It’s only when I checked my calendar just now that I realised that today should have been the second day of the 2 Counties Festival on Tamar Lakes. Would have been lovely too with the weather warming up again just in time but sadly, of course, yet another victim of the Covid-19 pandemic. To add context, the Inniscarra Torist Board announced yesterday that they were cancelling all events for 2020. That is a big deal when the whole economy of Coachford and the local area revolves around a string of 3 Day Festivals either side of summer.
But checking my calendar also had a positive outcome as well, because it told me that today is D-Day -23. All of a sudden it feels as if the River Season is almost upon us. So, suitably enthused, I set about some tackle preparation. 6g Bolos for fishing punched meat for those Belmont Chub?? 4g Colmic flatties to lay on with worm and caster for those Brizzie Avon slabs?? Small Colmic Jollys patiently balanced with closely spread No.7 styls to catch stamp Roach??………err……..No, No and No. In truth, as I still have a few weeks at least of stillwater fishing before I can hit running water, I decided that I might as well have some decent rigs to fish with, so I ended up rigging up a mixture of hand-made Drennan Lake copies, some Dino Bulbos and some wire-stemmed Daiwa pencils plus a few bomb-proof Maver margin-floats.
I’d love to be able to push on and start going through both my running line and pole river rigs to ensure that they are ready for the off. But the problem is that I’m still not sure what the ‘off’ looks like, or even when the ‘off’ is. Over the border in England the majority, if not all the waters, are now open. Many of the commercial venues are openly advertising matches, and the use of keepnets now appears to be the norm for pleasure fishing. So there is a strong likelihood that this will extend to the river venues as of the 16th June. But I cannot be certain, as there may be stronger ‘allegiance’ to the AT amongst the river angling fraternity. And personally, if I were the AT I would be mightily cheesed off with the abuse they have takeen from some quarters, and the current blatant disregard for their advice. But they are now boxed in, they can hardly now backtrack without a significant change in Government guidelines which clearly allows for match fishing.
The second buggeration factor is that as a resident of Wales I an currently not allowed to travel past my local waters, and there is no guarantee that this next week will see any significant relaxation of that restriction. The average R-rate in Wales is higher than the average in England, so I find it hard to be overly-critical of a more conservative approach, there are more important condsiderations in life than whether I can fish the Glossie or not.
So I am left with quite an involved ‘decision tree’:-
- Do current or future Government guidleines allow the AT to endorse match fishing? i.e. will Riverfest take place?
- If not, will other organisation still proceed with running matches? i.e., will the Severn Float League, Evesham and Staverton take place?
- Will current Welsh Government guidelines allow me to travel across the border to participate in matches in England?
- Will match organisers be able to deal with entry/pools, peg draws, weighing in and results in such a way as I do not feel that fishing the match puts me at additional risk? (from what I’ve heard and seen, the answer is probably yes).
- If match fishing is based on remote draws and very limited or no social interaction before or after the event, do I want to participate?
To be honest, I’m probably struggling with the last question more than any of the others, because I doubt if even the best or most successful of us can reasonably expect to do any more than offset our match fishing costs over the course of a season, so it has to be about the competitive aspects and the social interactions between friends and rivals. The competitive element would be preserved, but would the pleasure of winning be somewhat diminished when that only becomes evident by way of a FB communique later in the day? And the breakfast/banter/abuse/draw/more abuse/presentation/drinks/banter/more abuse elements which are such such an integral part of the process would be almost entirely lost in a real time sense.
It is quite possible that, by this time next week, I will have a much clearer view on questions 1-4 and will maybe have to make at least some decision on the final question. Watch this space!!
26 Year ITCH 