Geriatric OE

The weekly musing of a couple of Kiwis on their geriatric OE in The UK






Sunday, 6 May 2012

A nice bit of fresh fish for dinner? I don't think so Tim


Another quiet day in. Very unusual for The Man and me to have not one, but two days at home.
Well not entirely an inside day ‘cos we went for a bit of a walk this afternoon through the park here at Crystal Palace. It was still pretty cool, I think the day only got up to about 10 or 12 degrees. Still, well wrapped out we ventured out.  There were lots of others out there in the park too.
Part of the walk took us around a private fishing lake.  Made me think of the glorious fishing days we have had back in NZ. Nothing like that in those fishing lakes here. Not only do you have to pay to fish  your permit will probably be for the day and probably during specific hours. OK. Back home if you are freshwater fishing, for trout, you will need a licence, but for the season and for a much broader geographical area to boot.
So back to the sort of fresh water fishing done here. So there you are with your permit, now for the rod. Not a nice flexible casting type one, but rigid pole, and a telescopic pole to boot that can be added to to get it out further over the water. Then you wait. Occasionally flinging out a small amount of burley. Said burley is likely to consist of coloured pink maggots or even crumbled pet food.  
Then you sit down on your folding seat and wait. The seats are a bit special, lots of pockets and no doubt costing the angler a small fortune. The anglers kit themselves out with jackets, seats a frame to hold the rod and lots of wriggly maggots. A net to lift them out of the water and some sort of catch bag to put the catch into. The catch bag is for competition fishing, so that the fish can be weighed in at the end of the day and then released back into the lake alive and in good condition. We’ve seen one angler weigh in about 35kg of scaly critters. Oh and did I mention that these fish are not good to eat.
It isn’t very exciting fishing sitting on the shore of a lake for hours on end, no sandy beach to fossick on and certainly no prospect at the end of the day of a nice fresh fish dinner.

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