After much debate, a few muttered expletives, and a daring expedition involving a GPS, an OS map from 1994, and the blind optimism only a Suzuki Jimny owner possesses, I finally managed to open up the ancient jungle trail known locally as the Syndicate Stretch. It had long since been claimed by nature or possibly just the nettles.
Later on Keith Jobling, armed with his industrial-strength strimmer and the grim determination of a man who once trimmed an entire golf course in a day, set about reclaiming the land. Five hours of buzzing, sweating, and the occasional “this’ll be worth it, mate” later, we had something resembling a track. Not quite a road, but certainly navigable for anything short of a Sherman tank.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. A few days later, in true agricultural plot twist fashion, the farmer decided to literally make hay. With all the timing and subtlety of a Shakespearean villain, he brought in the machinery, flattened the lot, and cleared the field like a man who’d just discovered what fun it is to ruin other people’s hard work. All that effort reduced to nothing but anecdotal glory and a faint smell of petrol-soaked nettles.
Still, with work related stress multiplying like rabbits on Red Bull and future responsibilities lurking ominously on the horizon like unpaid council tax, I needed a break. A proper one. Not a coffee break. A fishing break. The kind where your brain slowly deflates like a lilo in the sun and you forget your own name for an hour, especially when I had to cancel my trip to the Wye the following day.
Fishing, as every overworked soul knows, is the most effective form of budget therapy. It’s just you, the water, and the existential question of whether that thing you saw move was a fish or a leaf with ideas above its station.
Armed with nothing but a size 6 hook and a chunk of bread crust, I took to the water. The sun blazed down like it had a grudge, the birds chirped away like they hadn’t read the room, and before long, a few greedy chub couldn’t resist my humble offerings.
No alarms, no boilies, no twenty-piece tackle set that requires an engineering degree just crust and calm. Job done. Off the mark for the new season. Rod packed away, mind a little lighter, and sanity, for now, safely reeled back in.
The Avon is gin clear at the minute, often the most simple tactics outwit the often most cautious of fish. Oddly the tactics will work one day and not the next. This session they were on it !! I baited a spot with hemp and pellets at the start of the session, an hour later, only minnows and tiny dace to show for it. The Wife is having a shoulder op tomorrow, my fishing could be limited to a couple of hours like it was for the session. Fingers crossed she recovers a little faster when she had the other one done.
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