Its nearly here!!

[phil dean]

hardly getting any time to fish this year, but I wish you all the best on the glorious 16th peter, may it be full of wonderous pike which will keep you in drinks at your local for many months.

[Peter Waller]

Thanks Phil, you are a very very nice man! Probably be bream at the stroke of twelve, the pike come later, about seven.

[Lee-sox]

Can't wait for the season to start!!!!

 

I have been buying new gear, cleaning the old stuff and had the boat out of the water for some improvements all in anticipation for the 19th (the boss wouldn't let me have the 16th off) :mad: :mad: This is going to be a good year me thinks, i can feel it in me water

 

And i definately going to catch that 20lber this year!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tog]

Nice Sketch Peter, How much we miss Bernard!

As an aside he is buried at a 'Woodland Burial Ground' near Andover in Hampshire (above a tributary of the Test). His family have had a large slate 'rock' inscribed and the plot looks 'at one' with its surroundings - so much like Bernard who I met a few times.

Tight Lines for the 16th

Toggle

[Peter Waller]

Yes, Toggle, many of us do miss Bernard. Relevant sanity in a mad, mad world. Never had the privelege of meeting him myself but, through his writings, I'm sure that I knew him just a little. Long may his spirit and values live on in angling. For many of us he is the true value of 'real' angling!

[wunnus]

The charm for me was that all fish, of any size, were worth catching.

 

Sigh

[Peter Waller]

And now it has to be twenty pounds plus and guess what species! You have a choice of two!

 

You are so right Wunnus, nice observation.

[Lee-sox]

quote:

---

And now it has to be twenty pounds plus

---

Nothing wrong with having a goal in life

 

Ive spent the last 8 odd years after pike and it would be nice to know what a 20lber feels like.

 

[ 22. May 2004, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: Lee-sox ]

[Peter Waller]

Nothing wrong with a goal Lee-Sox. But it can become obsessive! By the way, there are a few twenties on your local river, carp and catfish too.

 

The point that Wunnus & I are both making is that any fish is good enough reason to feel that it was worth turning out for.

 

None other than Richard Walker was very scathing about these targets. He questioned, with his usual logic, whether it really mattered if a twenty pounder had a *hit on the way to the net and was landed at 'only' nineteen pounds and twelve ounces?

 

Personally, and I accept that angling is all things to all men, I regard a big pike as a bonus to a days fishing. I would hate to become an obsessive cuckoo ala Nige Williams.

[Lee-sox]

Oh i know they are there peter, ive witnessed three, On two occaisons its been my best mate reeling them in.

 

I don't see my quest for a 20 as an obsession more of a goal that i one day hope to achieve, and all the trips up to and after will be as enjoyable as the day its self.

 

You have caught your 20 and i bet that on that day you went home with a certain sense of achievement, i know i will