Bank-side Surgery and a Giant Inflatable Penis!

I am still trying to get my head around the evening session on my other river. I mean it was a great session however not many fish were caught, I caught a couple however only one of those ended up on my camera – the fishing was hardly the talking point of the night it was the events of the night that made the evening.

I mean it was a nice trout and I am glad it showed up and took my dry fly in the fast turbulent water as if it had not then the night would have been a blank apart from the events of which I will speak – so thank you very much trout for making me not blank.

Like I say the river was fast, big and turbulent – the weather was changeable in that one minute it was blazing sunshine and roasting and the next windy and cooler with a smattering of drizzle. I was glad I had on my jumper and [amazon_link id=”B0016ZL9KI” target=”_blank” ]cagoule[/amazon_link] and the next cursing the extra heat I was holding.

Part of the reason I had chosen this spot for our first stop on this river is because my old time fishing buddy Emanuele left a comment on the last post and it made me realise I had not fished here in so long. Long time readers of the blog may recognise it – It was a regular haunt before my time became limited due to kids. Still, I do not complain as I still manage to fish a lot – if the fishing had not been as good on the [amazon_link id=”0571244033″ target=”_blank” ]Kelvin[/amazon_link] this year maybe I would have been down here more however as it is I have been staying local as you guys know.

I was fishing with another old time fishing buddy Alex  called over that he had a bit of a problem – he had a nymph stuck in his lip. He came over and showed me the offending nymph which he had a  tug at but would not budge – there is not much pain he told me however the barb was well and truly in there. The sickening reality of the situation hit me – I was the one that was going to have to perform any kind of bankside surgery on the boy as he could obviously not see the nymph.

What made things slightly more difficult  is the fact he has a big man beard. I knew there is a technique to get barbed hooks out and googled it on my smart phone – I found this page and studied the instructions carefully.

He lay down and I sat almost astride him with some strong fluro – now the procedure calls for a short sharp yank. I will not deny that I was a bit nervous however we were faced with a trip to Casualty on a Friday night – the local drunks would eat a couple of outdoors men like us up for breakfast if we let something as simple as a hook in the lip stop us fishing. Anyway, the the instructions said:

Using this hook removal method, there is one common factor – the almost complete, and surprising, lack of any pain

When I gave the short sharp tug I wondered then why long time fishing buddy Alex appeared to be in great pain and discomfort and then lay still on his back moaning for a bit with the nymph still stuck firmly in his face. I am sure if I was a cannabis smoker I would be describing this whole experience as a bit “heavy”

I wondered what his wife would say if his smooching abilities were ruined if I had tore his lip off.

Anyway, he was made of sterner stuff and we had another go at it – in true male style we threw the instructions away and I used my fishing forceps to grab the nymph while he stretched the skin around it.

Ping!

We fished on!

Now as you know I am not a big fan of cows. Quite frankly I do not trust the creepy fuckers with their munching and mooing and sneaking around fields – people do actually die every year from being trampled by them.

Bullocks my friends are ten times worse.

So there we were happily standing by the river when we heard a thudding – I looked around at the same time as Alex exclaimed something along the lines of “Uh Oh” and witnessed a bullock charging towards us – it was not a fake charge by the way it was a full on gonna getcha charge – there was another dozen behind it.

I went into full on Commando Ninja Mode as the “Fight or Flight” reflex kicked in – thank God it was not “Flight and Shite” as I dropped to the ground and rolled under an electric fence and down a hill away from the beast from hell.

The electric fence stopped it and the rest of the beasts were left at the top of  a short hill stomping their feet looking at us. The electric fence was essentially a bit of string with a thin wire going through it – I am kinda amazed that it stops them but that is intelligence for you.

We laughed for a bit about it however we wondered what would have happened if that fence had not been erected – I suppose it would have been a dash to the river and a quick wade. We could have splashed it with water or something.

We fished on.

Alex was fishing upstream of me and I called to him as it was time to move on to another section of the river for dusk – instead he called me over.

I will cut to the chase – it was an [amazon_link id=”B003MA0UQE” target=”_blank” ]inflatable penis[/amazon_link] stuck in at the side of the river.

We wondered what chain of events led to this obvious bag of fun ending up discarded next to the river. We are well upstream of the city with only smaller towns close by – someone probably had to make a real effort to lob it into the river. What the hell was going on?

We fished on – or rather got in the car and drove for a bit and fished on.

We fished into the gloaming and darkness tossing streamers into dark deep pools to little effect – Alex felt some tugs and I had one take.

At the end of the night we somehow still felt fully satisfied with the evenings events.

I met Alex down at a shopping center today with his wife and child, he had no scarring whatsoever.

Kelvin probably on Sunday evening – any takers?