Irish Angler

General Fly Coarse Sea Tackle

Guide’s Diary

s a person who oers an angling guidingservice to people during a seven-monthseason, there are a ew things that standout continuously over time. Some o thosethings are very regular in their appearanceand particularly over the last ew years one o those things that appeared again and again was how stressed and ‘disconnected’ peopleoten eel they are rom the things they likeddoing – shing or example. I oten wonderedover a day spent with a client as to his or herreal reason or being here. Many people haveescaped. An escape that I am much more awareo now than I was say ve years ago. I havelearned to listen and to be quiet or a lot o thetime.Escaping generally means having to returnunortunately, and at the end o the day youhope you have done a good job. You eel thata lot o the time or many people the day ordays are not about the shing, it’s much morethan that. And I have also learned very quickly to recognise the promises people make tothemselves – “I must do this more oten.” “Ishould make more eort.” “I will stay at thepractice.” Tese things are said and too otensimply don’t apply.On a more personal level, I eel that I haveound y-shing ar too late in lie. I oten wonder where I would be today i I had oundit earlier. I couldn’t be happier with my currentlie; it’s pretty normal and yet very satisying. I wouldn’t change it or the world. Tings thathave let indelible marks and that have changedme since I was 30 years o age are my wie, my children, and y-shing. I cannot express thatchange or how it aects me but it does. WhenI work at home or long periods o time andsuddenly remember that I can simply go y-shing when I’m nished, my spirit lits every time. It’s a strange eeling that emanates romsomewhere primitive that is part o me. It isnot like any other eeling I get rom other typeso shing.Let there be no mistake about it, y-casting in the saltwater environment can be achallenging task! But too oten we create thatdifculty in our search or distance and instantachievement. Somewhere at the beginning, andoten ar too regularly, our objective becomes30m as quickly as possible. And yes, wemeasure it with ootsteps and tapes and stripsand congratulate ourselves when we get there,but we orget to look how we got there.Satisying your ego with distance oten canmake you both blind and dea. Blind to your wide, ripped open loops, blind to the broken wrist, blind to poor turnover. All we see is ourtag and leader crash landing some distanceahead o us and we are happy! Te poorhearing is a result o the shouting done by thevoice in our head – “You must cast urther”.Te rational and cool tones o sel-analysisare drowned out. We can’t hear ourselvesthink, never mind remember the words o ourinstructor.

We’d enjoy y-shing a lot more if we just slowed down andstopped forcing the pace.

Jim Hendrick

offers some adviceon getting the most from your shing.