Far Bank Dom’s out for a duck...
With a new bundle of joy in his life, Dom Garnett has been hard pressed to get back on the bank this week. But could he catch a fish with just two hours to kill and the local duck race underway?
THE visitors all sing from the same sheet. “You look so well. You’re doing great!” they say.
Nice sentiments, but you wonder if they really mean: “You look shattered. You need professional help.”
The living room looks like an explosion in Boots. Your shirt still has the vague smell of baby puke from this morning’s episode. Or was it last night’s? Your brain is that sleep-starved it’s hard to tell.
For the time being, fishing plans are on ice. There’s a quiet sense of alarm as you try to recall your last outing, and it feels like a memory from a different lifetime.
Such is early fatherhood,
however, and as an angling hack I don’t expect or deserve any outpouring of sympathy. After all, so much of the time we act as if life were one long, suspiciously productive fishing trip, when the majority of readers have family responsibilities and get one outing a week if they’re lucky.
Back to the present, though – following a couple of failed attempts I’d hatched another plan to get out of the damned house. We’d arranged a Sunday walk with fellow new parents Alex and Clare.
I knew Alex liked fishing. I also knew a little seaside town with a pretty park and a trout stream running through it. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, quite a lot. First, babies have a lousy sense of timing. At the very moment you want to do something, they have the knack of suddenly filling their nappies or screaming for food.
Arriving late, we then found the lower river cordoned off with orange fencing, as the town’s annual plastic duck race kicked off! You really couldn’t make it up. Undeterred, Alex and I managed to sell our other halves the idea of a seaside walk with ice cream, while we headed farther upstream and away from that fleet of bloody bath toys.
At long last, the crowds thinned out and we spotted a couple of trout. We had just one fly rod between us and 90 minutes or so to kill. It was now or never.
‘Never’ seemed the most likely outcome. The river looked painfully low and nothing was rising. But in the commotion of a miniature weir pool, perhaps we’d find a willing taker?
Just as I feared the fishing gods had abandoned us, the leader pulled away as something stole my nymph. For an entire golden minute, all those long nights and soiled nappies melted away and we were transported somewhere far sunnier.
The only fish of the day turned out to be a truly beautiful one, too, immaculately marked and wildly strong for its modest size.
Given almost two previous weeks in hospital and normal life doing a headstand, it was the most precious of catches.