Day 82…June 16th

What next?

After years of Brexit related anxiety, for and against, dividing the country into camps of remainers and leaver it took a virus to wipe it off the news. No longer will we have to worry about Brexit destroying the economy because Covid 19 will wipe it out and what ever is left will be mopped up by a race ‘war’ between ‘the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slavers’. Everyone has an opinion and social media is fraught with who is right and who is wrong. People set their stall and further fan the flames while the media vultures circle overhead looking for the next morsel of decaying society.

Me..I am fed up with it all. I just want to go fishing and ride my bike, our time on this planet is too short. I no longer want even to read about the world afflictions. Give me the mountains and sea.

I am thankful my childhood was spent before mobile phones and games consuls. When telly had three channels and a disembodied voice reminded you to switch the telly off around midnight when transmission stopped and a little white dot appeared briefly on the screen. The woods were our playground and entertainment and nothing had a greater draw for me than the local pond or river that skirted the common.

Growing up in the woods in a leafy part of Surrey June the 16th was like a birthday or Christmas. Some may no see the relevance in this but June 16th was the first day of the new coarse fishing season. After queuing up at the common keepers cottage days before to get a permit we could now fish again, not with handlines hiding in the reeds during closed season but with rod and line out in the open.

Preparations would start weeks in advance, stealing tins of sweetcorn and cans of luncheon meat from my mothers cupboard. There was no hair rigging or bolt rigs at the time, we used running Arsley bomb or coffin ledgers, a cube of meat with a hook poked through it, twisted and then a small piece of reed would but stuck under the bend of the hook to stop it pulling back through.  Loaves of crusty bread from the bakers were acquired days in advance, the freshest bread did not have the right hooking quality. In the days before boilies and modern carp fishing one of the favoured methods for taking carp would be off the surface with free-lined floating crust and as school kids all we needed was a rod, reel line and a single hook to take advantage of the carp’s habit of feeding on left-overs from duck feeding time.

Bunking school would be a must to get the best swim and from what would now be an unacceptable age I would walk in the darkness half a mile through the woods to be ready for first light. In school holidays I would not go home for days on end, my mother would bring dinner down to me on a plate wrapped in tin-foil. In times of extreme hunger we would eat sweetcorn and luncheon meat sandwiches made with unused bait.

What was this all for…. the chance, the take, the run and this has never left me even though I have not been back to that pond for nearly thirty years. From what I have heard the fish were netted many moons ago and angling is now banned.

Future generations of village kids will only get a virtual childhood.

Maybe this is what is wrong with the world? Their online actions have no consequence. When they fight and lose they get another life, no bloody knees, no bloody noses, a throw away generation.

Mornings exercise was a ride over to the quarry. I have a constant debate with myself about carrying a longer lens, not that the one I have is a birding lens but it would have allowed me to get closer to the Wheater’s nest, the warbler in the willow trees and the Lesser Spotted woodpecker in the old stand of oaks. I do not need any other lens to catch the modern shepherd working his flock, the 18-55 is compact and perfectly serviceable.

I headed out towards the Naughty Stone but half way there the clouds were darkening and gathering and using the landmarks realised it was much further than I remembered it. Four hours is enough pedalling for one day.

I had told herself that I might go fishing and rightly she realised that meant I would be going.

In the spirit of the guidance misgiven by the Welsh Assembly I am still fishing my local marks and as low water would be running into darkness Aberavon was worth a go again.

I got there around an hour before low but could have left it another hour and arrived for the fill as nothing happened except my crab stock dwindled.

There was a police patrol on the beach. As far as I could see they never spoke to any of the anglers who were there but they moved on the kids who were drinking and lighting fires above the high water mark. They didn’t even give me a ticket on the car for being registered too far from the beach. Too much other stuff to worry about I presume.

As the light faded fish started to move. Aberavon is one for the few beaches Golden Grey mullet can be targeted and I think that the numerous swirls in ankle deep water were GG’s feeding on what ever the tide dislodged.

Movement of water is key to fishing Aberavon I have decided, no tide action no fish.

One of the lads off to my left hooked a fish first and that was the start of a hectic half an hour. The interesting thing for me was this took place around two hours into the fill, a time by which I would usually be losing interest and thoughts would be of packing up and heading home.

The first run on a squid and crab cocktail was dropped after an initial burst of line taking. The second was a dogfish type tap and produced a dogfish sized hound.

I had four runs, three of which hooked up, nothing special nothing remotely worth weighing but an enjoyable way to spend June 26th. The fish were still feeding when I left but by this time I had run out of crab and squid and nothing was remotely interested in the sandeel or bluey.

Although I have now spent 82 days practicing selfies I only learned last night that I cannot stand at night in front of the camera with the flash on and use the self timer. The auto focus picks up what is directly in front of it at the time and the image becomes out of focus as you move back into frame.  also a headlamp is not enough to illuminate the shot without the flash. More work definitely needed on the night time selfie then?