I am even dreaming about fishing shops now. Last night I had a dream where I was in a small friendly fishing shop. The shop keeper and I leant on the counter and just had a chat; he let me try out rods and showed me how to tie up a particularly tricky fly. I told him I was looking for another way to attach my leader to the fly line and he ran through a few options…….I was standing waving around a nice Hardy rod and comparing the action to a Sage when a mother and son came in. The shopkeeper had a chat about prices with the mother and he showed the boy how to set up a wee spinning rod with a worm or spinners and threw in a good youngster’s book. He had a chat about the ethics of fishing and put it into the young lad’s language. The next day I went back and the shop had doubled in size. We chatted for a few minutes but the shop was a bit busier and he was a bit stressed out as the books had to be balanced…..I bought some polyleaders and left. I went back the next day and it had got a bit larger still. This went on for a month until finally the wee shop had turned into a MEGA FISHING SUPERSTORE with rows and rows of rods, massive amounts of fly tying materials a hundred ways of attaching a fly line on to a leader and ready made plastic packs with everything for youngsters. There was rows and rows of tents and waders. There was lots of assistants (the old man had retired with stress) all standing about …….I was going to have a go at the hardy rod but it had a big security tag on it and I am too shy to get one of the assistants to get it off. I wandered about marveling at all the stuff, one of the assistants came up and asked me if I needed any help, he was a young guy and seemed keen…..he reminded me of when I go in clothes shopping and assistants hassle you and offer you cards with discounts…..I loathe clothes shopping .
I bought some hooks and slinked out.
I woke up and I was glad that it was a dream………….at least I think it was a dream!!