How Fishing Has Helped....

The majority of my posts have centred around the fishing and very little, if any mention, of the depression and after all that was the reason behind the blog, so I could keep a record of my journey dealing with this debilitating illness.  It hasn't been easy but then again it hasn't been especially difficult either considering the medication and the support I have received from friends, family and colleagues.

The realisation that I was suffering from depression meant that a lot of things about how I had been feeling now made sense. There are some psychological symptoms that everyone should be aware of so they can seek the help they need if they experience some of these symptoms for most of the day, every day for more than two weeks.

Continuous low mood or sadness
Feeling hopeless and helpless
Having low self-esteem
Feeling tearful
Feeling guilt-ridden
Feeling irritable and intolerant of others
Having no motivation or interest in things
Finding it difficult to make decisions
Not getting any enjoyment out of life
Feeling anxious or worried
Having suicidal thoughts or thoughts of harming yourself


Depression creeps up on you gradually, so it can be difficult to notice something is wrong, and many people continue to try to cope with their symptoms without realising they are ill. It can take a friend or family member to suggest something is wrong, which often leads to conflict. Going to the Doctors and getting help is of paramount importance and then the road to recovery can begin when the type of depression has been identified. 

Mild depression has some impact on your daily life

Moderate depression has a significant impact on your daily life

Severe depression makes it almost impossible to get through daily life and unfortunately a few people with severe depression may have psychotic symptoms


The trigger for my depression was the death of my Mum and it can be hard to distinguish between grief and depression because they share many of the same characteristics, but there are important differences between them. Grief is an entirely natural response to a loss, while depression is an illness and people who are grieving find their feelings of loss and sadness come and go, but they're still able to enjoy things and look forward to the future. In contrast, people who are depressed have a constant feeling of sadness and struggle to enjoy anything, finding it hard to be positive about the future.

So how has fishing helped me then ?

Never a truer word

I can't say that I had a bad childhood, but I wish I had a different one if that makes sense.  My Dad was the type who would show me how to do something once and expect me to grasp it immediately.  If I didn't do it perfect within the first few attempts his patience would wear very thin, very quickly and he would start to get angry.  The result was that I felt useless and my fear of trying new things grew and grew and has followed me into my adult life. I honestly believe that this has been one of the underlying factors behind my depression and has affected every area of my life.  I grew up thinking that I was useless at everything and had no confidence in myself.

I'm not going to sit here and blame him for everything because there were times when I spent some very happy times with him, I just wish he had a little more patience with me and was less critical of my efforts.  When he tried to teach me how to fish I was given a 6 foot cane rod and spent hours down in the car park of the flats where we then lived learning how to cast.  There were some garages about 10 to 15 yards from the path and I was told that before he would take me fishing, I had to be able to cast my float and reach the garages.  He set me up with the float, shot and hook and tried to teach me to cast in a sideways motion, after opening the bale arm and pulling a length of line out so the float moved upwards towards the tip of the rod.  Even today I can't cast with this technique so as a 8 or 9 year old I had no chance.  Not once did I manage to hit the garage doors, and again I felt that I had let my Dad down and was a complete failure.

I think what I am trying to say in a round about way is that learning to fish now has proved to me that I am not useless that I can try new things and be a success at them and that I should believe in myself more.  My confidence has been boosted and it really is becoming apparent in other areas of my life as well, both personal and professional.  I have realised my worth at work and what I can achieve, not getting stressed out when faced with new challenges and improving my performances.  In my personal life I am trying new things and doing DIY jobs which I would have steered clear of this time last year.  I just need to work on a few other things like socialising with others and I think I will be a much more improved me.

I honestly believe that fishing has played a large part in this transformation because I had no idea about anything to do with the sport before, I didn't know how to set up, what the best tactics were, what bait to use or anything.  I now approach every session with confidence that I have developed enough knowledge and skill to catch fish  and if it looks like I could blank, it has given me the confidence to try a new approach and not just give up thinking I was a failure like I would have at one time.  I would recommend anyone with depression to find something that works for them the way fishing has for me.  I am seeing the glass more half full these days......

See you on the bankside.....

intense emotions of anxiety, hopelessness, negativity and helplessness - See more at: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/d/depression#sthash.ECU5lbs3.dpuf

intense emotions of anxiety, hopelessness, negativity and helplessness - See more at: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/d/depression#sthash.ECU5lbs3.dthat people are always judging you, that they

What A Day !!!!

Furnace Mill Fishery, Wyre Forest, Worcestershire, DY14 8NR
Peg 37, Mucky Meadow Pool

I have wanted to fish this complex since I started fishing last year but never quite got around to it until now.  It is another of those fisheries that is owned and run by anglers for anglers, the type that I love, and I wish I had gone there earlier.  Situated in the Wyre Forest, about 3 or 4 miles west of the town of Bewdley, it really is a little gem of a place.  Angling legend and TV presenter Matt Hayes says that it is his favourite commercial venue and has featured in his programmes in the past, and it is not difficult to see why.  There are four lakes to fish Furnace, Willow, Mucky Meadow and Mill Pools, which are fed by a nearby brook and the fishery sits in a wonderfully secluded valley with woods around it which are part of the complex and have been turned into ranges for shooting air rifles.

This week's adventures saw me fishing with two young lads that went to school with my son Jake, and one lad that the other two knew from fishing at Furnace Mill previously. Ryan had played football for me when I ran Warley Albion FC and has only been into fishing for about a year or two and is as obsessed with the sport as I am.  Ryan, Daniel and Ed had already set up when I arrived and had decided that we were going to go onto the Mucky Meadow pool, despite having told me that they may be on either Willow or Furnace.  I pulled up in the car park facing the cafe / bait shop and went to ask which pool was Willow because I had seen Furnace on the way in after dipping my landing net in the disinfectant, and there was no sign of them on there.  However before I could get out of the van, the owner Jane had come out of the cafe and was gesturing to me to turn my van around and park correctly.  Nice one Stu...Less than two minutes on the site and I've been told off by the owner.

I sheepishly parked the van correctly and went in search of the others, too scared to ask where Willow Pool was, and just mumbled that I was looking for mates who were on Willow.  Jane said there were a few on that pool and pointed in the general direction.  As I made my way across to the area indicated a little head popped up from behind a bank and I found them, nowhere near where they said they would be.  Still, I had found them and it was time to get the rods out.

I had bought a Preston Innovations seat box from ebay in the week, a real bargain for £42, and I was eager to get it set up and try it out so made my way down to the bankside and found a nice looking peg.  The pegs are spacious and well constructed with a hardcore base or platform so there wouldn't be any sloshing around in mud but getting to them could prove something of a challenge for someone of the larger frame, like myself.  I had to walk along the bank where we were fishing until thebank and path met though this was still quite a precarious descent owing to the wet grass which made things slippy.  As I gingerly made my way down the short but steep section I had visions of either slipping on my backside or launching myself head first into the pool.

I made it down without mishap and made my way along to the chosen peg and set up ready for the day ahead.  I decided to start with the feeder rod with a running maggot feeder above a snap swivel with two float beads to act as a buffer between the feeder and the swivel with a size 16 hook on a 5 inch hook-length. I put three maggots on the hook and filled the feeder with a mix of casters and maggots and cast out about 30 to 40 yards slightly to my left so there would be a small kick on the quiver tip so I could see any bites.  Now regular readers of this blog will know that the majority of my adventures on the bankside involve some sort of calamity or disaster and today was to be no exception.  In my haste to get onto the new seat-box and start fishing I hadn't tightened the brackets on the left-hand side of the legs.  I had just just watched my rod tip bend around rather forcefully and picked up the rod to strike when everything dropped from underneath me.

I dropped like a stone to my left, rolled over the edge of the seat-box, knocked my bait tub full of maggots off the tray and sat kind of dazed for a few seconds wondering what had happened.  It was when I felt the rod jerking in my hand that I came to my senses and realised what had happened but I still had the fish on so the rest could wait until it was safely landed, unhooked and released.I got the fish to the surface but it was putting up a great fight and the swirls coming up from the pool told me it was a decent fish.  The water was bubbling and swirling around as we fought it out but it soon tired and I was able to get my landing net, which had got bent in the fall from grace.  It was a Common Carp about 3lbs in weight, but my phone had been catapulted just out of reach so no photo this time.

I unhooked the fish and returned it to the water from the landing net and set about sorting my peg out and retrieving as many of my maggots as I could.  Luckily they fell into a pile and didn't scatter about so I had the majority back in the box in no time and there were a few dozen in amongst the grass which a Robin helped to clear.

Sat waiting patiently for a bonus feed of spilled maggots

I managed to get everything sorted and securely fixed the seat-box at the correct height and started fishing again.  I had been watching Ryan and where he was fishing and he seemed to have found a shoal of Chub, now I had never caught a Chub so I decided to see if I could get one as well and cast out remembering what I had read in my "Tommy Pickering's Complete Guide to Coarse Fishing" book about casting short of where another angler casts because there is a chance that the fish would be sitting further back in a kind of safe zone.  It wasn't long before the rod bent round but this time it was a violent, hard take as the fish grabbed my hook and there wasn't any need to strike.  It looked as if the speed and ferocity of the take had done that job for me.  I've often heard Richard, Damian and Luke talk about the fight in a fish and because I usually set up for the smaller fish, I don't really get to experience this feeling, but this fish was certainly giving my shoulders and arms a workout.  It turned out that I had got it bang on and hooked myself a Chub of about 2.5lbs, my first Chub and therefore a new PB.  I was ecstatic.....This was worth the £7.50 entrance money alone...

There is that old phrase often used for buses about wait for hours and then three come along at once, well that could be used for what happened after that first Chub and I landed another 4 over the course of the next 45 minutes, the best being a 3lb beast, so two PB's in under an hour.

3lb Chub

As the day wore on the fishery became busier and busier but it was mainly air gun enthusiasts heading off into the woods to the ranges the owners have built there and it looked like there was a competition of sorts going on.  I have to admit to having a little giggle at some of them dressed head to foot in camo gear.  Gun cases, bags, trousers, hats and just about everything else decked out in camouflage patterns even though they were shooting metal targets which they hardly had to hide from.  I'm not knocking them, each to their own, but it did make me smile.

The bites dropped off for everyone for a few hours but then as suddenly as they stopped, they began again and I swapped over to the float rod with a loaded waggler and tried my luck along the margins where a few small roach sacrificed themselves to my hook.  Ryan was having some decent fish out with his new pole, Daniel was on the feeder still (mainly in everyone elses swims and not his own....there is always one) and Ed was busy with the float and having some luck.

The rain came and went but it did not spoil the enjoyment of being in the lovely surroundings of the fishery, and it was just a wonderfully relaxing and chilled out day but the excitement didn't end there.  Ryan hooked into a real lump of a fish but it snapped him off just as Daniel had the landing net underneath it, Daniel had a fish take his hook as soon as it entered the water, snapping the line instantly but he said that it was a huge fish judging by the shadow that raced away just under the surface and Ed came close to picking up a Carp from the surface but a white duck grabbed his floating bait and hooked itself.  The flapping and noise that the bird made in it's panic spooked the fish so after unhooking the bird Ed had missed out.

Ryan had to leave earlier than the rest of us because he had promised his girlfriend an evening out and shortly after he left I felt that familiar snap as the rod bent around and I could feel a decent fish starting to fight.  At first I thought I had a Carp or Chub on, but to my surprise it was a Bream and it was a huge thing.  Usually Bream just give up as soon as they are hooked, well the small ones do, but this one was darting around, diving for cover, coming back up to the surface and putting up a really good fight.  After three or four minutes it finally surfaced, rolled onto its side and I was able to land it.  It was like a big saucepan lid and the scales read 4lbs dead on....My previous best Bream had been 8 ounces, so a third PB in one day !!!!!

4lbs on the nail....A third PB of the day

I had to start thinking about packing away myself but there was one last burst of excitement in store for me when I hooked into a Common Carp of 5lbs and that really tested my float rod as it fought hard.  The line was making those strange creaks, the rod was bent almost double as it ran for some roots that lay just under the water.  I had noticed the dark shape swimming right in front of my peg for a while and just dropped the waggler in, almost at the rod tip, to see if it would take the bait.  There was a splash as the tail broke the surface and it was off, diving down the shelf taking the float with it.  I let the clutch run and took my time not wanting to lose the fish, and I let it run where it wanted but had to work hard at times to prevent it reaching the root system.  My shoulders and arms had been given a proper workout all day and there was no let up with this fish.  When I finally got it into the net I was surprised to see that it was foul hooked in the tail and so considered myself very fortunate to have managed to hang onto it while it fought me.

5lb of solid muscle

A few more casts produced nothing more than just a few line bites or nudges and I then had to pack up and make my way home to be at a previously arranged appointment in time, but I had caught my first ever Chub setting one PB, then beat that PB with the next fish and also beat my previous PB for a Bream, so I went home very very happy.

The Furnace Mill Fishery now ranks in joint first position of my favourite fisheries, along with Willow Park in Farnborough, and I have no doubt I will be making the short trip (only 25 miles) over to the Wyre Forest a lot more from now on.

Only the second fishery to ever get five Carp on Stu's Carp Rating -

See you on the bankside.....

 

Another Bonus Day....

Orchard Lakes, Bashley, New Milton, Hampshire, BH25 5TD
Peg 16, Match Lake
16th March 2016

Every so often the planets align and everything seems to fall nicely into place, when you find yourself in pleasant surroundings with a bit of time on your hands.  This was the situation I found myself in this week when I was scheduled to work down on the Isle of Wight on Monday, in Yeovil Tuesday and then finish off on Wednesday in Salisbury.  The work isn't too difficult or taxing and for the most part I can be done within three hours or thereabouts, so it is fair to say that I have had it pretty cushy for the last 3 months or so.  When we were doing the first part of this contract last summer, I was able to find a few nice fisheries and Orchard was one of them and I have wanted to get back since.  Last time I visited I was still learning the basics and stuck to fishing the margins with my float rod so it would be interesting to see if I could venture further out and try the feeder rod this time.

I decided that I would leave for my job in Salisbury, straight from the fishery and had to set myself a strict time to leave to ensure I wasn't late on site.  It's one thing to be late because of traffic but I think Luke might have something to say if the reason I was late because I was fishing and he was stuck behind his laptop in the office.  I had to be out of the gate by 4pm, allowing 30 minutes for any congestion I may encounter but I was confident that once I was clear of the M27 then I wouldn't get much until I hit Salisbury's ring road.  With a time imprinted in my mind and my bags packed I left the hotel and made my way to the lakes, arriving around 10am, giving me 6 hours of fishing.

At Orchard you have to go into the tackle and bait shop before making your way down to a lake and pay the £10 fee.  If you don't and they have to come to the bankside the fee is doubled, plus they sell the fattest and juiciest red maggots I have ever used.  After making my purchases in the shop (bait and float stops) it was time to get a line in the water and there are a number of lakes to choose from but I decided to go onto the snake lake again, but this time I would go around to where the lake split into three at the 'T' junction on peg 16.  This gave me a variety of areas to fish and would hopefully bag me some decent fish.

My peg was just to the right

 I had seen a rig in Improve Your Coarse Fishing where the maggot feeder was fixed on the main line with the hook length on a sort of heli-rig attached via a small swivel on the main line and locked into place with two float stops and a short length of silicon tubing over part of the hook length and swivel to prevent tangles.  I wasn't too sure at first because I hadn't used this set-up before and I was on my own, Damian, Luke or Richard were not with me and I do suffer from a little bit of doubt over my tactics or set-up without them.  However, my fears were soon put to the back of my mind as soon as I made the first cast and I felt more relaxed.

The rig I used

 I think my confidence will build with time but I like fishing with the lads, they laugh at me for catching tiddlers but they are always there for me if I need any advice or help.  Anyway, the article I saw the rig in advised leaving the feeder in the water for around 30 minutes before casting out again into the same area.  Now patience is something I have little of when it comes to fishing and I do sometimes find myself chasing a bite, but today I was determined to control the urge to reel in and re-cast.  The rod was placed into the rod rest with the tip slightly bent, just enough to show any activity on the hook and just off the surface of the water.  The wind was blowing a little and causing a few ripples which made the rod tip look like it was bouncing but I remembered what Rich had told me when we were at Makin's and resisted the urge to strike.  After about 20 minutes the end of the rod bent round and I knew I was in.  I picked up the rod and struck, feeling the resistance on the line as the hook did it's job I began to reel in.  I could tell it was a big fish from the feel of it through the rod and finally understood what Matt Hayes and Mick Brown meant when they would say it was this fish or that fish when they were on TV.  Quite how they can tell what species they have on the line must be something that comes with experience because I didn't have a clue what I had hooked.

After two or three minutes of playing the fish I finally managed to get it into my landing net and was pleasantly surprised to see it was a bit of a beast.  My scales read 5lb, but I took a pound off because the unhooking mat was waterlogged and quite heavy, so my first fish was a lovely Common Carp in great condition.  After that things died off a bit and I decided that maybe it was time to switch to a loaded waggler just on the edge of the shelf where the lake bed dropped a bit.  I didn't have to wait long and soon I was into a shoal of roach and it was in, out, in, out fishing for about an hour or so until the fish moved on.

I was catching at a steady pace and switching between float and feeder every hour or so and just having a really enjoyable session though in the back of my mind I was aware that I had a job to do in Salisbury and so I packed up around 3.30pm.  As I left the lakes I was aware of someone in a mobility scooter just past the gate on the road, what I didn't expect was the sight before me.  There was an elderly gentleman shooting squirrels in a tree from his mobility scooter and getting quite angry at his dog.  If I hadn't of taken the photo below I doubt anyone would have believed me.

You see some strange things when fishing

Once I stopped laughing at the way the bloke was shouting at the dog and blaming the poor mutt for him missing the squirrels I made my to Salisbury and the daily grind.....

See you on the bankside......