06-04-27

Thursday

Wind of Change

Yes, today it really blew but only symbolically speaking. It was only a mild breeze exactly... Hm... Here I'm musing over the shortcomings of English as a language. I was searching after a word describing something that says a little more than just "not too little and not too much". In describing just how much the wind was blowing. In Swedish we have it and it's called lagom. We're famous for it to be sure. At least here in Sweden. The wind was lagom strong. 
But all you English spoken people out there in all your foreign countries, try not to feel all too down broken over this awkward fact about your language. Swedish is here known as the Language of Glory and Heroes and who could compete with that?
Every dog has its day and everyone is granted his or her 15 minutes of fame and we've already had ours. It occurred as early as in the 17th Century and that statement of our language is dated from that time of our "greatness".
But neither the wind in itself nor the talk of the best way to describe the strength of it,  helped me in any way to catch some fish on the first location. . 

Many, many readers of this website have not mailed me and asked why I persist in quoting old song lyrics and titles of ancient albums and songs. Why, hardly no one nowadays has even heard of it or remembers it. No one under the age of sixty anyway... Did I stop listen to new music after 1975? No. No I still listen to music and on this picture while having my breakfast this new Swedish band called the Concretes is playing.  Not that they were standing outside the car having a live gig but from the CD-player.  To prove that I'm really with it and updated on the latest, the music came from a home burned CD, combining both albums the band has issued.   I even have a MP3-player but I have forbidden myself to wear it while fishing. The earphones, that is.  But. There haven't really happened anything new since 1975.  Or we could even boil it down to 1971 or 72.

All that is happening in what we very broadly may call pop or rock music with all their different genres and styles could be traced back to the years between say, 1967-72. It all started in those few years with a giant outburst of evolution and creativity.  Nothing really new have occurred since then in my opinion. You can't listen to Darkness without Queen ringing in your ears and I think Pulp took over where Cockney Rebel ended, for instance. 
Maybe with the exception of that disgusting "growling" way of singing in some heavy metal outfits. But that's not evolution, that's retardation! De-evolution, just like in Devo!
So I would like to take the opportunity to ask my favorite Doom Metal group My Dying Bride to immediately stop all this nonsense about growling and start singing like normal people! (Of course Black Sabbath echoes in my mind listening to them.)
But the music and lyrics you heard when you were young will make the deepest impression and are forever burned into your brain's gray matter. There it will stay probably much longer than the plastic coating of the CD-disc will last. And in the mind the little MP3-player of your youth's music will continuously play and play even while fishing. 
There is this debate about how long will a CD or DVD-disc actually last. You hear all from 5 up to 20 years or even longer but no one really seems to  know. Right now I just read some funny way of putting it from a company's point of view. On a TDK package of CD-R discs it says this blah blah high quality "and lifetime use".
Yes, sure. But who's lifetime? Yours or the discs'...?  
Oops and sorry, now we're branching away too much from the fishing. Back to business!
But when I both had eaten my breakfast, turned off the sweet sounds from the Concretes, dressed up for the fishing and went down to the water, I didn't get even one bite.
Despite that all looked so promisingly and all the curves were pointing upwards. The weather and winds above all and the time of both year and day. And all my experiences and calculations beforehand had told me that toady this place would be absolutely fabulous. But there you go. It only goes to show that you don't know everything.  I fished for about four hours non stop on the top of concentration and ability without any success what so ever. 
But when I set out for a day's fishing I always have a plan and back-up strategy. So off I went to the next stop. It included back to the car, driving away several kilometers and listening to more of the Concretes.
The new place looked something like this:

 The picture shows a side of a rather long and deep gulf. Now the wind had shifted from west to east and that was good. This is the wind of change the headline refers to. The precious, stubborn western wind had lasted for many days and had made the water on this side of the gulf brown and muddy and almost impossible to fish. Or I don't like to fish in muddy waters. (But I certainly love to listen to Muddy Waters!)
This place may hold some really big pikes some years about this time of the year. I think they have their spawning places further in this creek or gulf and use this as a halting place on their way in or out the inner parts. But not today. Not the big pikes.

But a multitude of more ordinary sized pikes saved this day for me. I had a really great time fishing for them.  Some of them stood in very shallow water and the water near the shore was absolutely calm because of the eastern wind that placed that side in lee.  So I could see when the pikes came charging the fly. Often they struck with a splash and a big swirl in the surface.  Just like a rainbow trout will take a Black & Peacock Spider. In my opinion this kind of fishing is the ultimate peak of the fun and thrilling fly fishing gives you. Equipped with a light rod a two kilo pike is just as fun as a ten kilo pike on an AFTM 9 rod. Almost. But I surly had a great time in the mild and pleasant weather and the light rain didn't bother me at all. I would lie to you if I said that the absent of the big pikes didn't bother me at all but you can't expect to catch one

of them each and every time you're out fishing. 
Yes, the wind of change... The pikes certainly are on the move now. And the herring has come. It draws near land now in April in great masses to spawn. Maybe the pikes I'd expected to catch in the morning's fishing hade gone after them? 
They say that the sea trout does that and will follow the herring schools back to the deep sea when they are done with the spawning. Without me haven't caught even one of them this season yet!
But I have my little boat in the water, ready and set to go. Maybe I have a chance yet...?
And another big change is coming here in my little world of fishing. The yearly fishing vacation. Yes, usually I take two or three weeks fishing vacation starting at the beginning of the lovely month of May. That is; vacation from fishing. 
But the biggest change is that soon it will be almost impossible to drive around dressed in waders, stop the car, go out and walk down to and in the water and start to fish just about everywhere. People come and pikes go. Seaweed is growing in the creeks and insides of islands. The islands and beaches will be crowded with people. The summer is a-coming. Late autumn, winter and early spring I was the king of the archipelago but now it's time to resign and go in hiding. All the summer cottages will be filled with their rightful owners making it impossible for me to trespass in their gardens and wade out where they use to bathe and swim. And besides, it's often too hot to walk around in neoprene waders anyway. And, like I said, the pikes leave the shallow coastal waters. At least the big ones.

But don't worry, I wont stop fishing altogether besides this little vacation but will be back in a couple of weeks.