AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD 
- by Dave Charlton

There's a lot of them about, Englishmen that is, in Scotland you know! One of England's favourite sons is Bobby Charlton, the world famous footballer. His nephew Dave Charlton, has slightly more hair, but he too is English. The 'Saxon Dog' puts such trivia aside to tell us about his introduction to fishing in Scotland.

The prospect of fishing in Scotland was always used as a particularly juicy carrot and dangled in front of my ten year old nose. It had to be at least 2000 miles away, (well it was past the local toy shop and that was quite far enough thank you). My long time fishing partner and father told tales of waters where fish were caught from dawn until dusk using size 14 hooks and double sweetcorn, and a brochure advertising "Fishing in the Highlands" lay quietly around the house. I read it every day, it was magnificent. The cover was glossy and splashed in royal blue, and in the centre was a picture of a man (who, on reflection looked alarmingly like Gordon Jackson) kneeling in total triumph over a pike much longer than my Subbuteo pitch.

That picture stayed with me for life, but sadly we never made the trip. Some 17 years later my enthusiasm had never waned, and when Lady Fate deposited me kicking and screaming in Glasgow Central the one thing keeping me same was the warm glow emanating from my fishing tackle, and the soft voice sighing "take me fishing" over and over.

Whoever said about fishing that the "Travelling is always better than the arriving" was indeed a philosopher. The journey to any venue is full of private thoughts and tactical plans, and your brain conjures a misty blur of a perfect days fishing where you catch from start to finish and wipe Nudd off the next peg. Unfortunately for the vast majority of us the "arriving" seldom lives up to the travelling, the actualities of fishing take over and deliver us back to earth all too soon. A very select few seem to ignore this system and seem to "arrive" regularly. Their rigs look hand crafted, they never get into tangles and they always catch fish. But only they know their dreams and must surely just fantasise on a higher plane from us mere mortals. Personally I am happy to be a traveller and would wish it to be no other way, and as the Scottish venues beckoned from afar I began to clean and polish my tackle in eager unrestrained anticipation.

It was a full 6 weeks before I actually managed to go fishing. It had taken that long to find a water that I knew held fish, it was deep mid-winter and despite walking miles of canal bank frosted and crunchy like a giant scene from a huge chocolate box I had failed to spot a single angler. It seemed years since I had been fishing and the desire to polish tackle had long since been replaced by itchy sweaty palms, my spirits had never sunk so low.

One bright frosty afternoon I decided to try a short cut that I suspected would cut a large slice from my journey back to my office when, as I sped over a bridge, I glimpsed a dark green canal with a solitary figure hunched and rumpled under the weight of excess clothing, gripping a static, extended pole. I almost crashed as I spun my neck around to check if he was real or a cruel mirage forced upon me by a desperate longing for all things piscatorial. But there he was as large as life, glowing like a beacon, silently fishing away and somewhere deep within me the travelling began.

I parked the car quickly and stalked the unsuspecting angler cautiously. It was difficult to tell if he was alive, I half expected him to disappear in a puff of smoke, but as I approached I noticed the smallest of movements as he lit and smoked a cigarette. It was still difficult to tell what was inside the bundle and which bit of it I should direct my greeting at when, luckily for me, the bundle moved and out of a thick woolly hood a face emerged like a slowly awakening turtle. The next half an hour is a complete blur, the bundle turned out to be friendly, and for a blissful period we swapped tales of angling prowess. More importantly he turned out to be a keen local angler and gave me a complete run down on sport available in the area, what methods he most favoured and which venues had pubs within spitting distance.

All too briefly I had to return to work, I had lost all track of time but one thing was certain, I couldn't wait any longer, next chance I got I was going fishing. That weekend saw me treading the same path as on that heady afternoon, this time armed with the objects of my obsession, and I quickly settled into a peg. Quite why I chose that peg was a mixture of attempting to read the water and feeling that it looked like it just HAD to contain fish. The travelling had been more intense than ever with a million different articles that I had swatted up on during the preceding 3 restless days and sleepless nights swimming in my mind. In my twisted state every rig I had thought up was a match winner, every tactic was a cunning killer blow to the canals fish population, so with all the anticipation of an 8 year old making the first cast for the very first time I began the assault.

The actual catch is irrelevant, good or bad, easy or hard, it is of no importance to anyone except perhaps my ego and a robin who kept me company for the full 5 hours. But during that time something dawned upon me, my enforced layoff from angling had dulled my ego enough to stop wanting to be better than the next man or to have better and better tackle than I actually needed. It was no longer important to catch masses of fish either, it was simply a joy to be alone in beautiful surroundings and competing against ever more wary fish.

I realised that for once in my life I had actually "ARRIVED".