‘And then the one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun’
Pink Floyd – Time
Ten guided ‘fishing years’ have got behind me already, and sitting here writing this its hard to believe. I’ve seen, experienced, witnessed and learned a lot in those guiding years, most of it probably has very little to do with fish.
The experiences have no doubt, whether good or bad, changed my life and the way I see and interpret many things including people. I’m glad to say that the good times far outweigh the bad, and as I look back at any year from the past ten, whether good or bad from a fishing perspective, there are countless
significant moments of many many types.
Today I continue to surround my fishing life with people whom I want to fish with and indeed who like to fish with me. I work as hard as ever to improve and change the service and to demonstrate what this country has to offer, and I continue to learn of new fishing locations, techniques and methods. I am challenged constantly by fly fishing in the sea.
This personal investment grows greater within me every time I go to the sea. I spend very little time thinking about tackle to any great extent – I have what I need, a rod a line a hook and bait, the correct clothing and accessories. I do however, spend a lot of time thinking about fishing and fish and tactics and influences and experiences. This has always been the way for me.
As each season now becomes more important, the things that make that season worthwhile, for both you and I, have a lot to do with the anticipation of the events, the times, the experiences that make us feel good. There is no doubt I have learned of many fishing irrelevancies and have become less and less inclined to spend time on any of them. The experience is where its at.
That enthusiasm to make the next session or season or experience better than the last suffered through 2012, badly. What lies ahead who knows. But I do know this, with the right people around you anything is possible! 2012 proved this to me again.
I intend to continue to have the right people around me – whether as a customer, a friend or a collaborator.
I look forward to kick starting a fledgling saltwater fly fishing group later this month, appearing at Hooked live in February, running the new boat, continuing on the BSc degree and adding to the Fly Shop, and more too – busy busy!
I just heard the starting gun for 2013, season 11 starts…keep casting and stay safe! – Jim
A season remembered in video shorts
- 2012 revisited P.I
- 2012 revisited P.II
- 2012 revisited P.III
- 2012 revisited P.IV
- 2012 revisited P.V
- 2012 revisited P.VI
- 2012 revisited P.VII
- 2012 revisited P.VIII
- 2012 revisited P.IX
- 2012 revisited P.X
- 2012 revisited P.XI
Click on any of the links above to visit some of our experiences during 2012.
I hope this can give you some insight and feeling of the fishing to be found on the south east of Ireland
Jim
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I could never have known then what was going to happen. It was the start of it I guess, the Summer and Autumn of 2003. Three days in a car with Terry Thomas and Clive Gammon, bass fishing and driving around the southern coasts of Wexford, trying to capture the essence of something. For me it was listening to the stories of Wexford, the angling past remembered by Clive.
I remember standing at the coombe, at the race, casting half mackerel twenty yards into the cauldron, holding our bass rods into a late October evening. He said he had seen something similar somewhere in the US, where I cant remember, I felt very naive, very young.
We fished with John Devereaux on board Celtic Lady – free lining live sandeel over a reef, he smiled and held a fish and told me he had felt the sandeel panic as the bass approached to eat!
Catalysts.
‘There comes a time in all of our lives when we let ourselves dream about living life on our own terms. When we wrestle with the decision to take a step into traffic, follow our passions and live deliberately ‐ or simply let another day, and daydream, pass. In the end, it doesn’t matter if we make the decision of our own accord, or life makes it for us. It’s where our heart and soul are that matter. For some, the result is a closer alignment between vocation and avocation, for some it’s a re-prioritisation of what’s important in life, for some it’s the very real difference between life and death.’
One wonders exactly what decisions might be made, what things might be done, what choices might be struggled with, if through angling was how you lived your life?
It wasn’t perfect but it was good enough, ‘it’s gunna happen’ I whispered. He kept looking at the fly, stripping, focused, and still crouched. Only moments left, half a meter, and then suddenly there was that unique sound of a big fish hitting a surface fly, an explosion of white water. A sudden moment of fear, of shock and surprise, line stripped reel screamed and then there was silence. I heard a tern high overhead.
The fish wasn’t on.
see and read more HERE
But from behind me came intimate noises: the door of a house closing, voices, a lawn mower. And, to great extent, this is the character of bass fishing from the shore. In very civilised times it is re-assuring to know that wild fish will run so close that a man on foot and within earshot of lawn mowers can touch their wildness with a fishing rod.
Thomas Mc Guane – The Longest Silence
The cover of one of Germanys best selling angling magazines features Wexford bass fishing this month – a six page feature that can only do good for angling in Ireland in many ways.
Thanks to Holger, Holger and Markus.
THIRTYARDS 
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