I am not a natural stander-stiller. In life, when not hiding behind the page, I fidget and think hurried, jumbled thoughts.
Few things still me and keep me in the moment. Fishing, when I discovered it 20 years ago, was one. Not in the beginning, of course. There was too much to remember and master: knots, kit, casting. But then, when it all came together and I was able to select my fly, tie, snip and cast, my world both reduced and grew.
I was fortunate to start fishing before smartphones, so there was never any temptation to video or photograph, and this habit (largely) stuck. But I found this lack only sharpens eidetic memory: some moments are too ephemeral for clicking – they force you to be present.
You can, of course, fish commercial lakes and the manicured banks of chalk-streams: kempt and never more than 10 minutes from a car park. But it is really wild fishing, when there is a risk of being lost and never found again, where you feel nature has really welcomed you and folded you within her arms.
Fly fishing (the sort of fishing I do) often forces you to be still, for you must first observe the water and study the insect hatches. I have often sat like this for ages: hypnotised and zoned out. Fishing legitimises outside sitting. And when you are very still, for a very long time, the wildlife accepts you. This is how I’ve seen kingfishers flash downstream and then resettle. I’ve seen osprey, harriers, kestrels, kites, buzzards, barn owls – and that’s before we go to the water’s edge.
Fishing is about so much more than fish. I’ve waded into a river and just let it wash past me, not casting, just standing and watching as the wildlife plops and plinks around me. When else could you do this without someone trying to rescue you?
Perhaps the wildest place I ever fished was the West Dart on Dartmoor (£15-£20 a day). A heart-busting one-hour north from Two Bridges, past medieval Wistman’s Wood with its lichen splattered trees and past Beardown (the last place on Dartmoor where bears were seen); up as far as the west Dart goes. You are miles, and hours, from anywhere, pitched against a terrain that hasn’t changed in centuries and has challenged bigger boots than yours.
The brown trout here are wild, small, wily and easy to spook. So you fish with an overly long rod for such a small piece of water: a 10-footer with a 3lb breaking strain line and a fly the size of an eyelash. This is not a place to keep still whilst fishing because the water is fast. The fish, if they take your fly, let it go in a moment. Hesitate and you have lost. And then you move on, but moving on involves ninja climbs. There is no easily negotiable river bank. You climb boulders, avoiding catching your leg in the spaces between them; this is not a place to break or twist a bone because you are hours from help. Then there are the quagmires to disappear into. Here you are not so much observing nature, as running with her, hoping she doesn’t turn against you.
Salmon fishing in Scotland is a different beast. The rivers are big enough to swallow whole trees and send them crashing to the lowlands. The river Carron up in the Highlands is my favourite (from £50 a day). Entirely overshadowed by fancier cousins down south (the Tay, Tweed or Spey), I love her because she is lesser known, less accessible, and entirely the better for it. It was here, fishing for two days, that I was so overcome with the beauty of watching osprey fly overhead that I lay, quite still, for hours, my rod beside me, and watched the river flow past me. Mesmerising, head-clearing. It is very difficult for real life to reach you in such a place, so you feel cocooned.
Then, later, we went up river to scenery so beautiful, my vocabulary shrank to just three words: Oh my God. The river crashed over waterfalls and the salmon leapt up the ladder in perfect synchronicity as they made their way back up to the redds. Sometimes the best day’s fishing is actually one that results in letting the fish do what they do best: swim free and wild.
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