I had finished the first year at 6th form college in Godalming and had bombed my 1st year exams, wasn’t enthusiastic about the 2nd year coming, did not want to go to college so my motivation wasn’t the best. Sooner or later I had a series of bust ups with the head of year and we, as football vernacular has it, parted company by mutual consent. And I had a weekend job in a Surrey department store that I could go full time with that was extremely tempting. Almost the same time, I stopped fishing. How dumb was that? I stacks more time through not having to do college work in the evenings again, and I well remember that I was a bit puzzled one time sure that there was something I was intending to be getting on with and it took me a little while to adjust. So I may have taken that time by going to the fishing tackle shop and adding to my bait and tackle since now I had far more income than I’d ever had before.
Instead I started going to the pub, and it was many years later when I was working with a friend on a hot clear day as we walked past a large pond at lunchtime and could observe the carp swimming at the surface that I mentioned that here was an ideal day for angling with a floating crust. He had no clue that I was interested in angling and I’d forgotten, but he promised he’d organise out a day for us to go. He did, however, when he inspected my bait and tackle, he suggested I chucked most of it out as it was too decrepit, too rubbish or just plain illegal.
So a visit to a fishing tackle shop was factored in when we went and I laid out an eye-watering quantity of cash on bait and tackle as well as a rod licence and permits. We had a brilliant day and I recaptured the bug again, and my mate asked if I was up for going off for some weekend fishing. I said that was a great idea and he arranged for us to travel down and have a go on the Avon near Christchurch and we went down on the Friday afternoon, checked into the B&B and got an early night and we were up at a horrible time which came as a shock to me for a Saturday, but by the time we arrived to the river, dug in, got set up I had recovered myself and had a fantastic day, altering bait and tackle set up as the thought took me.
It was interesting in the evening when we went into the town for a beer, as it became apparent how vital fishing and the Avon is to the area. A lot of the pubs had pictures of fishing scenes, stuffed prize pike and copies of the Angling Times among the rest of the papers.
On the Sunday we went to the fishing tackle shop and restocked bait and tackle that had been lost or used on the Saturday and had another enjoyable day by the water. I even made friends with a water vole that was keen on my bait and I kept chucking him a few and he came really close.
It was a fabulous break and I arrived home totally knackered and away for an early sleep and a decision to do it again as early as I could.
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