The Glen Pointon Phenomenon

Phenomenon: "A phenomenon is any observable occurance, it is any event that is observable, however commonplace that it might be, even if it requires the use of instrumentation to observe it".

I'll tell you how commonplace it is...every time I go fishing with Glen of late, he catches around a dozen fish in an hour or two and i'm lucky to catch one! This was certainly the case on our last outing to Dovedale on Sunday 12th July.

Having been lucky enough to secure a ticket in the Leek and District Fly Fishing Association about two weeks ago, I was itching to get out on to the water...particularly at Dovedale..so what is the first thing I do after receiving my ID and membership pack...I leave almost immediately for Applecross to do a bit of work for Tim (more of him later). Ten days in Applecross then back to Leek, desperate to visit Dovedale and to catch some fish.....and so at 6.30pm on Sunday Glen and I meet up at Dovedale car park to unleash our fishing skills (on Glen's part) on the first stretch of the dove.

The weather had settled after quite a bit of rain but the river was looking good, up a bit and a little coloured but still good...."ar reckon way cud bay in fura rate lunker ere mate" was Glen's assessment of the situation.

There was another member fishing the first couple of pools....Dave...so we moved up the river quite quickly and concentrated on the Nursery stretch....there always seem to be fish around there but they are difficult to catch but we thought we would give it a go...we stalked the fish in between the trees at the top end of the Nursery stretch. Glen started to catch immediately and over the session, I would think he had a dozen fish....to my one! If I'd caught every fish that rose to my fly i'd have had a dozen too but I just couldn't hook them. I'm not sure if I wasn't waiting long enough before striking, or whether I was striking too hard, or not hard enough but I just couldn't catch...any suggestions would be very well received...

Anyway...I keep reminding myself that it's not just about the fish, it's the location (hard to beat Dovedale), the pork pies (why having nearly reached 40 have I suddenly started to eat mountains of these), the Kelly Kettle beside the babbling brook and the crack....... Or as Glen would say "Living the Dream".

It was a good fish though.

David