‘Yes, my hands sometimes miss all the fidgeting with angling tackle; my feet miss the approach to the water’s edge and its various angling spots; my senses miss the waterworld’s airs and the teeming life it holds; but, if asked when last I angled, I can certainly answer: today!’
As usual, my angler life intertwines with and is influenced by the meanderings of family, social and unforeseen events in such a way that I am, sometimes, constrained, by one situation or another, to refrain from approaching the water with rod and baited line for a few weeks, or more, in a row. At these times I find myself again angling without tackle. Angling without tackle…? Isn’t this a case requiring certification then? Well, no; allow me to explain…
Whenever any of a considerable number of possible cataclysms is thrown at the angler inside me, I once again become, after a manner, the four year old boy who got to angle with a stick, line and hook. Indeed, I was angling before I ever held that tiny rod, ages ago – I was angling in my soul. For wonderment, attraction, curiosity and revelry were my very first tools in this wonderful trade, a trade usually involving offering my morsels of bait to certain inhabitants of the watery realms, in exchange for moments and hours of bliss; an excellent pretext for being there – a very fair trade, that is. A year or more of angling without angling before actually starting angling, taught me this lesson: until I hold the rod and cast its line and bait-hook across to the fish, I’ll fish from afar. And so I did, with wide eyes and countless questions to any that would still endure and listen, all with a mindful contemplation of anything and everything fishy around me…
I remember asking my grandma what fish were in the small river that they used to cross most often when she was very young, more than a century ago. Now her answer was fascinating to the little boy back then: “Not only did I see the fish in the crystal clear water but the barbel were so tame that I could touch them under a boulder, whenever I washed my hands there.” From that day I began to dream of angling for river fish.
In addition, there were the sea anglers at the beach for a few weeks each year. By watching them keenly and closely I got to dreaming about the vast sea and the multitudes of beings in there, especially the countless kinds of fish, no matter how exotic or humble. Then, one day, dad and an uncle had caught a carp in the forest pool and this stirred a lot of enthusiasm in the family and in the village neighbourhood. My recurrent questions regarding the event never ceased for that entire season and beyond, if I rightly recall. It was at this time that I started to dream of the highland pool and the forbidden angling for its mythical inhabitants.
All this happened quite some time before I ever got to actually fish those charming waters for their wonderful fish. As I grew up, the first piscatorial contacts were made at each of these avenues, one after the other. And my watery days began and grew in number, albeit very slowly, at first – which is to say, the long periods of revelry were interspersed with a blessed, and precious, day or afternoon of angling. Little did I understand back then that this would be – in various disguises – a recurrent pattern over the years, whether I would accept it or not. For is it not true that i have dreamt about angling more than I have actually angled…?
Books and a few magazines were my favourite angling partners during my longer periods of angling ‘drought’ (not to mention the yearly close season). At times, I was able to reminisce and have lively talks with a rare fishy acquaintance, if circumstances allowed, and I found a (very) few worthwhile internet places in these later years, to read, chat and share the better things in angling. Yet, I never ceased to angle in my soul, all the while, and in the years since those days at the dawn of my life.
For each time I open a good angling book or browse a (usually older) fishing magazine, or read of my brethren’s angling days and ways, or watch a good bit of filming or just reminisce over, or plan, some good waterside days, I am also there at the water’s edge, with the wonderful fish and wildlife, occasionally sharing it with another angling soul or two. I must also add this remark, that such is the wondrous gift of angling that any time spent by the water side can later brighten a span many, many times longer. In fact, the experience will stay with me through my whole life. For example, I cannot recall much of my middle school, however (relativelyspeaking) ‘Olympian’ it was, but I easily recall in gladness many angling moments, days and seasons from that time long gone. Similarly, I also recall my first ever angling magazine of the period, one which I re-read many, many times in those years.
Yes, my hands sometimes miss all the fidgeting with angling tackle; my feet miss the approach to the water’s edge and its various angling spots; my senses miss the waterworld’s airs and the teeming life it holds; but, if asked when last I angled, I can certainly answer: today!
Writing – Solithar, Winter 2025
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