 DAMIAN'S
DAY OUT
An
account of a day's fishing at Portland Grange or... How Damian's ambitions
to be a Bank Manager were seriously undermined as he hooks up with a
strange bird.
Damian knew it was
going to be one of those days as soon as the radio alarm went off...
...It was 5am and he knew he had to get out of bed, but messages from
his brain to his legs were being totally ignored. After four days of
early mornings and late nights at work here at the newspaper, (with
last night being even later, after going out with friends), the dull
ache in his head gradually seeped into the rest of his body and slowly
subsided as he slid his legs out of bed.
As he sat hunched on the edge of the bed he wondered why he had agreed
to pick up angling colleague Kevin Miles in an hour's time, and then
drive into the wilds of Nottinghamshire for a day's fishing. His body
yearned to slide back into the warmth of a comfortable bed.
Forcing himself into action, he was soon on his way to Kev's house and
although arriving a little late, Kevin's banter quickly lightened his
befuddled head.
With Kev navigating, the pair found their way to the fishery at around
7.20am, to find the other two members of their party already fishing.
After the morning's greetings, Damian soon settled down to fish a peg
nearest to the car park and with Kevin alongside, the pair of them soon
began transferring some of the best fish from the pond into their keepnets.
 Damian's
day then took a turn for the worse.
Two old boys came and parked themselves on the peg adjacent to Damian.
Nothing wrong with that, you might say. They were properly sited in
the next available peg. It was just that these were two of the noisiest
old boys you could wish to meet.
They
soon had a transistor radio going, tuned to a station playing old standards
to which they just had to sing along. When they weren't singing they
were talking to each other in the loudest voices you can imagine . .
. and they were seated only a yard apart! It was like Chas & Dave
Go OAP. . . on drugs!
Damian cursed under his breath, sighed . . . and carried on fishing.
With a day predicted by the weather forecasters to be wet and blustery
- turning out to be warm and sunny, Damian and Kev not only overtook
the weights of their angling friends but of all the other anglers present.
Three hours into the session Damian reckoned he must have about 30lbs
of fish into his keepnet. The rules of this particular fishery require
anglers to empty their nets after four hours (unless involved in matches).
Damian could see the sense of this, particularly as the water was quite
low (being about two feet below usual) and - as his keepnet was in the
shallower water, he decided to empty his net earlier than the prescribed
four hours.
 Kev
followed Damian's lead - and as they were constantly catching fish,
and of an increasing size, they decided to fish on a 'catch and return
basis' and spread their keepnets out to dry.
Then the weather took on a momentary darker look, and Damian's day brightened.
Seeing the likely onset of rain the two old boys, who had been for the
most part, fishless, decided to call it a day and quickly departed the
fishery. Damian offered up a thankful prayer . . . and the dark clouds
rolled away . . . and it stayed fine!
Around mid-day Damian had a walk around the fishery to speak to his
friends on the opposite bank and also had the cheek to use one of his
friend's rods and, first cast, catch a small roach.
Completing his circuit of the pond Damian returned to his rods to find
Kevin complaining about his cramped legs, perched as he was, about two
feet above the water level.
With his pal's encouragement Kev followed in Damian's footsteps and
went to talk to his friends on the opposite side of the pond.
He had only been seated on the bank alongside the first of his mates
for about a minute, when the sound of his bite alarm could be heard
across the stillness of this well stocked water (although he couldn't
see his peg for the intervening island). "Grab that, Damo!"
yelled Kev to his friend - and dutifully Damian abandoned his own rod
and made quick time to his pal's peg, only a matter of a few yards away.
Picking up Kev's rod, Damian struck into another heavy fish.
Now maybe it was the excitement, or the fact that he was on ground untrodden
by him until now, but on taking a small step forward to be in better
contact with this newly caught fish, he didn't take account of the undercut
bank.
It collapsed beneath him.
Damian was totally unprepared and made the two-foot drop onto the stoney
beach without time to utter a sound. Trying not to break Kevin's rod
and not lose the fish, Damian fell heavily onto his knees and pitched
forward. The attendant anglers saw his plight and did what all caring
anglers do in this sort of situation; they howled and hooted with laughter.
To his credit, Damian, extricating himself from the shallows, stood
up with the rod and said for everyone to hear: "B****y big fish,
this!"
Laughter aside, it was quite a nasty fall, the "beach" being
strewn with large rocks. It was just fortunate that none of them came
into contact with his head. Well bruised but unbowed, Damian clambered
back up the bank and landed the fish.
With a quick passing word to his other friend, Kevin hurried around
the pond to check on Damian's well-being. It seemed he was slightly
wet about the knees and lower legs but apart from the shock and bruising,
otherwise OK.
After this humorous interlude (to everyone but Damian) the day settled
back into its previous routine, with Damian and Kevin constantly catching
fish, and then in mid-afternoon came the next remarkable thing to happen
to Damian.
Fishing with two rods can, at times, be a problem. Two fish hooked simultaneously,
crossed lines, all sorts of things spring to mind. It is difficult to
watch two rods at once, as Damian found when his attention switched
from the piscean to the ornithological.
Yes, concentrating on one rod, Damian's attention was drawn to his other
line when he hooked, as you might have guessed, a moor hen.
What else can happen today?
Reeling in the much-offended bird, Damian, enlisting Kev's help to hold
his rod, scrambled down the bank to free his latest catch. There ensued
much flapping and cursing as the bird tried to keep its distance from
its captors and eventually freed itself just as Damian was about to
get a hand on it.
The anglers watching on, were all amused once more.
As the day drew to a close, Damian and his three friends all agreed
it had been good fishing and not the least - entertaining, but Damian
and Kev had to be off home - and bade farewell to their two chums.
And so Damian left the wilds of Nottinghamshire and made the trip back
to Chesterfield, happy with a good day's angling and with his early
morning doubts long, long forgotten.
|