Walton's Rucksack

  There's a bit of verse that you often find on trinkets (mugs, china plates, wall hangings etc) that goes: I pray that I may live to fish Until my dying day, And when it comes to that last cast I then most humbly pray: When in the Lord's great landing net And peacefully asleep, That in His mercy I be judged Good enough to keep. To be fair, it's not the best bit of poetry ever, but I can't help noticing that it also pretty much totally misses the point of the Christian gospel, too. Now, don't get me wrong, we will all at the end of our lives be judged ("it is appointed for man to die, and then the judgement" - Hebrews 9:27) but the poem seems to totally overlook the central Christian idea of grace.  That we're not saved by what we do, but by what Jesus has done.  My transference from God's landing net to his eternal keepnet will not be on the basis of the good things I've done, or on whether the good outweighs the bad, but will solely be on th...

  While some long stay carp anglers have bivvies more luxuriously appointed than my three bed semi, complete with mini TV, padded bedchair and goodness knows what else (I've even once seen a bivvy in which the angler, who was wearing slippers, had put some squares of rather posh looking carpet on top of his groundsheet!), most angling is done in relative discomfort. Sure, you might have one of those match fishing seatboxes with loads of gizmos that screw onto it, or a nice padded fishing chair, but at the end of most days of fishing, once you're past childhood, you find yourself coming home with, at the very least, a dose of backache. I've often fished without a chair, electing to remain more mobile, and sat on the lid of my bait bucket or an unhooking mat, or crouched for hours on my haunches, which isn't the wisest thing to do when your knees bear the "wear and tear" results of two decades of playing football! And then there are the insect bites, and the sti...

  Some forms of angling are more active than others. Lure or fly fishing involve constant casting, stalking carp or chub can involve lots of walking as well as creeping and crawling through undergrowth, and fishing for small fish can sometimes be a pretty frenetic activity, but on the whole fishing is a pastime that requires patience. Catching a 20 lb carp can require hours of sitting behind silent bite alarms and motionless bobbins, and fishing for specimen fish of any species tends to demand a lot of waiting. But patience isn't necessarily passive, nor waiting lazy. Sure, if you want to pull your hat down over your eyes and drift off into a stupor you can, but it's not the best way to end up with a fish on the bank. Waiting can be active. Tying rigs and making up PVA bags, scanning the water for signs of fish moving, altering your shotting pattern, thinking up schemes and plans to outwit the fish. Being a Christian involves quite a bit of waiting, too. After all, it's 200...

  Yesterday I blanked. The surprising thing was less the fact that I blanked on a freezing cold day in January (we've all been there!) but that there were three other anglers on the lake, when it's usually extremely rare to see a single angler on the place. I was fishing at the lake known by a number of us Christian Anglers members (the photos that illustrate this piece show Christian Anglers members Pete and Roger with fish from the lake in question) rather cryptically as "the perch lake." We've shared information among ourselves, but haven't ever named or publicised the water, because (truth be told) we've had some cracking fish from it, and at only a quarter of an acre we weren't keen for every perch fishing "Tom, Dick or Sally" to fish it to death- after all, a small pond can only take so much angling pressure before results drop away. The puzzle as to why three (very earnest and professional looking) perch anglers were on the lake on Sun...

  Since the angling bug bit at the age of 13, birthdays and Christmas have tended to have a similar theme with regard to the presents I receive, and as you might expect the common thread is angling. From the Observers Book of Coarse Fishing (a Christmas present from my parents in 1981) through seat boxes, rods, reels, more angling books, lures and floats there have been more presents in the "fishing category" than any other. That's not to say that I don't receive non-angling gifts (chocolates, wine, whisky, and books of a non-angling nature also feature from time to time and are very welcome) but it's piscatorial presents that tend to dominate. Among my favourites over the years are a number of rods: my first decent match rod, made by the no longer in existence East Anglian Rod Company and my first ever carbon rod (a spinning rod) both purchased by my parents, a fine custom built lure rod made for me by my American friend Don Morse, and the splendidly refurbished ...

  Those of us of a "certain vintage" will well remember a time when the closed season existed not only on rivers, but for all coarse fishing anywhere- lakes, ponds, pits, canals, rivers and streams were all closed to angling from 15th March to the 16th June. (except for in Yorkshire, where for a while they recommenced fishing on the 1st of June in what was know as the "stolen fortnight.") As a schoolboy I can recall the excitement of the days and weeks leading up to what was commonly referred to as the "glorious sixteenth." For me it eclipsed Christmas in terms of anticipation, and by the last couple of days of the closed season I was barely able to either contain my excitement or to sleep, as thoughts of tench similar to the one held by Christian Angler's member Greg in the photo above danced through my head. This Sunday sees the church calendar enter the season of Advent, which is similarly a time of waiting, of anticipation and of expectation. In on...

  I love bonfires. I think it's probably a "man thing", but the bonfires that we had at the first couple of Christian Anglers Retreats when we were camping on the Dixon's farm were almost as much of a highlight as the fishing. We sat talking and staring into the flames as they leapt skywards, conversations about fishing and faith and life, with all the while the flames exerting a mesmeric pull - you just can't not gaze at a fire as it burns brightly. Fire and flames feature a lot in Scripture, too. Timothy is told by Paul to "fan into flame" the gift he has, the pre-incarnate Christ appears in the flames with Meshach, Shadrach and Abednigo in the "firey furnace", and when the Holy Spirit shows up at Pentecost what look like flames are seen on the heads of the now emboldened apostles. A friend of mine wrote a book a few years ago. Its title was "Fire of the Word", and it's main point was that reading the Bible shouldn't just be...

  My match fishing career didn't last long- in fact it was just one solitary season in the year that I turned 14. My two brothers and I were part of the Dinton Pastures junior fishing team that competed in a small league with six other teams in the Farnham Junior League. Six anglers fished for each team in every match, points were awarded for position in section, and there were small prizes for all section winners. I won my section once (in the first match of the season) and, for my efforts, was awarded a reel case which I still have to this day. Ultimately, I discovered that the fish were the only competition I needed, and drew stumps on my match fishing career at the end of that season. However, what I remember most about that year was not the pressure of fishing in the matches themselves, but of fishing in the "trials" for the team. Although all but one of the matches were fished on lakes or ponds, the trial was on a small river, and about 20 young anglers had to fish ...

  I'm one of those people who dwells on their mistakes. In the 20 years I played amateur football I won three league winners medals, but never played in a cup final. I played in two semi finals, both of which we lost by the odd goal and on one one of those occasions it was my mistake that led to the other team's winning goal in extra time. Twenty five years on, I still regularly replay the moment in my mind. It's the same with fishing- when I lose a fish, I find myself endlessly revisiting the event, wondering what I should have done differently. Like Sinatra, I've got a few regrets! I'll never get a chance to replay those two semi-finals (and now I'm in my 50's I'll never play in another one!) or to play those lost fish differently. Thankfully, it's very different with God. Christianity is all about "second chances" (and third, and fourth etc!) and "new starts." It begins with the ultimate new start when we turn to follow Jesus (...

I don't do much "proper" carp fishing these days, but a couple of times a year I'll end up sat behind a pair of rods waiting for the buzzers to scream into life with a disgruntled carp on the other end. My favourite style of fishing is float fishing, but for both of my brothers their preferred type of fishing is modern carp angling, and- to be fair- they're good at it. In fact, it's quite an education to watch them fish. It may appear to a casual observer that they're just sat there waiting for something to happen, but nothing could be further from the truth. In those periods between runs, they're rarely inactive. They're making up pva bags, tying rigs, scanning the water for signs of carp showing, crumbling boilies, spodding, cooking, brewing the kettle, thinking about what to do differently- theirs is an active waiting, which is probably why they catch a fair few carp. There's a fair bit of waiting spoken about in the Bible, too. ...

I'm not going to lie- I'm really going to miss our annual Christian Anglers weekend Retreat this year. Cancelling it, in the light of all that's going on at the moment and in line with government restrictions was undoubtedly the right and the sensible thing to do, but it'll certainly leave a bit of a hole in my summer.  We all of us sometimes enjoy fishing solo - packing up some lunch, grabbing our tackle and sitting on the banks of  river, lake or canal with only ourselves, the chatter of birds, the glory of nature, and God for company, but there's also something special about fishing in company. It may just be with one particular fishing partner, two or three friends, or (as in our fish-ins and retreats) a whole bunch of angling pals, but memories are often that bit sweeter when they happen to be shared memories. I've been fishing with my two brothers for nearly 40 years now, and with many of my fellow Christian Anglers members for a fair few, too. ...

It's no secret that anglers often have a penchant for camouflage. It's not a recent development, either- even old Izaak Walton was counselling anglers to wear drab clothing to blend in, and he was writing way back in the 17th Century. Whether your preference is for Realtree, army surplus or just drab greens, olives and browns it's advice that most anglers tend to heed. Camouflage helps us to blend in, and thus catch more fish (or at least, that's the theory!) However, in faith terms, our Christian allegiance should never be camouflaged. Our mission isn't to "blend in", but rather to "stand out." Jesus spoke about his followers being those who stand out and shine as lights in the darkness, and challenged his disciples not to "hide their light under a bushel." In Acts 4, we read about two of the disciples (who also happened to be fishermen!) Peter and John being hauled before the Temple Authorities for preaching about Jesus ...

My first fishing trip of this year, made in the company of two other Christian Anglers members, was with specimen perch as the intended target. The specimen perch aspiration was a realistic one, as the pond concerned was one from which all three of us have landed out-sized perch and where, although the fishing is never easy, normally at least one of the party lands a stripey, spiky fish that merits weighing and a quick "grip and grin" for the camera. However, this time round the only perch we caught were miniscule, and the fish we predominantly caught were roach, almost all in the six ounce to three quarters of a pound size range. Now, don't get me wrong, they were handsome fish, silver hued like something from a jeweller's window and good fun to catch, but they weren't what we expected or had ventured to the lake in search of. Reflecting afterwards, I thought about how that fishing trip was, in a sense, a microcosm of life itself. So often what happen...

There are a number of factors that contribute to float fishing being my favourite method to employ while trying to outwit fish. One is the floats themselves, "beautiful in appearance, even more so in disappearance" as one author once put it. I love the aesthetic appeal of a float, particularly as these days I fish exclusively with traditional, handmade patterns - who can resist the iconic shape of a perch bob, or the lustre of a well varnished reed waggler, or the silk whipping on the stem of an avon or quill float? However, while acknowledging all the above, I would suggest that the overriding factor for me is the way that watching the brightly painted tip of a float protruding through the water's surface film massively accentuates the anticipation of a bite. Advent is a time of heightened anticipation. In its immediate context, the anticipation that accompanies the countdown to Christmas, but the broader and bigger context of Advent is the anticipation of ...

I'm not going to lie: I've done my fair share of blanking. Like everyone, I'd rather catch, but I can cope with a day of dry nets, and there's still pleasure to be had in the experience.  In fact, I've probably learnt almost as much from blanking as I have from catching. The "thinking angler" reflects on why he or she hasn't caught, what might have been done better, would a change of swims have worked, a different rig, an alternative approach to feeding ...?  I suspect that prayer is rather similar. We sometimes talk about "unanswered prayer" but the fact is there's no such thing. There's always an answer: sometimes "yes", sometimes "no", sometimes "not yet." That prayer has the power to change things is something of which Scripture is certain, but when prayer isn't answered in the way we'd hoped  and doesn't change the situation itself, it still has the power to change us . ...

The late Bill Shankly, onetime manager of Liverpool FC, once famously quipped "some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." He was a great man, and a great football manager, but- on this occasion- he was wrong. I love the game, and played it for 20 years, but when all's said and done it is only an inflated sphere being kicked by 22 men who are all trying to get it to fit into a giant "onion bag" 8 feet high and 21 feet wide. It's the same with fishing. I love my fishing even more than I love football, but there are more important things than catching fish. Like family .... and faith. Last Sunday I was preaching in church on a passage from 2 Thessalonians in which the Apostle Paul is writing to a church of new Christians who are being violently persecuted for their faith. His message: "let the up-look transform your outloo...

Last night I saw Mark Knopfler at the Resorts World Arena (formerly NEC) in Birmingham. He's 69 (many in the audience were older) but, in the words of one of his songs, "the boy can play." Still loving what he's doing, and a whole lot better at it than when he was a young kid just starting out. Many of the best fishermen I've known have been "tapping on a bit." I'm certainly a better angler now than I was when I was 13. Although I had all the enthusiasm back then, I was impatient: I'd move swims too quickly, plumb the depth too hurriedly, race to the first available swim. Time and experience have made me if not a good angler certainly a better one. It should be the same in our Christian journey, too. That as time passes, we grow. That our experiences drawn from Bible reading, church, the wisdom of other Christians and - above all- our lived relationship with Jesus should lead to us becoming more effective as followers and disciples. ...

I can remember the frustration like it was yesterday, although it was probably nearer to 30 years ago. I was walking alongside a small stream (more of a ditch, really) that joined the River Cam and, as every angler does, my eyes peered through the water's layers as I walked. And then I saw it: a tiny baby pike, no more than 6 inches long. Excited, I pointed it out to my (non-angling) walking companions Graham and Alex. They looked and looked, squinted, screwed up their faces in strange contortions but could see nothing. "Look, it's there, next to that leaf .... it's just moved ... look " I implored, but still they saw no mini pikelet. Their inability to see gave way to banter: "Yea, right, you must think we were born yesterday ... nice try ... like a fish would be in that tiny stream anyway...." But the pike was there. I saw it. It made me think of so many in the crowds who saw Jesus. There in front of them was the Messiah, the Son of God and they d...

The T-shirt I'm wearing in the photo above is one of my favourites. Made for me, and given to me, by my pal David (he's the big guy next to me) when I was visiting him in the USA in 2013, it bears the legend "Go Fish", followed by the reference from Luke's Gospel that records Jesus' famous words as he called his first disciples to leave their life of commercial fishing and follow him on an adventure of evangelism.  I (like Izaak Walton) have always rather liked the fact that it was to fishing that Jesus turned when he wanted to call and commission his first followers, but a fellow member of Christian Anglers made me stop and think a couple of weeks ago when we were talking over a pint.  He'd always slightly struggled to come to terms with Jesus' "evangelism as fishing" metaphor, because, as my friend pointed out, fishing is all about deception - tricking a fish into thinking something with a hook in it is natural food, and shar...

I'm not a great carp angler but, if truth be told, carp are one of my least favourite species anyway. That said, I do fish for them and do (occasionaly) catch them as the photo above proves. But I'm not a carp angler; not a proper one. For a start, I can't really be bothered to put in the effort. Get me fishing for perch, for instance, and thre's no lengths I won't go to to try to catch my quarry, but I just can't seem to feel the same about carp. I tend to take too much equipment, get too settled and comfortable in a swim and then just sit there and hope the fish come to me. My two brothers, who would both cite carp as their favourite species are the total opposite. Our shared DNA hasn't made them the laid back, lazy carp angler that I am and they're happy to travel light, change swims and rigs as many times as it takes, to keep working at it and to constantly adapt their tactics to the behaviour of the fish. I guess that's why they catc...