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For Sanity Sake I Must Do More Trout Fishing!

A salmon angler contemplates on his obsession

Unlike trout fishing salmon fishing can be shear monotony. Cast after unproductive cast, lift, roll, mend and wait, lift etc, etc. Day after day, week after week, season after season all in hope, usually to no avail.

My old dog Midge, sadly gone to hunt rabbits in the great heavenly warren, would take pity upon me and bring a stick for me to indulge in my other past time, chucking sticks which she would kindly fetch back to me. Step, lift, roll, mend, chuck a stick, to me it broke the monotony. Midge did, off course, draw the line when I explained the principles of Spey casting to her, suggesting she might to better at salmon fishing than me. She turned, ran and wagged her tail inviting me to chuck that flipping silly 'stick' I waved around and to be honest on many occasions, dog present or not, I have been so tempted not to retrieve the rod when I bloody well did chucked it in the bushes!.

If the world wants to focus on the complete optimist it should role model it's self on the salmon angler. Indeed Darwin need never have travelled to the Galapagos Islands to understand evolution. The study, in home waters, of a salmon angler exemplifies evolution, slow, nothing spectacular then oops, T Rex! How did that happen, missed it, oh sod no I didn't. Back to the evolution of a sea slug, bugger, now I'm walking on dry land and using a computer, where does the time go when you're having so much fun?

Now I'm stripping wall paper having so much fun, cast, step, mend, chuck a stick, I can't stop, just one more scrape at the unbeatable wall, just one more cast, just one last chance in the evolution that is salmon angling.

It's February -5c, I'm waist deep in the Spey, ice is solidifying around my legs, my fingers will fall off and May is a long way off before I actually have a cat in hell's of catching a fish. I'm certifiably mad as a brush. Mend, step, chuck a cast, stick. Someone caught a fish yesterday, miles away, was it on the same river? Who cares, I live in hope and if it can happen for her it can happen for me. A 10lb bar of silver, a fresh run springer, mmmnnnn, fuel enough to keep me going until hypothermia sets in, some one section me!

If I went a week without a trout I'd recon the water was devoid of life and move on. I have gone a whole salmon season without a knock and almost wept with joy to get a fish in the last week of the season, red, raging and of course returned. That is truly as mad as a cross eyed bat without radar. A whole season and nothing in the larder.

For sanity sake I must do more trout fishing. You see trout actually live in the river, they eat when ever they have the chance, rise freely to dancing duns, sip spent spinners, nibble on nymphs. Trout are as one with their home and for the trout angler a mystical monster missed this year will be around next year feeding away, taunting you to try to catch it.

Salmon off course sod off when they are old enough and head out on a gap year or two around the Faroe islands or Greenland returning somewhat larger and more interesting, when the fancy takes them. Fattened up on foreign food they have no need to eat when they enter freshwater having just one thing on their mind, sex!

There in lies the difference between the sane and sensible trout angler and the salmon angler. Salmon anglers pursue, with food like objects, a sex obsessed creature that doesn't eat and that my fellow angling nutter is the reason why salmon are so often encountered and all to rarely caught, except by those with vast skill, unnatural luck or a stick of dynamite.

Chuck a rod, cast a stick, mend a fence, wait. Some days salmon angling is so monotonous you could easily loose the will to breath, except for that otter playing with her pups, or that osprey stooping to take a sea trout, that kingfisher, a darting mirage of colours. The breeze blows in the scent of spring wild flowers or August heather, flies dance in evening sunlight the river chortles as it passes and salmon roll in the tail of pool. You see, salmon angling more often than not takes you to magical places where you can l at be peace for hours on end until, as the last light of day fades, then there is a long slow double draw on the line and as you lift the rod, there is weight and power thrumming up from the depths as a fish turns and runs pell mell for home.

With still trembling hands you wade back out into the stream, faith renewed, lift, roll, mend, step and wait, wait until that next moment of magic comes along. It may be today it may be next year, heck smell that air, see those sights, enjoy being mad as a brush, an optimistic salmon fisher.