Anglers' Net - The UK Online Fishing Magazine: Fishing Days

Fishing Days
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Steve-Burke on 27 January, 2004 04:00:00
 
Published: 1966
Author: Geoffrey Bucknall
Reviewed by: Steve Burke
Geoff Bucknalls Big Pike is well-known and highly regarded, probably because
its about one of our most popular species. However Fishing Days is one of
those books that you rarely hear about, yet I reckon is the best of the many
that the author has written. In fact Id go much further than that * its one
of my favourite books of all time, and one of those that I can read again and
again.
This may partly be because I know many of the Kentish waters mentioned in the
book - Furnace Pond, the home of the former record perch and which Ive visited
but sadly never fished; the three lakes at Frittenden House, which I almost took
a lease on before securing my gravel pits at Wingham. (Unfortunately the waters
had fallen into disrepair since Bucknalls day and needed too big an investment
to make viable.) Then of course theres the charming River Teise, a neglected
fast-flowing sidestream of the Medway thats been very kind to me and where,
like the author, I learned to fly fish. However, unlike him I caught more
coarse fish than trout!
What I like best though about Fishing Days is the dry humour. It starts as
early as the first page when Bucknall explains that his father disapproved of
him going fishing, proclaiming that &..fisherman didnt rise high in their
chosen professions and, while their colleagues were making fame and fortune,
the anglers were possessed of some strange lunacy that robbed them of their
wits&&
To the deep despair of my parents, I went fishing. I resigned myself to being
unsuccessful in life. Perhaps I was right, for many of my saner friends live
more successfully on their stomach ulcers, and occasionally I take a day off to
attend one of their funerals.
Fishing Days isnt an instructional book, of which Bucknall has written
several, especially on fly-fishing. Yet the reader will pick up a number of
practical ideas on which to ponder. Rather its a series of thoughts and
anecdotes that will not only have you chuckling, but by the time you get to the
end of the book will leave you with the feeling that you know the man behind the
words.
In fact as the author writes in the final chapter: The line on this spool has
about run out. If I have written the sort of book I intended, it should be
impossible to sum it up. I have let my mind wander back over my fishing life,
recording incidents, opinions, and sometimes it has run off chasing
butterflies. Places and faces have been recalled, catches boasted about, tales
from village pubs retold. I have tried to write the sort of book I should have
loved to read if you had written it. I have read many books on how to catch
fish. But Im just plain nosy. I want to know how fishing fits into your life,
what the lessons are from the past, what fears you have for the future. Then,
as you havent written that book for me, I have had to write my own for you.
That, in finer words than I can compose, really sums up this lovely work. So
rather than prattle on any longer Id simply commend you to seek out a copy and
enjoy.
Steve Burke - Classic Fishing Books
Copyright 2003