“Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” – Henry David Thoreau.
“BEE COOL, Mackerel Fishing. Reef Fishing. Boat Trips...” I spotted this sign in the small and picturesque, almost toy-like, harbour of the Cornish seaside town of Looe. We were on a short camping holiday in Cornwall last July and fishing – mackerel or reef – was not on the agenda.
I was unable to unglue my eyes from that sun-drenched little billboard promising my favourite adventure – fishing, which I had not pursued for the last 20-odd years, having kept myself so busy that sitting on a bank (or a shore) with a fishing rod began to look like a selfishly hedonistic waste of time. From a dedicated and almost always lucky angler, I had been slowly but surely turning into a virtual fisherman, wallowing in the colourful reveries of my USA-based university mate Slava, who still fished regularly – in Florida, where he lived, and in Pennsylvania...