Now if ever there were a lesson in listening to one’s body, I chose to ignore it somewhere between shin splints and the third time I drove back and forth over the bridge at River Avon like a man trying to convince himself the water level might drop out of sheer embarrassment. The trip to Glasgow had clearly taken more out of me than I was prepared to admit.
Shin splints announced themselves the moment I returned to work, my right knee has since been sending strongly worded complaints to head office, and yet there I was, peering at a river the colour of builder’s tea, thinking, “Yes, this looks ideal.” Mrs Newey, saint that she is, had already organised an evening out in Stratford-upon-Avon with the promise of food, wine and most seductively of all waking up without Ben launching himself into the room at 6:02am like a caffeinated ninja.
The main field was flooded. Not romantically flooded, not artistically misted, but properly, squelch-in-your-soul flooded. The footbridge over the brook was underwater after finding an access point, bugger !!. “Go home, Mick,” it whispered, in the gentle lapping tones of inevitability. But I pressed on, because I had barbel on the brain and a bag of spam that wasn’t going to disgrace itself by remaining unused
Any sensible man would have put his feet up. I, however, turned right instead of left and effectively volunteered for additional suffering adjacent to the M40 motorway, because nothing says “rest and recovery” quite like a mile’s hobble (yes a mile I've just measure it) with a fishing rod while your knees and legs are screaming.
The river, recently a handsome olive green, had transformed overnight into something resembling liquid chocolate mousse with anger issues. Visibility was non-existent. If you’d dropped a hippo in there it would have vanished without so much as a ripple. Perfect barbel conditions, I told myself. The sort of water that makes them swagger about with their whiskers twitching, looking for trouble and processed meat products.
I began in a swim that had previously gifted me a near double in similar conditions, which of course meant it now behaved like a sulking teenager and refused to acknowledge my existence. A huge lump of spam went out first, backed up by groundbait pungent enough to make a lesser man question his life choices. An hour passed.
Not a tremor. Not even the polite tap-tap of a curious minnow. The only thing nibbling was my confidence. I moved downstream to a peg that looked so good it practically posed for a calendar. “Here,” it seemed to say, “is where heroic things happen.” Another hour. More spam. Still nothing. The only action came from small fish discreetly trimming the meat in the first swim, which at least confirmed I hadn’t somehow cast into a parallel universe.
Deciding that subtlety might succeed where brute luncheon meat had failed, I scaled down to pellets on the hair with a robin red paste wrap, adding enough aroma to suggest I was marinating the entire river. Fifteen minutes later the rod tip gave a sharp pull. Not the tentative peck of a time-waster, but the sort of tug that makes your spine straighten despite its objections.
Then another pull, and this one meant business. I struck into something solid. For a split second I suspected a chub, but it pulled with a determined thump that travelled right through my faithful Korum Big River rod and into my already aggrieved joints.
This was no half-hearted participant. After a spirited scrap in water the colour of cocoa catastrophe, a barbel materialised from the gloom like a whiskered submarine. Not a monster. Not a record breaker. But a barbel. And in those conditions, on that knee, with those shins, it might as well have been a personal best.
I scooped it up first time always a minor miracle and admired the bronze flanks gleaming despite the pea-soup backdrop. A small’un, yes, but as welcome as central heating in January. There’s something deeply satisfying about being the only fool on the bank and being vindicated, even modestly.
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I had braved floodwater, wind chill and my own questionable judgement, and here was proof that sometimes the river rewards stubbornness rather than punishes it. I slipped it back, watched it disappear into the murk, and immediately began feeling chilly enough to question every decision that had led me there since birth.
With one fish safely ticked off, I decided not to push my luck or my ligaments any further. The walk back felt longer, naturally, because gravity only assists when you don’t need it. But there was a quiet glow beneath the top layer of thermals and self-reproach.
You cannot catch fish sat at home. You also cannot aggravate shin splints sat at home, but that’s a detail we’ll gloss over. Rivers like that up, coloured, full of mystery often bring the best out of barbel. They seem to revel in the chaos, rooting about with cheerful abandon while anglers debate the wisdom of waterproof socks.
So yes, I probably should have turned left. I probably should have elevated my legs and sipped tea while preparing for our child-free sojourn in Stratford-upon-Avon.
But then I wouldn’t have stood alone beside a chocolate torrent, clutching a rod, muttering encouragement to a pellet wrapped in something that smells faintly illegal.
I wouldn’t have felt that jolt, that surge, that brief, glorious reminder that even when your body is protesting like a striking workforce, the river can still surprise you. And as Mrs Newey and I later clinked glasses, knowing no small person would burst in at dawn, I could at least say I’d earned it one small, spirited barbel at a time.
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