AnotherAngle

The Last Cast *

"I envy not him that eats better meat than I do, nor him that is richer, or that wears better clothes than I do. I envy nobody but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do" Izaac Walton ^†

A short questionnaire:

1. Is it raining? ^‡
2. Is it too cold to fish? ^‡
3. Is it the middle of the night? ^§
4. Is it blowing a gale? ^‡
5. Is all your fishing tackle broken?
6. Are you short of "permission to fish"?

If the answer to all of the above is "no", then pleased as I am that you are reading this - take my advice and go fishing now...you can read about fishing when it is truly better inside than out, when the rain rattles the windows, the wind groans in the chimney, the rivers are clear or at the peak of flood and the lakes are cold and transparent - then there is some pleasure to be had from reading a good book about fishing and stretching your toes towards a good fire...

...and be lucky

...and if none of those things appeal, then fiddle with your tackle...

"I shall stay no longer than to wish him a rainy day to read this...discourse; and that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing"  Izaak Walton ^¶

* Yes I know. This too is a cliché, but what the heck else would I have called it? And strictly speaking there should be at least three 'last casts' anyway.

† Well not strictly. I don't envy the commercial fishery match angler or "serious" carp anglers for example. But the general principle is good. I really envy those who have more time to fish than me though.

‡ There is a school of thought that believes there is no such thing as 'too cold to fish' or "too wet to fish" but there is such a thing as 'under dressed for fishing'. I lean towards the latter view.

^§ So what?

¶ Oddly, I found this quote after I wrote my questionnaire, so either I read "The Compleat Angler" in my youth and completely forgot about it or, just possibly, some things don't change that much.