Where shall we go when the gates are locked?

Skylarks mockingly sing their cheerful tunes, parachuting effortlessly to the ground before flitting back to their aerial displays. I wobble unnervingly, just about holding balance as my front tyre sinks into the rut of another babyhead, carrying sweaty momentum forwards. Apart from the lumbering heave of my panting, the crunch of dry grassland and shrill calls of moorland birds, the landscape is empty. It’s no wonder, even in the long carefree days of school summer holidays this corner of Devon is never busy, and that’s exactly what’s drawn me here. I unclip my pedals in relief as I reach a gate along the bridleway, the path has given up here, not me, my legs have held this far. Reaching for the latch, an angry person has entered my company, seeing a shiny new chain and padlock barring this public right of way.

I’ve no right to complain about the circumstances we find ourselves in during lockdown and perhaps my biggest reflection upon this time is to judge those around me as far more commendable than myself for selfless acts in trying to cope with the COVID pandemic. But after 47 days of working, resting, eating, calling friends, cleaning and maintaining gear and all the other things that make up daily life all within the confines of an inner-city flat, the spirit grows deflated. I’ve grown lazy for lack of excitement in life, and regularly sleep beyond the beckoning call of dawn, mustering a purpose for the day a real marathon effort. Anxiety creeps around the covers as uncertainty grows over the ability for us to hold our long-planned wedding this summer and well laid plans for my PhD research lay scattered. This is the world we find ourselves in though, and no wallowing in self-pity will change that.

Wilderness has always been a refuge for the restless mind, from biblical stories of spiritual growth in the desert to the modern fable of Chris McCandless making peace with American middle-class society by retreating to the hard frozen landscape of Alaska. There’s something about these places that gives us the chance to feel small, give space, to vocalise our grief, put ourselves back together and perhaps return with greater fortitude for it. In my own small way, this process is not alien to myself either. Finishing my final exams a few years ago, I packed the hatches of my kayak with a stove, bivvy gear and a few supplies. In the year prior, in youthful optimism, along with some friends we had decided that we would head to Svalbard to document and make clear the impact of plastic and noise pollution on this apparently pristine arctic wilderness. But with mere weeks to go, we were 10’s of thousands of pounds short, committed by our belief in the need for this kind of work but on the brink of financial ruin. After kayaking a kilometre offshore, a wobbling spec in the waves, a rough landing onto an empty beach and spending the night under a clear sky, resolve was found to commit to go for broke, to see it through to the end. More recently, with no home to speak of but my old car, the weight of a long field season and accompanying loneliness made the deteriorating health of my grandfather all the harder to stomach. Walking the banks of the East Lyn, casting a line for small wild brown trout, washing my cares out with a plunge into the cold, cleansing water, the pieces of life seemed to fit back together.

A dip in the East Lyn. 

I’m very grateful for the ability to still get out running and cycling to break the monotony of everyday life, it’s quite hard to imagine how those in the rather more strict measures of Spain are coping. During these times I ponder where I might go when clipped wings are allowed to grow again, to cast a line. Will I head alone to Dartmoor’s tumbling acid rivers, enjoy the improbable buzz of urban trouting or roam the coastline making more time to chat with long missed partners than to cast? The question reverberates: if you could go anywhere, where? Meeting this locked gate across the bridleway reminds me that I cannot go anywhere, that choice has been taken long before I was even able to walk, swim, cast, climb; the UK’s wilderness has been diminished and privatised. And nowhere is this more apparent than for our waterways.

'But on the other side, it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me'. 

A very wet run.

It’s 00:30, a scattering of hook packets lay around my bed, loose dubbing covers my shirt and a selection of scruffy flies are packed up in an envelope. An OS map glows from my laptop screen, numerous tabs open beside. The task at hand to equip a friend with the ability to get out fly fishing. His psyche to get into fly fishing is only matched by my elation to have another fishing partner without a pension scheme. Flies complete, I’m looking for likely looking local water for him. Forget the major rivers, a ticket on these is likely to cost a month’s rent or at least more than what we’d pay to feed ourselves for a week. Instead, I seek out the neglected, arse end tributaries, the turd on the shoe of the lordly water. This is the paradigm that we’ve come to work by, accepting that the most beautiful wonderful places in our own country are held at arm’s length. Not because they’ve been put there by these exclusive fisheries but instead are claimed on some antiquated documents of fishing rights, held as scripture to condemn ruffians such as ourselves. In the words of Joni Mitchell, ‘They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum, then they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see them’.

One of the better rivers we've found, even more fish than trolleys!

Back on my ride, I’m now cruising along forestry fire tracks. Looking at the conifer plantations, I’m taken to the wilds of Northern America. The land there is vast, so I hear, rich, true wilderness. Interest is stoked by Stuart’s tales of fishing in Tasmania, a temperate wilderness not unlike what the UK could have been. Rather than scratching through local post offices, obscure forum entries and dodging the gnashing of untamed farm mutts to knock on doors, here you know your rights. A state fishing permit allows you to roam wherever your spirit might take you, never fearful of having a crazed nutter attack you and steal your fishing rod for casting towards ‘his side on the river’ (a story for another time). I wonder if the populous of these countries suffer the same Nature Deficiency Disorder as we’re widely experiencing in the UK, with school children unable to identify our most common species. We shouldn’t have to fly half way around the world for access to awe inspiring rivers, with such landscapes abundant within our own country, and yet every year it proves more accessible for many people to do just this.

Nick Hart said that I reminded him of one of the American 'Troutbums' on one of the first occasions of meeting him. It took sometime to understand how great a compliment that could be!

In true University Student fashion, I’m milking the most out of a free trial to FishingTV, cancelling this before I have to pay. On the list of top rated films is ‘Chalk’, a story of chalks river fishing in the UK. And you know what, it’s everything I feared that it’d be. To give credit, the nod towards river restoration on the Wandle and smaller Yorkshire catchments give some lift in spirit. But the rest just serves the alienate, as home county accents wax lyrical about the tranquillity, perfection of these rivers, overlaid with slow-motion videos of anglers dressed up in thousands of pounds worth of beige, casting rods and reels worth more than my car, not exclusively retired. Words say that this is the glorious heritage of British fly fishing, what is heard is that you are not welcome in this natural beauty unless you earn such an exquisite income so as to buy your way in.

Aforementioned car. 

A small experiment for the next time you are at a party: Firstly, tell people upon meeting that you are a rock climber. Results generally consist of, ‘Awesome’, ‘Wow that’s pretty cool’, ‘Man, I’d love to go climbing sometime’. Now try and tell the other half of the room that you enjoy fishing for wild trout and you might expect such responses as, ‘I wouldn’t have expected that’, ‘each to their own I guess’ or ‘I’d never have the patience for that’. Now for the purely hypothetical part: I reckon if you repeated this experiment in cultures with open land access, right to roam and without the hoarding of natural beauty behind pay gates, the result would be totally different. Indeed, it doesn’t take much looking to see the difference in the fly fishing scene between the UK and America, New Zealand and Tasmania. The average age of anglers in the latter must be at least a generation younger, full of psyche and positive energy, not arthritis. What would it take to get young people enjoying their own right to wilderness, to give space for their spirits to roam, to find peace against the doomsday barrage of news in the media? Cut the locks, remove the ugly barbed wire, both people and the sport will be healthier for it.

Scottish winter climbing. See a mountain, climb the mountain. Marvellous. 

On a lighter note, various passport style schemes are making a positive change here. The Westcountry River’s trust launched their ‘Fish Pass’ app a little over a year ago, making wild fishing available and easily located for the cost of a pint and pasty. Hats off to them, it’s good to see and has made a big difference to my own fishing. But sadly this remains the exception.

Where will you go when it’s safe for us to wander again? This time of confinement has made all the more clear the need for all people (not just those on London salaries) to roam, to experience wild places and be refreshed by clean air. It’s been suggested that our society will change for this experience. I sincerely hope that the British countryside will become a more welcoming space and the ability to fish a far less exclusive acquisition when we do return.