TALES FROM THE TIDELINE
Simon Smith considers the journey of learning over a lifetime that needs to be taken to become a good angler
Well, that’s it”, you mutter, lifting the rod from the stand. “Another session over.” The leader knot clunks through the rings and you watch a plump little dab emerge from the surf to flap on the sand at your feet. Still an act of minor magic after all these years. At moments like this, you cannot help but think back and wonder at how many sessions there have actually been over the years: hundreds? Thousands? Too many to remember each of them, but all have left indelible little flashes – a great fish here, an enjoyable day filled with banter there – that you know will stay with you forever. Equally difficult is thinking of that great void that existed before fishing crashed into your life and took hold. Impossible, it seems. Like a long-formed habit or a lucky hat that’s hung around the tackle box forever, it just feels as though it has always been there.
If you think hard enough, however, it is possible to reach back to that moment when your awareness of fishing awoke for the first time. Keep that moment in mind. Now, think on to the first time that you actually voiced this interest to others. When I do this, I can still remember the startled feeling that hit me upon discovering that this strange, alien, exciting, challenging thing that I had stumbled across was far more prevalent than I could ever have imagined, just sitting there beneath the surface, dormant, like an underground lake. When you tap into the vastness of fishing like this, numerous people from grandparents to neighbours and everyone in between, suddenly seems to have a story about fish they have caught, trips they have taken and memories of days spent by the sea. So many people are unexpectedly able to produce an old fishing rod, passed on by a friend or relative, from the attic or a dusty corner of the shed, a reel still loaded with crinkled line that last saw action on some summer day years before, or a canvas knapsack filled with an assortment of rusted old bits and bobs, beads and swivels. Even if no longer in use, the fact that these items of tackle have never been discarded or given away affords them a metaphorical, totemic status suggestive of a deeper cultural undercurrent and shared heritage. Whilst remaining unspoken on a day-to-day basis, this heritage is always there, and has always been there, just waiting for newcomers simply to recognise its commonality before they are admitted, with open arms and tackle box, to the fishing community.
Why is it only now that I’ve stumbled across this, you wonder, when everybody else already knows about it? No matter now. I’ve cracked this, you might think at this point. Better late than never. Anyway, I’m in now, a part of this great thing. Only once inside, though,
