While sitting at my PC yesterday at work I was day dreaming, as you do, and I got to thinking about the date, the 22nd March.
I knew it rang a bell. 40 odd years ago, before I left school at 16, the 22nd March was one of my highlights of the year. It is the first day of the Brown Trout fishing season on our rivers. For weeks before, I would be gathering bits of cheap tackle from Woolworths and our local tackle shop, McDermott's. Size 14, 12 and 10 hooks, line, shot, small drilled bullets, perch bobber floats etc for bait fishing on the stretch of free water on the River Wansbeck in Morpeth. Some years I would even try a wet fly on the syndicate water down stream of the town, using a team of March Brown on point with Snipe and Purple, and Partridge and Orange on the droppers. There wasn't a great deal of finesse.
The day was like Christmas to me, I couldn't wait for it. The weather would be variable from sunny spring like days with bees on catkins to deep snow covering bank sides, to brown, milky tea coloured, spate. If a flood was running off, I'd stand a good chance by rolling a worm along with the current right into the bank sides. If there was low, clear water the flies might be better...
The sound of a Dipper singing, Butterbur flowers just beginning to pop up in the sandy gravel banks and overly excited Mallard in gangs causing a commotion all come flooding back. I didn't catch much. A big fish was 12 inches, mostly they were no more than 8 inches but it was the feel of the day that made it so good. Winter was over regardless of the weather.
I haven't fished a river now for years. Woolworth's is no more and bank sides are grown with willows or tidied up. Those years have gone in all but memory, but its nice to think back. Happy times...
