The plan had been to start early, bait up four swims before initially fishing two swims I'd baited yesterday but which I hadn't added any new bait today, while hopefully some fish found the bait in at least one of the four swims.
I started later than intended due to an unplanned trip to London yesterday evening. I walked the mile or so necessary to bait the four swims and then settled in swim number one. Gradually my left eye seemed to be getting more and more irritated. I had some eye drops with me but they seemed to make little difference. Over the next couple of hours the discomfort got worse and worse and it became apparent that my eye was swelling up. The odd thing was that my right eye was wholly unaffected. Had I got a seed or something in my left eye? Or maybe some pollen had landed in it? No idea really, but it was getting very unpleasant.
I had fished the first two swims with only the odd tap on the rod tip. I then walked to the far end of the fishery to fish the first of the baited swims and had only been there about 10 minutes when I reached the conclusion that the eye was now too bad and needed to get some treatment. By then, a boat had passed through the one baited swim I did fish in briefly.
And the other three baited swims weren't fished at all.
Back home and a long bathe of my eye seems to get some sort of gunk out, but this could have been just the goo my eye was now producing in huge amounts. The rest of the day was a constant series of eye-baths and periods when I just had to stay in a dark room and keep my eye closed. It doesn't hurt anymore but it has more or less sealed shut - like a black eye really. Yet my right eye remains fine!
A shame as the river is getting back into good condition and I was quite confident for today. It was a lovely morning with mist rising as I walked along the back around 5:30. I also spotted a heron in the far distance which I was able to get some film of.
I suspect that this means that fishing will be out of the question for at least the next few days. I have only had this type of extreme hayfever reaction once before and that was more than 10 years ago. It will probably take a day or two at least for the swelling to go down and I should avoid going back into pollen-infested areas for a few days more. Maybe I could try again on Sunday?
I do wonder what I have been taking daily hayfever tablets for over the past month or so. I was supposed to have built up tolerance for pollen by now!
I have posted a slightly-shorter-than-normal video because I quite liked the misty scenes at the start, the cows and the heron. But the video also shows me playing around with my eye far too much and the wrap up scene has the swelling quite apparent. Not good!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccenNA6AWY4&feature=plcp
Such is "my fishing life" at the moment - no fish and an extremely sore eye!
No comments:
Post a Comment