemed  to flick the rod high, back behind his shoulder, without even watching . The line followed it up off the surface and up into the air, as it passed the rod tip it folded over in a large loop, and this loop then travelled backwards away, until nearly all the line had caught up.

There now seemed to be even more line out than before, I didn’t see how that had happened, I missed it. He then gracefully swept the rod forwards and in a final flourish flicked it up ahead of him, like a wizard casting a spell;  like blowing a smoke ring, another loop appeared above the rod tip and then travelled off, high up into the air, before flipping over and the line stretching out straight ahead, even longer than that last. Then back, then forth, then back firing out loops to travel elegantly across the gaps between the trees. Never once letting the line down. I was transfixed on the loops now and not on how they were being created. When I did look down to watch him, he was there still mirrored ,with the loopsclear against the sky. 

From where I was stood it felt like he was filling the sky above me with large elegant loops that travelled out high above the lake. This was beyond fishing, this was sorcery, this was ballet in the sky, so beautiful and unimagined to metranscending all expectation, he was painting loops on the heavens above me, and they remain etched forever in my mind’s eye.

From Dantes levels of hell to this heavenly rapture in one short walk in the woods.

Finally he sent a delightful loop out low across the surface and I watched it from the side as it straightened out with a gentle ping, and then floated down to settle straight out on the water, the leader, many, many, yards from his boat. What seemed like an improbable, impossible distance away.

Without looking across at me for acknowledgement  he started reeling in. When he then turned his back to me and started rowing back to shore, my head was full of wonder and processing all this information, trying to grasp and preserve everything that I had just witnessed, I turned towards my parents and silently wandered away back to the road.

I’ve always regretted that moment and wonder what he thought of me, I hope he realised he’d cast a spell over me, and not some disappointment. Or thought that I was so rude and ungrateful. I was actually struggling to grasp and preserve what I had just witnessed… like with just three channels and no video, you couldn’t view it again, so I didn’t want distracting from processing the correct memory. I knew this was important and needed preserving.

My dad put his hand around my shoulder and turned back to the man and thanked him for what he did. My mum gently scolded “Chris, where’s your manners?!”. I couldn’t answer. I knew that those loops would live with me forever if I could just have some space and keep the image safe.

I wish I could have somehow told that fine fellow that his demonstration stuck with me deeply,  and inspired me for life. And for the greatest part of it, I’ve tried to recreate his loops.

My pick me up and simple satisfaction is often wandering down to some water, or  even the local field, where I can just stand there and attempt to cast long effortless loops for a while and clear my mind while I attempt to play with and control their shapes. That generous stranger gifted me that serenity in that mystical moment that he created for me . I am eternally grateful to the chap. I just wish he could have known it, I wish I could have told him. 

I can never fill the sky with loops or etch them out on those heavens above, I no longer have that child’s perspective and imagination.  I still thrill at seeing great casters, not the casting action so much, that’s just the necessary evil, but the loops they create when your back away from the casting platform, they are still mesmerising and breathtaking to me.

And now I  find it hard to  stand still with a loaded fly rod and talk to someone without constantly flicking loops forward like a nervous tick, it’s my therapy, my comfort blanket.  

On that walk that looped out and round and back to Tarn Hows, I had left in a huff, frustrated, and dreaming of one day being a fly fisherman, and then returned enchanted for life, determined to be a fly caster. One though, who could only be satisfied when he had the ability to produce those same beautiful, effortless loops.

The judgement on that ability? The jury is still out, but my casting vote on my casting ability says, I still have some way to go yet, and I keep forgetting to aim them up to the heavens.  

If you’re not in heavens, chances are your stood with Dante on that ridge looking down and considering your many, many, failings and lack of practice and devotion!.

Have a happy week of tight loops and dry waders ( neither of which I achieved last night…. Back to the drawing board and the wader repair kit)  all best

Chris Avery