Flies are buzzing round my head

Vultures circling the dead

Picking up every last crumb

The big fish eat the little ones

The big fish eat the little ones

Not my problem, give me some

You can try the best you can

If you try the best you can

The best you can is good enough

Radiohead – Optimistic

When I put my foot up to step forward I knew immediately I was going to slip. I slipped on seaweed two hundred yards from the shoreline, seaweed forced up a long gully to spray onto the surrounding rocks and grass like the blown leaves of October. Now my reel grates after three quarters of a turn, the butt section of my Beulah DH displays a sequence of deep scratches and my waders are leaking at the shin and knee. I hadn’t started fishing yet, I was just getting there.

The last and the first of the tide is a time that’s a favourite of mine. With the fly over weed and rock in very shallow water it’s never easy, even with the weedless versions, but I felt I knew what I was looking for and this was the right place perhaps, the fall I could have done without but instinct urged me on. Sometimes self motivation and belief is something you need to dig deep to find and today was one of those days.

I imagine occasionally that I read of the discovery of new cave art having been found in the mountains of a distant desert. When that discovery is made I have no doubt that the art will display figures fly casting to fish, its inevitable! And surely nothing else can connect you as an angler more simply, more deeply, more primitively to the fish than the ‘bow and arrow’ that you wield as rod and fly, and the realisation that will suddenly pierce your soul with the knowledge that its going to happen . That you are making it happen in a ‘way’ like no other

Travelling home in the failing light, I’m happy and content. Like many people, I’m facing into another challenging week of work. I am lucky too and once again re-charged by instinct and the knowledge of realising what is really important. Where real life and meaning can be found and where long concerted effort will be rewarded is where I want to spend time.

Two fish, two hours – 79 cm’s and 81 cm’s – white deceiver type pattern on 1/0 from Andy Elliott at chasingsilver flies.

I tried the best I could today, my best was good enough.