No Fish Today

This trip was supposed to be in Althea but she's in need of a new prop shaft so I didn't risk a very serious accident and left her at home. She has a new clutch now and is back home waiting for me to take the old prop shaft off and take it to Feltham to be copied. Then I can drive her to John in Norfolk to get the fuel pump fixed and the clutch cable sorted then fingers crossed that should be it for major works for a while.

I managed to get so much stuff into my little MX5 that people on the campsite commented as they went by.
"Are you going to get all that into that little car?" they asked,

"It takes all day but yes, I'm very good at Tetris," I replied, which is a lie. I'm crap at tetris but I am very good at packing. There must be a name for the skill of being able to fit shapes together and have a good idea of what will tessellate with what in 3D.

It has been a lovely couple of days but alas no fish. My crab pot was extremely successful, I put a little bacon in the bait bit and chucked it into the water the night before. In the morning it was alive with worried little crabs. But none of them were peelers and after a very traumatic experience killing one of the crabs to use as bait I decided to release the rest. It was a great feeling watching 20 little brown crabs head for the water and freedom. I wonder if the one I killed is being sung about in crab folk songs now or being worshipped as a saviour in the beginnings of a crab religion that will eventually become huge and cause a crab world war, or at least some crabby crusades.



I fished a few spots but with not so much as a bite. I did see one lovely big Bass showing off his silver sides but by the time I had got my lure in the water he was gone. I made a note of his face and vowed to get him next time. Fishing is so pleasant it can be quite removed from catching fish. I sometimes think catching fish and fishing can be in many ways completely removed from each other. They were this weekend that's a fact.


There was the old captain across the way with his captain's hat looking like Popeye's dad who grunted and smiled a few times, making the "drinking" hand gesture every time I looked over at him. There were the "two or three families together" with the two teenage girls who I did start to think were tethered to each other in some way as they were never more than 2 feet apart and seemed only to have pyjamas to wear. There were a couple of young girls who came back from a walk by the river caked in mud from head to toe and were sneaked into the showers by one of their mums " quick before your dad sees you".

I had to laugh out loud when Oscar the three year old worked out that the plastic cricket bat when applied to uncle's ankles was much more fun than when used to miss the ball.

I got chatting to Keith and Karen in the tent next to mine when I saw he had fishing rods too. Before long we were fishing together and later we got pretty drunk together and fed the mosquitos late into the night.He told me about how he'd managed to be in the army at exactly the right time to miss any active service and she told me all about how different cocaine producing countries have different methods for wrapping it up to be ingested for smuggling purposes, nobody uses condoms apparently that's a fallacy (wink wink). We shared our love for drug and bomb dogs and she told me all about money and food dogs too.Yes there are dogs that are trained to sniff out money. I want one of those.I wonder if a dog could be trained to sniff out parts for old ambulances.

I gave Keith my email address and we agreed to exchange fishing news and get together for some more focused fishing.I showed them a photo of Althea and they were both under her spell. Keith said "I thought when you said old ambulance it was going to be a bit crappy but that's a beautiful thing you have there, much nicer than a VW by a long way", he can come again ;-)