It’s father’s day and we’ve spent the day family fishing at a commercial venue in North Yorkshire, our second visit to this place. I’ve been flyfishing for game fish, and pike, for about 30 years so this type of coarse fishing is all new to me, I’m right at the bottom of the knowledge pile but am trying to get him (and her! and me!) catching. My boy is mainly fishing with a whip which was given to him by our sadly departed friend Andy and he spent today caning silvers out on sweetcorn and the occasional maggot. Thanks Andy. My girlfriend was also continuing her own rather unexpected angling journey and catching some silvers and braving the maggot handling.
The day before we’d paid a visit to Fish On Angling supplies in Pudsey for bait and extra tackle for this mission and whilst there they gave me some excellent advice on rigs etc – I had absolutely no idea about modern coarse fishing methods. They also have an excellent policy around supporting junior anglers with donated tackle. Please do pay them a visit if you are in the area, support your local tackle shop!!
This was also my first fathers day without a father. I’d like to think he was looking down on us but if he was, f*ck knows what he’d make of us chucking pellets out at carp. Before he drifted away from it, he was a mad keen river fly angler.
I spent a significant chunk of the day fretting around trying to get everyone sorted and fishing then helping with unhooking, sorting tangles, baiting swims, more tangles, more unhooking etc etc. However mid afternoon I managed to get out a feeder rod myself with some hair rigged 8mm pellets and eventually started getting some action. I haven’t a bleeding clue if this is the correct angle for my rod to be at but it worked just fine.
My thought process was that the bigger pellets would only attract bigger fish and indeed this was the case. My biggest was a carp (in fact, my first ever carp I think) of around 2lb – very small for a carp but much bigger than silvers and nice to get my string proper pulled! He went straight for the bank and tried to break me off but he was no match for my 2nd hand £15 rod. Kudos to my little boy for learning on the job how to net fish as well.
My son meanwhile was managing to catch some good sized fish with just sweetcorn and proved to be the most successful angler out of the 3 of us, catching more than us 2 put together! I’m hoping that he will continue to develop his passion for angling and, paradoxically, the respect for nature it brings with it. I’m acutely aware of the dichotomy of pontificating about respecting nature whilst impaling fish on hooks and dragging them around until they are knackered, all in the pursuit of pleasure. It’s a really tricky moral balancing act but for me angling has been a constant in my life through many ups and downs. Sometimes going fishing with your mates can be the perfect lift to get you out a mental fug, other times sloping off on your own for a few hours or even a few days is what’s needed to reset an anxious mind. Focussing on the practicalities of fishing be it tackling up, casting, watching, waiting, is all what Californian types call ‘flow state’. When you are in flow state, fuck everything else, you are focussed. Problems calm down in your brain, you haven’t got time for them. This is what I want to pass on to my son. The passion for angling may ebb and flow but hopefully it will always be there like an old friend to fallback on when needed. As my son kept repeating all the way home, today was a good day daddy.
