One
day on the river Ogmore, struggling even with bi-focals
to tie on my blue upright, I was fortunate to see a young
fisherman coming towards me. Seeing my predicament he
kindly offered to tie on my fly. To make things easier
for him I offered to hold his beautiful rod, I was amazed
by it’s lightness on which I commented. ‘Over £200
quid’s worth’ he said, taken by surprise I said ‘How much?’
‘Losing your hearing as well as your eyesight pops?’ he
said. Pops!! —Pops!!---was I a Pops? I still considered
myself to be good for my age. I bent forward and looked
at my reflection in the river, Peter Pan was gone and
my father looked back at me. They say a man is as old
as he looks –my advice is don’t look.
Now
for years I’d been trying to ignore the tendency to read
at arms length and my necessity to squint when tying to
look at anything further than 100 yards away but I could
not ignore the fact that my grand-daughter now bends down
to kiss me.
To
be called Pops made me realise that getting older is not
something that only happens to other people. It’s true
what they say that old age comes at a bad time, because
after resting, bones and joints ache when I try to get
going again and to make matters worse I now have to get
out of bed more often during the night.
I
look on with admiration when I see these young guys putting
out a long smooth fly line, it makes me think to myself,
the older I get the better I was when I was younger. As
an excuse for my limited casting, I say to other fishermen
‘I prefer to stalk my fish’ but I must admit that nowadays
my casting creaks louder than words. Yes, if I’d known
I was going to live this long I would have definitely
taken better care of myself.
My
mother used to say ‘you get wiser as you get older’ I’m
not so sure but I have got very autocratic regarding my
fishing, I now do things, as Frank Sinatra says ‘my way’.
I don’t tolerate whiners anymore. If I can, I avoid scorekeepers,
you know the type; the bloke who’s not had a good day
unless he’s caught the limit. I never go fishing with
someone if they have to be back at a certain time and
after the last episode I will never never again take someone
else’s kid with me. No longer do I say what time I’ll
be back –that way it’s impossible to be late.
Being an old hand on the river, every year I get a few
sea trout from a nice piece of streamy water that other
anglers pass by. Take my warning, if you find a place
like this don’t tell anyone, I innocently told my hairdresser
about ‘my spot’, next time I went there another fisherman
was in my place. ‘ Much happening’ I said through gritted
teeth, ‘not yet’ he answered and went on to say that his
hairdresser told him that a chap had regularly been taking
sewin of about 3lb apiece from this stretch ‘Oh yes!’
I said. ‘From now on I’ll be coming here every evening,’
he said; well not tomorrow he won’t!
Because
of my ageing body I am to slow too catch sheep so have
had to give up using the tups indispensable. For those
of you who don’t know, the distinctive pink tinge to the
body of this fly comes from using the wool plucked from
around the genitalia of a ram. I’ve tried various other
concoctions and in spite of strange looks from my neighbours
when trying to collect it, I’ve found the best substitute
to be the fur from next doors cocker spaniel, but even
though it’s plucked from the same region on the animal
(the dog doesn’t seem to mind) it doesn’t have quite the
same attraction to the fish.
It’s
not all bad, advancing years tend to give things a rosy
glow even more so since I started taking a large hip flask
of whiskey in my fishing bag. O.K. I fall in more often
but each fishing day ends in a warm dreamy glow even if
I’ve caught nothing. By the way, this nicely leads me
on to tell you about a wonderful dry fly floatant that
my doctor put me on to, by accident---PREPERATION. H.
I will not go into detail but I had been using so much
of this stuff, that some of it must have been under my
finger nails and was transferred to the fly when I tied
it on. By sheer coincidence I started using this wonderful
formula just after the introduction of the hip flask.
PREPERATION. H. comes in nice handy tubes and is available
from any chemist shop, I work it into the body of the
fly and don’t put any on the hackle so be sparing with
it, certainly don’t pile it on. Incidentally, Anusol although
excellent for the original purpose intended is not quite
as good as a dry fly floatant.
I’m
told that eventually I’ll be forgetting to do up my zip,
this doesn’t worry me too much as some of our (even) older
club members forget to undo theirs and I don’t know if
there’s any connection but for some strange reason they’ve
started to smell of haddock, this is no real problem on
the river but as I don’t like the smell of smoked fish
I try to avoid sitting next to them in club meetings.
Once
retired, things take on a different meaning, I now know
the difference between a house and a home; let me explain—a
home is where they’ll put you when they don’t want you
in the house.
Well,
I no longer fish in the dark anymore, I now prefer to
pull up the sheets, roll over in bed and dream of how
things used to be. I often think of those lines that my
old friend Walter used to say: --
Yes
tonight looks good for sewin
As the clouds obscure the moon
Not for me night river fishing
My bones wore out too soon.
“Peter
Ross”
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