Warwickshire Avon - The Untrodden Pt.35

There’s something rather poetic about watching a documentary on Netflix about a man who skinned people, (shame Ed wasn't played by a young George Burton) and then heading straight out to the river to try and catch something that doesn’t want to be caught. Both, in their own ways, are exercises in obsession. Ed Gein wanted to become his mother

I just want to catch a chub. He made lampshades out of human faces; I’ve made a collection of unfulfilled dreams and used luncheon meat wrappers. Both stories end with someone staring into the darkness, muttering to themselves.

The wife rolled her eyes when I mentioned I was heading out again. “You’re mad,” she said, though not with malice. More with the resigned sigh of someone who’s come to terms with the fact that their spouse would rather sit in a hedge with a rod than engage in normal human evening activities like watching telly, eating dinner, or maintaining relationships. 

“I’m going to the syndicate stretch after work,” I replied, as if announcing I was off to a diplomatic summit. “It’s been slim pickings lately, but you never know.” She didn’t even look up from her phone. “You said that last time.”

 The problem with fishing after work is that by the time you get there, it’s already nearly over. You spend more time faffing about with gear, untangling line, and trying to remember where you put your headtorch batteries than you do actually fishing. But I can’t not go. It’s not about catching anymore it’s about the ritual. If I didn’t do this, I’d never get out at all. And besides, it’s cheaper than therapy.

The weather was proper “October fishing weather” that strange, dull, damp chill that seeps into your bones and makes you question your life choices. Overcast but not dramatic, cold but not cold enough to make you commit to thermals. That sort of evening where the world seems muted, like it’s holding its breath. Perfect, in other words, for blanking.

 I arrived, parked up, and did the usual ritualistic shuffle down the bank. A little krill groundbait went in to liven things up a sort of aquatic amuse-bouche for anything lurking below. I’ve got a dedicated rod in the car now, permanently set up for these fleeting after-work missions. I call it “the panic rod.” She’s always ready, bless her, even if the fish never are.

The plan was simple: spam on the hook, a gentle lob into a prepped swim, and the faint hope that something with gills would take pity on me.

I gave it half an hour to rest while I stood back and surveyed the water, the way you do when you want to look like you know what you’re doing. Not that anyone else was around to see. This stretch has been quieter than a morgue lately — fitting, considering I’d just been watching the story of Wisconsin’s most infamous grave robber.

Speaking of which what was that series all about? The mind boggles. A bloke cutting up corpses, wearing bits of people, and collecting faces in bags yet somehow I can’t get a single chub to nibble a piece of spam. Life isn’t fair. The man was an artist, in his own grotesque way, while I can’t even get nature to acknowledge my existence. He inspired Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. I can’t even inspire a barbel to turn up on a Thursday evening.

Still, as the light faded, I found myself doing what I always do overanalysing every ripple, every twitch of the tip, every suspicious movement that turns out to be a leaf. The small fish moved in first, of course, pecking away at the spam like tiny aquatic pigeons. “Go on, lads,” I muttered, “ring the dinner bell for your bigger mates.” The tip nodded and twitched, teasing me. I was already imagining the surge of a proper bite — that unmistakable tug that makes your pulse jump and the rod bend in a way that momentarily justifies everything.

And then… nothing.

Dead stillness. Like someone had switched the river off. The tip froze, the noises died, and I sat there illuminated by my torchlight, staring at nothing. It was as if the river had lost interest and gone to bed. I waited ten minutes. Fifteen. Eventually, I gave in and reeled in, half expecting to see my spam looking a bit sorry for itself.

Nothing. Gone. Completely stripped. The hook gleaming naked in the beam of my headtorch like it was mocking me. “You muppet,” I said aloud to no one. “You’ve been sitting here watching an empty hook.”

That was the moment, I think, when the laughter came. Not the normal kind, either that weird, slightly hysterical laugh that bursts out when you’ve had too many blanks and not enough bites. I must have looked unhinged. Somewhere, if there’s a CCTV camera trained on that stretch, there’s footage of a grown man sitting in the dark, laughing maniacally at a hook.

Rebaited. Cast again. Another twenty minutes of hope that dissolved into nothing. No chub, no barbel, not even a cheeky eel. The river was silent, smug, and completely uninterested.

But here’s the thing even in the midst of failure, there’s something soothing about it. The absurdity becomes comforting. The spam smells oddly nostalgic, the torchlight makes the mist look cinematic, and the silence — that deep, swallowing silence — does something to the brain. You start thinking about life, work, mortality, Ed Gein’s home décor choices, and the fact that your best mate hasn’t texted you back since July. The river becomes a therapist. A very quiet one, with poor communication skills and a habit of eating your bait.

By the time curfew rolled around, I’d accepted my fate. Packed up slowly, methodically, like a soldier withdrawing from a lost battle. I’ve blanked enough times to be philosophical about it now. It’s just the universe’s way of keeping you humble. After all, if we caught every time, we’d get bored  or at least that’s what I tell myself to stop crying in the car on the drive home.

Still, the plan’s already forming for the next session. I’m going to make a new swim next time, closer to the snag where I suspect they’re lurking. 

Somewhere they feel safe. Somewhere I can ambush them before they realise it’s just me again. Because that’s the thing about fishing it’s not hope that keeps you going, it’s stubbornness. Stubbornness wrapped in delusion, seasoned with optimism, and served cold with a side of disappointment.

So yes, I’ll be back tomorrow, after work, armed with another tin of spam and the misplaced confidence of a man who’s clearly forgotten how rivers work. Maybe I’ll get a bite. Maybe I’ll lose another bait. Maybe I’ll sit there again, torch on, watching the tip glow faintly against the black water, waiting for something that never comes.

And maybe just maybe that’s the whole point.

Because while Ed Gein was busy trying to crawl into his mother’s skin, I’m just trying to crawl back into the rhythm of the river the silence, the slowness, the sweet insanity of it all.

And if nothing else, at least I’ve still got my skin.

For now.