Tips to beat the dreaded cold
Though I have
always been fairly immune from suffering from cold weather, and hated hot weather,
there is no doubt that even I have had days when cold in my hands and feet made
me really suffer in the winter.
It could get particularly chilly when the late Ray Webb and I used to fish from
a boat for pike on Hornsea Mere in East Yorkshire at least once a week and sometimes
twice a week from October to the end of February.
Two tips that may helps anglers, like the man who I spoke to at Barlow recently
after he had packed up early because he could not fish properly due to cold hands.
Fishing in gloves is difficult and not very efficient, but you can manage it if
you use those disposable latex gloves that doctors use when examining patients.
Chemists can supply these and they are cheap even if you buy a big pack of them.
The other tip is to take advantage of the warming effect of a hot meal while you
fish.
Hot drinks and cooked meals if a snack bar is a feature of the chosen fishery
will help you to fish properly while sandwiches are much less warming.
Take no notice of people who tell you not to don your warm clothing until you
get to the fishery because this will make you less liable to feel the cold when
you do don the heavy clothing. That is rubbish advice.
Years ago when I travelled to my fishing by motor cycle I would get off the bike
some way short of my destination. Pushing the bike the last hundred yards or so
wearing the special clothing that bikers wear would get me so warm that I could
fish for quite some time before the cold managed to strike me.
And returning to the problem of cold hands another tip is to rub some petroleum
jelly thoroughly into your hands before you set off for the day. It really does
help.