TERRY HEARN AND JACK REID
Every so often you go through a period when you’ve seriously got the bug, and you’re really, really into your fishing. I often think back to certain past years and past purple patches, looking upon them as benchmarks, peak ‘in the zone’ spells if you like. Happy times, reminders for how kind carp fishing can be when you’re truly focused and prepared. When luck is on your side, and when everything is running smoothly and to plan. Sometimes, those intensely focused spells last weeks, other times months, but when you’ve a memory bank of fishing to draw from, across all seasons and across a variety of venues, you kind of get to recognise when you’re slipping back into the zone reserved for the truly obsessed. I live for those highs.
NOTHING BUT carp fishing is interesting at the moment. My TV has barely been on all year. Even for the short periods I’ve been at home, I still struggle to switch myself off. I’d rather prepare my kit, or zone out staring at pictures of mega carp, or aerial images of possible future venues. I’m not normally much of a TV watcher anyway, and besides, it was fast turning into some kind of strange, sinister, social engineering box, and I’m not up for that. Truth be told, I’m probably one of the last remaining people in the country with a dusty VHS recorder and a DVD player sat beneath it. The damned thing was already a distraction when it didn’t used to make my blood boil, so I’m sure not going to watch it now! And that’s really what this opener is all about: distractions, as it seems to me that the modern world is full of them. If you’re not careful they’re going to have a detrimental effect on your fishing, and we really can’t have that.