Dedicated to my Dad
This journal and fishing blog is dedicated to the best fisherman in the world - my Dad! Not the best because of the size of the fish he caught, or the number of them. Nor because of his fishing prowess, skills or art of water-craft. Simply the best because as he was my Dad.
We both started fishing together when I was 10 years old, a story covered in ‘How I started coarse fishing in Norfolk‘. It is only now, that I have a son who will be 9 this year, that I realise how patient, kind and trusting he was.
I guess inevitably I lost interest in fishing as a teenager, spending time with my Dad was just not cool not to mention the early mornings! But he continued, he was smitten and carried on fishing without me. I do not know how he was introduced to fishing as a kid, but I know he was. Memories of an old cane rod (that snapped playing a Jack Pike at Marlingford) was proof of that. But the memories of our shared fishing experiences will never leave me, like our day at Ringland Lakes fishing for Silver Bream on the day Prince Charles was married, for the first time! Also of sleeping in the car on the 15th June waiting by the bank to start fishing at midnight and secreting fishing gear into a groaning Morris Marina as family holidays always had a couple of fishing excursions planned.
Without me by his side he was seduced by the ‘dark side’…ok a little over the top…but by the ‘dark side’ I mean the Cyprinus family - Carp! I remember taking the picture above, he caught a brace of two magnificent carp that day at Taswood Valley Lakes and I don’t know if he ever beat those.
How I wish now I could return to the bank with him beside me one more time. To tell him how much I appreciate what he did, and how he did it, and sit once more in shared silence, wonder and anticipation, watching and waiting for the float to dip or rod tip to bend. But sadly that is not to be. He succumbed to an aggressive brain tumour in November 1995 a few months after a daignosis that came out of the blue.
However, it is to these memories and that man that I now dedicate this site. I don’t know if there is fishing in heaven, but if there is I am sure he would be there in that faithful old uncomfortable fishing chair watching the world go by and patiently waiting for a bite.
Dedicated to Roger Hannant - 1942 to 1995.
Nigel
May 2008
