But that’s not what this bridge crosses and when the view you are met with is a dilapidated old train track, if your natural reaction is anything other than “It’s a ****ing railway line!!!” and a sense that your whole week is from this very moment in total ruin, then you my friend have failed the Bridge Test. When you finally get to the bridge you peer over, waiting to be greeted with clear, fish-filled waters. Even the backseat complaints of your children declaring they need a wee stop don’t shatter your daydream. My mind always reminds me of the scene in A Passion for Angling where Chris and Bob peer over a bridge on the Hampshire Avon and admire the roach that “are nearly as big as the chub.”Īs you get ever closer your mind becomes tightly focussed, total tunnel-vision consumes you and your thoughts are wholeheartedly dedicated to creating your own piece of fishing heaven. As you wind along the road closer and closer to the bridge your mind races, flooding with images of what you hope to see below. Suddenly you spot what you’ve been waiting for, the missing puzzle piece is a bridge. The scenery is superb, the countryside is obliging you with glimpses of shy deer grazing cautiously in fields, buzzards mewing majestically overhead and to cap it all off the weather is perfect for a successful day on the bank. Picture the scene: you’re in a car, driving across country. One proven way to diagnose an angling illness, addiction or obsession is with what I call the Bridge Test.
That one sentence has stuck with me ever since and seems a fitting description of an “illness” of which I too am a lifelong sufferer. He told me it was said of him by his relatives that he wasn’t addicted to fishing, he was afflicted by fishing. I remember the first time I fished with James Robbins he told me about his childhood memories of fishing and so much of it resonated with me. Whatever magic was in the air that day cast its spell on my dad too, rekindling his own urges to fish by reacquainting him with his beloved childhood hobby. As I’ve mentioned, I have no recollection of the events of my first day on the bank, all I know is that my wildest dreams had been far surpassed and I’d been left with a permanent “ache” that would bind me to fishing for the rest of my life. As time went by, the burning urge to go fishing grew and eventually I managed to persuade my dad to take me. I could have spent, and indeed did spend vast amounts of time rummaging and exploring these dusty little mysterious objects, painting a picture in my mind’s eye of what I imagined the world of fishing to be like. All I knew was that I was captivated by it all homemade floats, packets of pre-tied hooks, odd little plastic stick things (that I later learned were called disgorgers), spools of spider web thin line, weird wonderful rod rests and of course the rods and reels themselves.
When I discovered it, I had no idea what any of it was, or how to use it. He grew to love his new sport and found himself drawn to fishing less and less, ultimately selling a great deal of his tackle to clear the ever-dustier corner of the garage his gear occupied. My dad had been hooked on angling since he was a small boy, taking himself off with a rod and reel and exploring the trout streams of Ireland, eventually making a good name for himself as a respected angler around the Bristol match scene.Īt some point not long before I was born though, my grandfather introduced him to lawn bowls. I was immersed in a world of mystery that had whispered its existence every time I gazed at the remaining items of my father’s tackle hanging from the garage walls and ceiling. I can’t tell you where I caught it or what it even was. Unlike many of us, I can’t tell you how old I was when I caught my first fish. Harry is six years of age and has been a keen angler since I introduced him to his first roach when he was two and a half.
With the lockdown restrictions eased, I could finally take my son out for a long overdue day on the bank. James Brewer looks back a post lockdown trip with his son, Harry, at Acorn Fisheries, a trip that reinforced the importance of keeping that childhood intrigue and angling passion alive, no matter what age we are.