Poldark

Life in the stream from the perspective of my new fly rod was a growing joy to get to know, only a fly fisherman can understand this connection and bond, like a musician with a particular instrument. Ok, I didn’t make the blank or design the taper, but I did follow a paper chase of try-outs and reviews to come to the choice… it could easily have been a complete lemon. The level silk line and furled leaders combined with a progressive modern rod blank, all clicked with me,  even with my limited, and it seemed, diminishing casting ability. Where I looked on the surface it landed pleasingly with little thought on the mechanics. And fewer mishaps in an overgrown little stream surrounded with the encroaching fishing-fly eating trees and brambles, predators that inhabit and maraud around our banksides preying on the morsels from careless fly fishermen. All this leads to an increasingly confident and happy fly fisherman. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so we are told, it certainly deepens the rose tint of those spectacles and somewhat softens the focus, but it did seem to have improved my fishing techniques too, if my memory was reliable. That, or finally after years of search, I’d found a good combination of tools for the job that suited my own particular quirks and build.

From just casting a few feet away with the furled leader , to my happy casting and control distance of twenty feet or so, to the occasionally 30’.  This 6 foot rod and I were a good team, it would do the lazily lobbed up roll cast at the end of each drift, which was the start of each new cast.

With the rod tip already up high at the end of the drift back, plucking the last of the line up off the water and flicking this short length forward, the slack had been gathered and stored loose in my left hand. Then cast the remaining line back behind me, neat and tight, ready for the delivery stroke, which then released the extra line, shooting it out. This was the money shot, If all this turned over in a straight line and landed neat, I was a happy chap and that was my happy-casting-distance for the wind conditions and my UCB rating for the day. (  Utter Clot and Buffoon rating)

If I needed a few more feet in distance  to my ‘happy-casting-distance’; I would use my boots to take me forward up stream rather than adjust the casting arc or power application whenever possible, keeping it all consistent. And thus I progressed in an evening  a few steps at a time exploring the water utilizing as few brain cells and as little talent as was needed to get by; the Duffer of the Brook.

It wasn’t fly casting as I had learned it, even remotely. It broke many rules and developed so many bad habits to travel with me, away from my Lilliput, and to burden my abilities at any bigger waters that I might encounter. Developing  previously off the scale UCB ratings in normal conventional, overhead fly casting, but as I never fished anywhere other than the beats of this tiny water now, who cared. It caught fish, in some tricky dicky little pockets.

No longer at the end of the day, would i spend some last moments on the bankside path by the bridge, stripping most of the line off the reel and just stretching out some real casts and practicing, preserving those skills I had spent years honing. I couldn’t even remember how to haul with my left hand now, nor unfortunately, did I realize these abilities were eroding.

Thus my selection goals were pretty basic. The tasks I wanted to achieve that the rod needed to help me perform. As long as the fly landed softly and gently and accurately in the area I had chosen for it to land, without too much thinking of casting process, that was the main deal.

That I wasn’t aware of it in my hands working against me, constantly having to counter it and correct and make allowances, like I had with so many combinations, that I had tried, and rejected. Then we could, together as a unit, manage the line in the air, with the minimum of false casting and as much loop control as my limiting skills could muster.

That the rod could roll cast well, and bow-and-arrow cast; so often the get out of jail free casts within these overgrown banksides of the brook. And finally if it managed well with fish on the line, not just getting it to the net; but neither pull the hook out from being too stiff, nor allow the barbless hook to be jettisoned by being too springy, while protecting fine tippets and vulnerable knots. Pass those standards, then that was all I could ask for from my bendy stick, being it made from split cane or carbon fibre, it mattered not.

Pass those and it qualified as my friend for life.

Pricewise, whether it was a few quid in a junk shop or rather more than was sensible, wouldn’t affect the outcome of me being happy. Outlay didn’t affect either carrying it lightly homewards along the banksides back to the car, as my new boon companion or old friend, or feeling like it was an evil influence that had secreted its way into my life, that, I’d rather toss over the nearest hedge and wouldn’t even wish  upon my worst enemy.  

Over the time I’ve had plenty of those…. Bendy sticks that I’d rather toss over the Hawthorns, grumbling “bag of Shite!” as they passed through the vertex of estrangement and tumbled deep into the lingering bramble patch of disgrace.

In many ways, I’m the type that feels more satisfied taking time and discovering a gold nugget or hidden gem than cutting to the chase and just buying one. I would have found more satisfaction maybe, emotionally connected with a bargain.

I’d tried out many options, this rod was not a bargain, but chosen when the price of keeping a roof over my head and being fed was shared equally. I’d bought it when we were two, and as it was the rod blanks and roughly a third of the price of the shop bought rod it didn’t feel an indulgence. I would never then, nor now, have paid out the full price of this rod, it would have been embarrassing for a person of my limited abilities and fishing where I did, almost obscene. Now as I solo human, it did feel a bit of an extravagance, but there was no way it was going  the EBay route out of here! Materially I had chosen well, and for every connotation you juggled the statement; it was “my” rod.

 It was liberating that I could in a small over-grown stream, even fish into the dark, casting intuitively towards the sounds and limited sight of the water surface in that last remaining light of dusk or the weak silver moonlight. Now with no one waiting at home, I could return when I liked, no one would care nor worry. Years of working in photographic darkrooms had made the deep gloom and spatial awareness almost second nature. I felt strangely like returning to my elementand natural state,  alone, and in the dark.

My only need of light came at some un-hooking and occasionally tying on a new fly, and, I’d reluctantly rely on a head torch, which would screw up my night vision for a while, reminding me that I was after all only a human, and this was not my domain.

But then I’d simply stand for a few minutes with my eyes closed, not moving, listening to those night sounds for a while. I loved it, everything exaggerated and more surprising as my ears became my only reference to that strange world around me and my mind focused hard on creating images out of the strange sonic landscape of night time in the English countryside . Some of those noises though could only possibly be made by fanged toothed, bug eyed, gutter-buckets; ginormous monsters from hell. But they, thankfully were away off on dry land, probably getting crunched goats stuck between their teeth. ( in reality they were more likely to bemating weasels or amorous field voles on the bankside).

Then with eyes open again, the monsters vanished and the silver light could be seen etching on the peaks of ripples on the ghostly grey, shifting mass of the water surface that surrounded me. And the dense impenetrable black shapes of banksides and reed beds and trees, to be avoided with the cast. Occasionally a loud splash and you could see in that direction the spreading circular faint silver ripples expanding out across the surface from the event; your next excitement and target zone.

Occasionally though ( on at least 5 occasions) that splash can be huge, unnervingly, just behind or to the side of me. Sounding like someone had lobbed a large concrete block, and just missed me by inches. A shuddering slap on the water’ssurface, that always, it seemed, to happen at a point of utter stillness and tranquility, as I concentrated and focused in silence, my senses hair triggered on high alert. 

A casually lobbed hand Grenade could hardly have been more disturbing. The surge of adrenaline this unleashed along with the profanities and involuntary shaking; as my flight or fight instinct instantly engaged and was totally conflicted, up to my waist in water, unable to perform either option; defend nor flee.

My brain tumbling madly through the possible increasingly unlikely  and far-fetched explanations while instantly rejecting each. Just stood there mid-stream and useless, frozen;confused; and stupefied. Seemingly my only options and ability, to stutter out loud…”Fuck!”….”Jeezus!” … Fuck”!... “Shit!”…. and still no clarity with each profanity sworn, nor any understanding or rational explanation for this scare. 

Getting my eyes reaccustomed to the dark after a torch took a few minutes, settling my nerves after one of these inexplicable disturbances, however took a good deal longer and it eroded my confidence in the surroundings. Usually I would set off back to the car soon after being unnerved and call it a night.

This journey back downstream marvelously, was an adventure in itself, and provided rich insights for future fishing trips in daylight hours.

I was on farm land. Way below, but still in view of the farm, I didn’t want to worry the farmer with torches crossing his land late at night. As I felt much more secure in the stream itself rather than wandering the banks in the dark, with its dips and hollows, the Bramble patches and Rabbit warrens, these deep shadows and perils even a torch light couldn’t unmask in the long grasses. So, I’d wander back mid-stream where mishaps, should they occur, would be slower, more gentle and potentially less painful, just very wet!

By mid-way through the season I know the bed of that river like the pavement of my street and the steps to my own front door. Aware of each obstacle and potential tumble, the places where the force of water requires more effort to push through, finding growing depth scaling up your waders as the bed deepens, but confidently knowing it would soon become shallower and you could press ahead regardless. You just took these things for granted and passed on through.

At night in the dark, with the pressure now coming from behind and attempting to hurry you along with an urgency. It is a completely different stream to experience and learn, for a kick off it seems twice as long as your brain is so active processing! Full of new discoveries and a fresh perspective on well-known features that I would struggle to recognize and guess, even familiar trees or obstacles.

At first it was just novel and a new challenge, but in time I realized that when fishing up in the daylight into those runs and glides, the unseen benefit  from my unseeing descent down the Brook, was that I had retained more knowledge of the flows of the currents in those area that I was fishing and now, what bed features were creating  the flow into it, from upstream.

I understood the narrative of the stream better and where Trout would be likely to move to. 

My new little 6’ 2 weight best buddy and I were learning lots and I was becoming captivated by, and also developing a growing empathy for my Brook again.

As for the weed invasion, I borrowed a very nice, and terribly expensive hand-made scythe in my attempt to control the  encroaching Reeds and Rushes that were threatening the Groynes. Where to get rid of the material was a headache to face as the time came, priority was to weaken the plants and prevent them forming seed heads and thus, reduce energy back into the roots. Flowering is energy expensive for plants( seed production even more so, but undesirable for us to tolerate) and saps at their reserves.  

So, as soon as I saw flowers and realised that ‘Amour’ was in the air, it was time to nip such floral wickedness and base instincts in the bud with a methodists zeal.

I am glad I didn’t think it through, had I realized the size of the floating matts of cut stalks they would have produced, I’d have probably succumbed to Monsanto’s option of Roundup spray. It was hard endless grafting in unseasonably hot English sunshine getting them up onto the banksides.

I couldn’t eradicate them practically, but I needed to control them. At first it was fun in the sun of an evening with a sharp scythe and a fly rod on the nearby bankside just in case I saw a fish rising.

However leaving your rod in the long bankside grasses, and wandering even a few yards away with a scythe can become tricky to find and recover as the rod just magically blends away into the long grasses and vanishes. At one point I got quite panicked and wondered about mowing down the grass bank too, but the thought of hitting the rod or that silk line with  the sweep  of a murderously sharp blade, stayed my hand. The loss panicked me a little, distracted me, wasted time, and I realized I was doing neither task particularly well; cutting the reeds or fishing.

I decided it was better to concentrate on the weed cut and put the rod back in the car.. and reminded myself that when I returned later in the gloom,  I must pull out the still lined up rod first and put the scythe on the bottom.

It was a weary soul that hit the sack that night and it was only waking up in a panic the next morning that I  remembered, or couldn’t remember, did I take the rod out for the Scythe?

“Surely I would have seen it ! Had I driven home, rattling along the dirt track with that blade weighed down by that heavy shaft jangly around on top of my rod and fly line?!” 

I shot down to the car to see if I had sliced the line or damaged my newly beloved rod……there was no rod.

“What the…. ?”

Confusion turned to panic as the phone rung and somebody wanted to chat. I didn’t need conversation at this moment, mind fuddled from recent deep sleep, no coffee, and this rising panic.

My usual method of putting the thing away at the end of fishing is to put the rod on the roof of the car, open the trunk door and then put the rod in, feeding the tip over the front seat. All I could remember last night was reaching in for a towel and drying off that blade of the borrowed scythe carefully and a plying some oil while inspecting it for nicks and then checking the handle fitting, closing the boot and driving off.

That telephone conversation carried on in the back ground as my mind raced around the details desperate to recall,  I wasn’t aware of what was being discussed down the line and I hurriedly apologized and said “I think I left my rod on the car last night and driven off. I need to get back to the river before a dog walker finds it.”

Something deep inside, knew that I had not dropped it, and that in all likelihood a passerby on that rarely used little dirt track had seen a made up fly rod in my always unlocked car ( we live in the country and want to believe we are immune from such low life scum), and had wandered off with the prize. Or maybe someone who opposed fishing had seen it, carried it off, and tossed it in the bushes. I was imagining every scenario except alien abduction.

I knew in my heart I wouldn’t find it though, and the three or four hours of searching every thicket scrub and length of roadside verge of wild grasses for the first kilometer or so I had driven by was merely obligatory and blind hope. But at least, I knew when the inevitable grief consumed me I could console myself a little. I’d given it my best shot.

I’d lost my new best mate who I had spent many years trying to find, I had a great season half done and had renewed my love of fishing and casting and being in the Brook. In the grief and clear-out of a failed relationship I’d sold off all my tackle except this one rod that I had bonded with, and now a whole new terrible grief appeared in my life.

The doubt of whether I had left it on the car roof remained, that person who rung up, still reminds me of my clumsiness. He had used the rod too and had fallen in love with it. Eventually I borrowed a short 3 wt rod and got some line, and then realized my net was missing too, last seen that night being put back in the car, I hadn’t put that on the roof!

The 3 wt didn’t alleviate the grief it just compounded it. On Ebay there was one second hand version of my rod, completely beyond my budget. And now with the bar raised higher, the search resumed.

Last season we did what I guess will become a custom now. For a few weeks in July up to half a dozen of us met up on the Brook around 6.30pm one or two nights. The fitter, younger ones in the stream working the scythes, another one with a long rake grabbing the drifting matts of cut reeds and steering them down stream, to a selected bit of low bankside,  where a few men then rake up the cuttings and stack them up on the bank, and after a few hours of this toil we dip into the village bar for a pint of something cold and wet.

I hate using a visit to the pub as inducement and I’m sure most will turn up regardless, but I really relish the dream of that glass in the last half hour of scything… who needs Round Up Biactive?! Screw Monsanto and easy options.

All the best to all of you, tight lines and dry waders!

Chris Avery

PoD: 

Another invader of the Brook, Jason P in amongst the encroaching Reeds And Rushes above the culvert Bridge.