There’s a peculiar cruelty to the river season, and it always seems to arrive dressed as optimism. For weeks it sulks, sulks some more, and then just as you’ve resigned yourself to polishing reels in the garage like a widower dusting photo frames the air temperature climbs to a balmy fifteen degrees and the water begins to warm as if it has finally remembered its purpose in life.
Suddenly the river looks alive again, like it’s cleared its throat and is ready to sing. And what does the calendar say? Of course. The end is just around the corner. Typical. It’s as if the fish have held a meeting and decided to switch on precisely when the angler’s opportunities switch off.
Next weekend, however, offers hope. A long-overdue weekender with my good mate Simon awaits us on the ever-lovely River Teme, specifically the charming stretch at Mill Cottage (yes again !!). The very name sounds wholesome enough to guarantee a chub. There is no elaborate strategy, no military-grade baiting campaign just a proper catch-up, a flask that will definitely be too small, and some honest trotting for whatever feels reckless.
Then, as dusk creeps in like a suspicious bailiff, we’ll have a speculative go for a barbel or a decent chub with a bit of ledgering. The phrase “outside chance” will be uttered several times, which in angling language means “I have already pictured the photograph.”
It’s been a while since we last booked a proper fishing weekender. Life has a habit of filling diaries with things that don’t involve rod rests. I sometimes think I’m busy, then I look at Simon’s schedule and realise I operate on apprentice level. He turns sixty this year the senior member of our little band and if anyone deserves to wind down, it’s him.
Though if you’ve ever tried telling a lifelong angler to relax, you’ll know the only winding down he’s interested in involves a centrepin and a downstream glide. Fishing is his therapy, same as it is for the rest of us. The minute your boots hit the bank, the mind clears like someone’s opened a window. Mortgages, pensions, emails, responsibilities gone. Replaced entirely by the intense analysis of a single quivering rod tip.
Of course, trusting in the fishing gods is a risky business. The only bank time I could squeeze in before it gets a little chillier was a brief smash-and-grab after work, the sort of session conducted with one eye on the fading light and the other on club rules.
I was 24 hours earlier bankside than the planned session you see, as I received a very welcoming WhatsApp message from the Wife mid CAD bashing (a simple enough steering wheel rim / hand blockage study on an outboard air vent if you're interested)
Half an hour after dusk and I had to be gone, like a barbel-seeking Cinderella. I’ve said it before I struggle behind a motionless rod. Give me a float to run through and I’m a picture of calm. Sit me behind a static tip and within twenty minutes I’m interpreting gusts of wind as personal insults. Still, an hour and a half is just about within my tolerance. Just.
The tactics were simple enough: pungent groundbait that could wake the dead and a paste-wrapped pellets designed to offend anything with nostrils. I lowered it in with all the quiet confidence of a man who has read about success happening to other people. The river looked right. It felt right. Somewhere, surely, a whiskered resident was considering my offering with interest. Or possibly swimming in the opposite direction. That’s the thing about ledgering it gives you plenty of time to imagine both outcomes in vivid detail.
Of course he did. That’s how these stories go. Nothing all day, then action at the death the sort of ending that keeps the rest of us awake at night, replaying our own early pack-ups with regret. I want a piece of that last-light magic. I want the rod to hoop over just as I’m convincing myself it’s time to call it.
The trouble is, diary commitments and the small matter of earning a living back have a habit of intruding. I don’t get paid for taking afternoons off now I'm back jobbing again to commune with fish, much as I’ve considered pitching the idea. And just when the rivers seem to be waking up properly, bank time becomes a rare commodity. It’s a familiar frustration for any angler juggling real life with river life the eternal balancing act between responsibility and the irresistible pull of flowing water.
Still, next weekend stands there on the horizon like a promise. Two days of river air, questionable casting accuracy, and the comfortable silence that only long friendships allow. There will be laughter, mild exaggeration, and at least one bold declaration that “they’re having it tonight.” Whether they are or not is almost secondary. Because the real prize isn’t always the fish. It’s the reset. The tonic. The glorious narrowing of focus to float, tip, current and hope.
And if, as the final light drains from the River Teme, a rod finally pulls round and Simon lets out that triumphant shout that echoes across the meadow, then all the calendar chaos and hurried smash-and-grabs will have been worth it. If not, we’ll pack up grinning anyway, already planning the next assault. Because that’s what we do. We return.
We believe. And just when the season seems to be slipping through our fingers, we convince ourselves the best bite is still to come.
Anyway to the task in hand !!
Half an hour into dusk and half an hour after that was the gospel according to the Barbel Whisperer. Not a man of wild theories or Facebook folklore, but a quiet riverbank sage whose words tend to carry the weight of wet keepnets and bent rods. “That’s when the dinner bell rings,” he’d said. And you don’t argue with a man who speaks fluent barbel.
So I timed it right. Slipped onto the stretch with that hopeful tread every angler knows equal parts optimism and delusion. Two chaps were already installed. One stationed upstream by the weir, looking as though he’d merged with his chair. The other in the peg I fancied. He’d apparently been there since breakfast and had a solitary chub to show for it a fish that probably threw itself on the hook out of sympathy. Oddly, he packed up just before dusk. Prime time approaching and he legs it. Curious business.
In wandered a passer-by a matchman by the look of him. You can always tell. They carry themselves like riverbank cartographers, scanning flow lines and marginal reeds as if plotting troop movements.
Pleasant fellow. We had a natter. “If you don’t catch here,” he advised, “try the next peg down. Better chance of a barbel.” Said with the quiet certainty of someone who’s seen things. River things.
So down I went.
Not much time now. The light was draining from the sky in that theatrical way it does as if someone backstage is slowly dimming the world. Over in one of the Piccadilly Circus gardens as we jokingly call that row of riverside houses a security light blinked on. Motion sensor perhaps. Or maybe it sensed angling optimism.
Five minutes later an elderly voice rang out, sharp as a struck match and loud enough to WAKE THE DEAD !!!
“Are you alright?”
I nearly struck at that.
“Yes, fine thanks!”
“What are you doing?”
There’s something wonderfully suspicious about that question when you’re sitting motionless by a river.
“I’m fishing! I’ll be off after dusk.”
Pause. Then, “Oh! I couldn’t see your rod. I thought you were just sitting there.”
I raised it obligingly, like a flag of peaceful intent. She seemed satisfied and retreated, presumably to report to the swans that the intruder was harmless.
It was a lovely swim, truth be told. Steady pace, good crease line, depth where it mattered. According to the matchman, the lady feeds the swans and the fish loiter for leftovers. Free dinners create habits even underwater. I started with pellets wrapped in paste. Faithful, methodical, sensible.
Nothing.
Not a tremor.
So I switched to meat. Because when reason fails, luncheon meat often steps in.
And then precisely at dusk, as if scripted the rod absolutely slammed round. Not a polite nod, not a barbel pluck. This was violence. Carbon hooped, tip lunged, heart stopped. I struck.
Thin air.
The line had parted.
Just like that.
No resistance. No thumping tail. No heavy, nodding surge of a hooked barbel. Just slackness and the slow, sickening realisation that whatever had been there was now elsewhere probably laughing. What happened? Pike snaffled the meat? Line nicked on something unseen? Had I tangled around the rest like a complete novice? The mind replays it in slow motion, editing and re-editing, looking for clues that aren’t there. All I know is there was no fish on the bank. And no hook on the line.
Too late to set up again. The light was gone. The river had resumed its calm indifference.
So I trudged back to the car, tail firmly between legs, replaying the moment like a missed penalty in a cup final.
That’s fishing though, isn’t it? Hours of nothing. Seconds of chaos. And a lifetime wondering what was on the end.
The dinner bell rang.
I just wasn’t invited to eat.
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