There are tales of all shapes and sizes when it comes to fishing. The notional salt cellar is often close to hand when hearing tales recounted from the banks. This freak occurrence needs no pinches of seasoning and fortunately I had my brother stood beside me as a co-witness.
In what was no more than maybe twelve seconds of action, the noise appeared first. A subtle swish from behind my left ear as I cast the rod forward and the spinner looped over the river towards the far bank. Momentarily this noise developed into a grey blur in my peripheral vision, becoming like a broad and confident brush stroke and was then a pigeon surging down the tree-lined river Teme, perhaps 20 feet above the surface. In what can only be described as slowed-down-motion I became aware of the converging trajectories of spinner and bird and then like a surreal, computerised war game, tiny missile connected with unintentional target. The short, muted thud of contact rapidly segued into a frenetic swish as the monofilament of my spinning reel left through the eye holes of the rod at untold speed. The rod tip became subservient to the birds direction downstream. Pigeon on!
The feathered fish continued arrow straight down the river and as quickly as it had connected with the treble hook on the Mepps Aglia size 3, had stripped my entire reel to the amateur triple granny knot that secured the end of the line to the barrel, with bale arm still cocked for casting. Then like some old pillow, sporting multiple holes and given a vigorous plumping - a small explosion of feathers appeared and the line went slack. Miraculously the granny knots had held. The pigeon cartwheeled down towards the surface, before somehow regaining its balance prior to impact with the water and flew onwards, no doubt as confused and dumbfounded as we were. I looked to my brother and the expression on his face. “Fuuuuuurking hell, did you see that!”
