Who am I?

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An individual, of no great importance, who is unable to see the natural world as a place for competition. I catch fish, watch birds, derive immense pleasure from simply looking at butterflies, moths, bumble-bees, etc - without the need for rules! I am Dylan and this is my blog - if my opinions offend? Don't bother logging on again - simple!

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Sunday 16 November 2014

I might be winning?

Like all blokes, I'm not one for reading instruction manuals - so unsurprisingly; my traumas of yesterday could have easily been avoided by a few minutes perusing the "destruction's" that came with my new toy!
I've made Google Chrome my first choice - replacing that Microsoft/Bing collaboration, thus solving most of my unwanted intruders (adverts!).
Bev and I took a drive over to Thannington, this morning, so that she could do the Garden Centre "Christmas" thing and I could spend some time at Fat Fish - a tackle shop whose main visitors are devout carp anglers with loads of money and little sense! Don't get me wrong, the venue is a proper tackle shop - brand names adorn the vast majority of their wares, as do the associated price tags. Only a complete lame brain could fail to spot the major flaw in all this carp-driven commercialism. Carp still eat bread, sweetcorn, chick peas and worms - why does anyone need to spend £13/kilo on boilies when it is possible to produce your own for less than £4? Some of the gear in the shop was so far beyond my experience as to be in the realms of fantasy - proper "out there" shit! A chat with the (very knowledgeable) guy behind the counter was a pleasant exchange. He spoke of other anglers who'd experienced  similar trials, to my own, with the barbel of the Stour, he was also able to go back into the early 80's, when he had started his own carp fishing journey.
We'd stopped off at Dad's, en route, just to make sure he was OK? Benno was also there, so it was a nice family gathering. The major outcome of this visit was the fact that my daughter, Sarah-Jayne, had found an old box of slides in her attic - my fishing photos from the mid-80's and beyond. There were also a few of my old vinyl LP's to add to the surprise. Bloody brilliant - all I had to do was endure a trip to Thannington and a meal in a local eatery before I could start to explore this newly delivered treasure. The music ranged from Sabbath, via Queen, Rush and Saxon, to David Bowie and Rod Stewart - absolute quality sounds. Just a shame that I no longer have the equipment to enjoy these discs! But, in reality, it was sod the discs - what was on those slides? Memories - so many memories - of people and places; times which now seem like forgotten school days, but now came flooding back as each image was seen. I have absolutely no idea as to the number of images I have looked at? I do know that 240 of them have been projected onto the living room wall - and I've only scratched the surface of the mad times which are contained within these items.
I've picked out a few photos, but they are a very random choice, to try to illustrate the period - retro blogging - just the job?
This is summer of 1991! (20.09.1991)
Benno, aged 7, with his second 20lbs+ Wels Catfish.
Claydon Middle Lake
25lbs 2oz of Claydon Wels Catfish
It remains my PB and is a fish of which I am rather proud to have caught.
It is one of the original stocked fish, from Woburn, that the Leighton
Buzzard AC placed into Claydon Middle Lake
My brother, Simon, with a Tiddenfoot Wels Catfish of 22lbs 14oz

A Claydon Middle Lake 18lbs 10 oz Wels Catfish
11lbs 2oz of Brogborough Bream!
My PB, as it remains to this day, taken during a series of "guest" sessions at this
Bedfordshire venue

There are so many other images, I need to go through, that this project has the potential to match that of "The Steve Gale Diaries"?


2 comments:

  1. Match them? No, it'll be better than them. Looking forward to the nostalgia-fest Dyl...

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  2. Great to have ya back Dylan.
    If your up for an attempt to recover info/docs from your old box let me know I will give it a go.

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