Eight weeks to be precise or close to two months was the duration of my absence from fishing, a month spent catching the train to central London each day to visit my dad in hospital and the rest of the time looking after him following his operation, now I had a window of opportunity with the caring passed on to my sister for a couple of weeks. I had only one place to go first and that was the river I crossed on a daily basis during the height of summer, even though I was on a tube train each time it didn't stop me marvelling at the greenery of the little River Gade below nor did it temper my desire to fish it once more, so this trip is dedicated to all those who really want to go fishing but for whatever reason can't.
I had walked down to the river a couple of times in the last month when finding myself early for the train, you can't keep an angler from water even when they aren't angling, it rekindled memories of getting the train here to fish back in the day when we were car less and carefree. Even during the height of the drought the river looked pretty decent so I was itching to fish the Gade and today I did.
It seemed summer had passed me by with recent rains and the fresh feel of the morning as I got to a coloured river knowing that more heavy storms were forecast at midday. Swapping the yellow dusty drought in central London for a lush damp green of the 'countryside' a few weeks later was like being in another world even if I was still within the M25. However by the time I had set up the river had dropped unnaturally as if the plug had been pulled and I knew full well all the water was going down the canal, whether that was down to neglect of not closing the lock or by design I had to chuckle, the irony of picking a day when the river had less flow than during the drought didn't dampen my enthusiasm.
I knew I would get dace as I set up where I always do below some shallows and even though I was hardly trying and my little stick float was not dotted down as it should be the bites were thick and fast as a few small to medium sized silver darts glistened in the morning sun.
In between I had a few roach and perch, the first stripey pricked it's fins up as I quickly removed my size 18 and I just held it there in my hand, there was no time to take a photo (it wasn't a big perch by any means) but there was time to stare, two, three, maybe four seconds was all that was needed to marvel, everything was perfection as the sun hit this little perch's flanks and shone through it's out stretched fins, the green of it's back was iridescent, the stripes almost jet black in contrast, it's red fins glowed orange and the dorsal spiked up as if to say "Don't mess with me" - It was a work of art. I thought how much you miss the simple things sometimes as I slipped the little sergeant back at my feet and watched it take off across the sunlit gravel to vanish in the gloomy water once more.
More dace, perch and roach followed although I lost quite a few maybe due to the surprisingly strong wind or more likely due to the unsurprisingly rusty angler, one decent roach needed the net after losing a similar sized one earlier trying to unhook it in the water, not huge by roach standards but "it'll do" as they say.
I roved downstream into quite a strong breeze keeping an eye on the increasing cloud levels and the ever darkening skies, sure enough the storms were on their way but I had to get down there, down to the bottom of the stretch. I wasn't heading for any super swim nor was there any wonder fish caught aside from a few more dace and roach here and there, plus the odd gudgeon and chublet (some of the dace were a much better stamp mind) No I just had to get down to the bottom to see my train.
I had to look at the tube going by, the same ones I spent a month on going to hospital in London. Every time without fail I would look down at the little river but not this time, this time I would look up with my chin up. I wondered where the people were going on this tube train as it crossed the moor like I had, then I thought of all the nurses I got to know in the hospital, the cooks, the cleaners and indeed some of the patients who's bravery and optimism were inspiring. I sat there in solitude and packed up, reflecting on what my dad's health would be like and whether reading this blog would rekindle his desire to go fishing again, then you wonder what the future holds for you and how much a drag is it getting older, then you finally realize you're just thinking too much and it's much simpler to just count how much you caught today.
I was a fine three hours fishing that's for sure and it was good to see the river showing signs of recovery even if like the rest of us it will never be in the prime it once was. It is still a nice place to spend a few enjoyable hours, there is after all much worse places you could be.
