Well Hello people
It has tookadum for me to get back on here

, Hope to hear you an yours are all keeping well in these very strange times, Grateful to report that all here are well Thank Buddha,
Anyways, was out on the bike this evening visiting a friend, it was getting chilly while getting ready for the home run, I starts up the bike an my mate starts shouting about some neoprene gloves that are in lidl or aldi this week.. I said they be worth looking at for the fishing, My hands felt cold as we spoke, just about to take off when I remembered i had fitted the heated grips

So i said to him i forgot about the heated grips... He says u didn't forget the pocket warmers when we went for a walk did you

That cracked me up, he was talking about a time around 8 to 10 year back when we took a long winter walk along a high river and canal bank, the freezing wind was howling on the day Then he says 'My hands are freezing off me'
I say's ' your getting soft kid I find it comfortable' asked him to feel my hand an he was amazed at how warm it was... I didn't tell him about the peecock petrol pocket warmers that were burning away in my pockets until we got home. He wasn't impressed But to this day he has a little dig at me over letting him suffer
Tell you lads if u suffer from bad circulation or are generally suffering with cold hand during the colder months Then the 2 things I recommend are heated grips and pocket warmers

I have to tell you's this one, was out in the native american canoe that i made some time back, the water was around 10 - 11c . I turned over in it and was carried down the Shannon river at speed with me hanging on to it

, it was an amazing feeling knowing I couldn't swim an my self inflating life jacket couldn't inflate. the good thing was i knew if i could hang on long enough i be passing a boat club that was usually pretty busy... sure enough just as i was about to freeze up they grabbed my collar an dragged me back to reality.
I know both of the lads that pulled me out of the river so I told them that when the pubs open again i would take them for a drink,
my local has opened again after the long lockdown So I will be booking a table for them as soon as the rush cools down.
Well lesson learnt, when the waters warmed up I took a sit on top kayak out to sea for a bit of fishing
it was great on the way to the mark which was roughly 2 km out from the head. Dropped my feathers to the bottom which was about 90 to 100ft an on reeling up caught 4 fish

Happy days... I was enjoying getting the fish into the basket which was behind me so much that i didn't see the big wave that was about to hit me... BOOM! I was over again

luckily my mate paddled over to me an kept his head,
he managed to right my yak an get all my gear back

He hadn't caught a fish yet so later it was pleasing to hear him shout that he was in a big one, We used light gear while fishing from the yaks So his rod was bending nicely. he was pulling an dragging on whatever was on his line.. Then i hear him say 'did u lose a jumper by any chance'
He not only retrieved all my gear that was floating about But he actually caught a jumper that i was using as a cushion which had sunk

Lads I was safer before they locked down the pubs

an now that they reopened I don't want to risk going in them But I'm willing to do things that could kill me in other ways.
Tis a strange old life, Be careful out there folks