Putting the house in order

Having vowed to ‘commit more fishing’ this year, our correspondent plunges into his gallimaufry of flies and collection of good-luck charms in an attempt to restore a semblance of order to his tackle room

- David Profumo

ALTHOUGH I do try to fish every month of the year, I am a great believer in the traditional closed seasons—once termed ‘fence months’—because gleeful anticipation lies at the heart of angling and you tend to appreciate something more if there is a certain difficulty in obtaining it.

By the time spring comes to the glen up here, I am usually suffering from a severe case of cabin fever—or ‘the shack nasties’, as they say in Maine. I can tell it’s spring, because when I take our cocker spaniel Pompey for his early-morning constitutional, I no longer cast a moon-shadow onto the frosted lawn. This year, my first vow was to ‘commit more fishing’.

I admit this is a perennial resolution, but I was emboldened by a report from Prof Lee Smith, of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, which suggests anglers experience lower levels of diagnosed anxiety disorder (16.5%, compared with 26.4% in the wider population). The Prof doesn’t mention that profound and frequent anxiety caused by losing your quarry or your mate catching more than you—but it is now official that fishing is good for you.

Accordingly, my sporting year got off to a sprightly start mid January, when I was invited to perform the symbolic First Cast of the salmon season on the Tay, at Meikleour. No shiny fish, but great to have those rods out again. In February, I was down at the splendid Arundell, in Devon, to speak at a gala evening for WildFish, and, next morning, we enjoyed a (rather low-scoring) grayling session, during which my old friend David Pilkington treated me to a masterclass in Euro-nymphing. This duly justified the purchase of yet another rod (I’m almost up to 100 now) and I decided to splash out, as it were, on a spiffy new set of chesties and a couple of fly lines while the going was good.