My absence from the canal-side in the years since I gave up angling looks so peculiar to me now. I used to love it so much, especially because my other endevours tended to be at the highly athletic end of the spectrum, playing as I did rugby, football and cricket for different school and village sides. Having the time to pick up my fishing tackle, jump on a bike and pedal for the ten minutes to go to the local fishery and enjoy a few hours gently sitting with a rod in my hand and staring at a float on the water was fabulous.
When I left 6th form college, "by mutual consent" as the football parlance has it, following the 1st year when it was evident that I had played about too much in the 1st year to have any possibility of gaining any A levels at the end of the second, would have been the best time to spend spring and summer evenings with my fishing tackle instead of slaving over some economics homework.
And since I was working, in a department store restaurant, I was earning and had more cash on the hip than I had ever had before and a day off during the week which would have been ideal to get out to the water and have a few hours if not a whole day angling with the place practically to myself. Even better, since I was working in Guildford, shopping at the fishing tackle shop would have been simple and I could have had lots of maggots to drown. This was unheard of before I left college since our village did not have a fishing tackle shop apart from a very small part of one shop had a limited selection, and absolutely no live bait on offer, and to get into Guildford and back having been to the fishing tackle shop to get some would have taken hours and was not worthwhile.
In following years, I worked for a large utility company in Staines which had it's own fishing lake and still I never felt the urge to finish for the day, get the scruffs on and enjoy an hour down there after work. Even sillier, less than 50 meters across the road was the Thames which has some marvellous fishing that went entirely ignored by me, especially since by then I was earning really good money and had the chance to get some really fabulous angling in the fishing tackle bag.
Years later, again I was with for a company that had it's location right on the waterfront, and very often on breaks a gang of us would go and sit on the steps on a nice hot day and watch people angling, and as an alternate week saw my shifts terminating at 4 o'clock, it would have been very straightforward to pick the fishing tackle out of the car and round off the day with a couple of hours angling. I may have enjoyed the job more too, thinking about it.
Naturally other priorities turn up as you go through the years. After I left sixth form I enjoyed pubs in quite a major way. Women were never an issue of course, I don't ever recall any throwing themselves at me and begging me to ravish them, so that generally would not have been a hindrance to deciding on a days fishing, but it just seemed that at that moment I'd put the fishing tackle away and forgotten about it.
That's altering now though. I do have the desire to return, I have had my fishing tackle out to check it over and see what needs to be replaced, which is the majority of it, and I've been finding places to go and what I need to do in order to be able to fish there, so hopefully I can revive some of the enjoyment from my youthful days.
20110114
When I left 6th form college, "by mutual consent" as the football parlance has it, following the 1st year when it was evident that I had played about too much in the 1st year to have any possibility of gaining any A levels at the end of the second, would have been the best time to spend spring and summer evenings with my fishing tackle instead of slaving over some economics homework.
And since I was working, in a department store restaurant, I was earning and had more cash on the hip than I had ever had before and a day off during the week which would have been ideal to get out to the water and have a few hours if not a whole day angling with the place practically to myself. Even better, since I was working in Guildford, shopping at the fishing tackle shop would have been simple and I could have had lots of maggots to drown. This was unheard of before I left college since our village did not have a fishing tackle shop apart from a very small part of one shop had a limited selection, and absolutely no live bait on offer, and to get into Guildford and back having been to the fishing tackle shop to get some would have taken hours and was not worthwhile.
In following years, I worked for a large utility company in Staines which had it's own fishing lake and still I never felt the urge to finish for the day, get the scruffs on and enjoy an hour down there after work. Even sillier, less than 50 meters across the road was the Thames which has some marvellous fishing that went entirely ignored by me, especially since by then I was earning really good money and had the chance to get some really fabulous angling in the fishing tackle bag.
Years later, again I was with for a company that had it's location right on the waterfront, and very often on breaks a gang of us would go and sit on the steps on a nice hot day and watch people angling, and as an alternate week saw my shifts terminating at 4 o'clock, it would have been very straightforward to pick the fishing tackle out of the car and round off the day with a couple of hours angling. I may have enjoyed the job more too, thinking about it.
Naturally other priorities turn up as you go through the years. After I left sixth form I enjoyed pubs in quite a major way. Women were never an issue of course, I don't ever recall any throwing themselves at me and begging me to ravish them, so that generally would not have been a hindrance to deciding on a days fishing, but it just seemed that at that moment I'd put the fishing tackle away and forgotten about it.
That's altering now though. I do have the desire to return, I have had my fishing tackle out to check it over and see what needs to be replaced, which is the majority of it, and I've been finding places to go and what I need to do in order to be able to fish there, so hopefully I can revive some of the enjoyment from my youthful days.
20110114
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