The stuff of dreams

I wrote a blog today about our "sitting down" sports in the Olympics, don't know why.

Excitement is building for my favourite day of the year, exactly one week away. This is the first day of our summer fishing trip to the Dee. Wading in to the river for that first cast on a Monday is the finest thing, full of anticipation and it doesn't flag throughout the week. I will do hundreds of casts and on each one I'll wonder if there'll be a fish and when there is, when you feel that brutal tug on the end of the line and pull the rod up to see it bending and bowing it feels as if all the senses have been gathered together and switched in to overdrive.

There's elation, curiosity, fear and deep concentration running together as you try to keep the lid on what's happening. First some assessment: is it a big one? Is it a salmon? Where are the nearest rocks or other potential obstacles. Is the tension right on the reel? Does it feel well hooked?.

Sometimes there is no opportunity for such thoughts as the fish tears off down a pool and you hang on, hoping it will stop and that when it does, it's still on the line. That happened to me last year when I hooked in to a big one and it tore across the pool and behind a rock. I reeled in thinking it was gone but it was still on, in the middle of the pool and there it stayed, doggo for maybe twenty minutes resisting all my attempts to shift it. Then it started pulling backwards a bit at a time until I had a long length of line out and it was heading back towards the falls down in to the pot above Potarch Bridge. There's no following a fish if it goes down there so I put on some pressure and the hook came out.

It's moments like that - the chance of a big one - that bring me back year after year. The arrangement above reminds me of the history on these great rivers where people have fished for salmon on the fly for well over 200 years. I won't be using any of that gear apart from the flies. It's just some old tackle I have and get out now and again to handle. It helps me dream....