The Sunday Challenge

    I have never liked Sunday mornings. Well, not for the last five years at least.  Five years ago my wife was treated for cancer.  Christie's Hospital did a grand job and she now seems very healthy, with no visible signs save for the scar showing from whence the main tumour was extracted.    The subsequent chemotherapy is now long past, the hair regrown.     BUT....she now sees the need to thank God on a weekly basis for her recovery. I will continue to thank the medical staff.  But even as an atheist I cannot really deny her the Sunday morning trip to the Catholic church. Forty-five minutes the service lasts, from the moment I drop her off outside, to the moment I pick her up.  This process of course wrecks any chance of my fishing Sunday mornings, and so I have long been taking a 35 minute walk down by the river, once a week.
    But last week I decided to try and catch a fish during those 45 minutes.  A rod was prepared the night before, requiring only to have its sections joined.  A folding seat, a disgorger, scissors, spare hooks and a couple of slices of bread completed the equipment.  
    At the church, ground zero, deposit wife, whilst trying not to look to be in a hurry.    Drive to the nearest little pond, gear out of the car and sit down:  time 7 minutes, not bad.  Float hits the water on 9 minutes.  The usual 4 pound carp swims past.   On 20 minutes I miss my first bite, but five minutes later I have a 4 oz bream to hand.    A second one, slightly larger, follows  some 6 minutes later.  I am surprised to catch bream in such shallow and clear water, but they have no deeper home to go to in this 18 inch deep water, and I have found in the past that bream seem to dislike being near weed, so this open swim is the most likely place for any bream to be in.  No more bites and so, on 35 minutes I pack up, with the moorhens watching me as I rush back to the car, and I get to the church just in time.
  The wife notices the smell, her nose is the nasal equivalent of Joddrell bank, but I convince her it must just be due to being near the river, for she must not know I went fishing.  She doesn't really like me fishing, but I manage a few trips.  Fishing Sunday morning would be one more on the list, so I want to avoid that.
   So: 2 fish in 45 minutes, time that included the drive to and from the water.  Not bad at all.  I tried the same this week,   missed the only two bites I had, but the challenge gives me a reason to be by the pond and an objective to aim for.   A harder challenge might be to try and catch  fish, other than minnows, from the river.   The river is a couple of minutes further away, and much harder to fish.  Planning might need to be more meticulous.