I’m such a good angler when I can’t go fishing!

A good friend of mine messaged me a photo of a decent bass the morning after I got out of hospital the other day. He knows me really well but he wasn’t sure whether I wanted to hear about a really good session he had had the evening before, so instead of the more usual back and forth on WhatsApp, I called him in the morning to hear all about the fishing. He had a blinder of a session and I was over the moon for him. I might not be fishing myself at the moment and for sure I’d have loved to be there, but what got me thinking about this blog post is this…………

If I hadn’t had a heart attack and had to be in hospital, with the conditions and tides on that particular Thursday evening and also bearing in mind that I have fished with this friend of mine for years and he is local to me as well - would I have computed the different factors into my brain and come up with the same solution as him? If I had planned to go fishing on that Thursday evening, would I have got into what was obviously a big shoal of bass and caught some myself, or would I have “seen” the conditions and tides a bit differently to my friend and gone somewhere else? Where I might have caught bass of course, but you get my drift.

My friend retrospectively made a good decision because he hammered fish, and with the size of the tide and the onshore conditions I like to think that I would have found myself in the same area - which is easy to tell myself after the fact because it would have been a good fishing decision. An easy decision to convince yourself you’d have made because in retrospect you know there were a load of fish around. One thing that my mate did say was that the Black Pearl colour Surf Seeker outfished anything else he tried as the light was fading especially. I like to think I’d have found my way to that particular colour as well because with the conditions I’d have had my box of metals in my side-bag, and I’d have most likely started with the white Surf Seeker and then moved on to the Black Pearl as the light began to fade.

Which again is easy to say because I know how my friend’s session went and to believe I’d have made the same decisions makes me feel like a pretty good angler! It’s remarkably easy to consult my tide, wind and swell apps on my iPhone and make a virtual decision on where I’d have gone fishing literally every single day since I was in hospital - which I have been doing! Because I am not actually fishing though I reckon that every virtual decision I made would have been a blinder. I’d have cleaned up and there wouldn’t have been a blank in sight. You and I both know that it’s not true, but because I can’t go fishing I have suddenly become a whole lot better at it.

Yesterday I did 2 x 25min walks at my full walking pace, and although I find myself getting tired at random points throughout the day, I am feeling really good. I have an online meeting with a heart specialist later this morning so I can ask how much harder I can push my recovery and when I can get back to running and obviously fishing. I am pretty sure I could go fishing to some easy spots right now, but I’d like to hear more from somebody who knows a lot more about my heart than I do, plus I’d like some sort of idea when yomping up and down cliffs can come back into the equation. High water was 10pm last night and with the size of the tide and the calm conditions I reckon I’d have cleaned up on a specific reef which can work well with those variables put into the mix. Again it’s easy to say how well I’d have done because I didn’t actually go and do it!

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