After two weeks of cold and dreary, damp and foggy, I’m reminded of all those English classics with Sherlock Holmes and Hounds of Baskervilles, debtor’s prison and moored Hulks. Victorian spinsters attempting to land Mr. Darcy … who fly fished and therefore had the good sense to pledge troth to some crone that owned the Tay, the Itchen, or something Salmon coveted …

… in between his riding the moors shirtless in search of impressionable young females of low to middling expectations …

I figured I could play the same game – perhaps landing some impressionable young farming wench, whose Poppa’s massive tomato acreage might encompass a couple of bluewater tributaries (not seen on any map). Naturally, she’d have to find portly and balding, unshaven and flabby completely attractive, but in her naiveté a badly contrived Cockney accent would appear terribly exotic, and I’d be snapped up like cheese dip.

In short, I had Great Expectations.

Unfortunately so did the local talent, and while I cut quite the figure slipping wading through high water and moon-walking on bankside mud, I couldn’t compete with the verandah full of gun-toting, bonfire-making, 4-wheel, drug-smoking-pitbull-equipped killers that accosted me.

“Dude, awesome! A fly pole, I wished I brought mine …”

As he’s leveraging more rounds into the rifle magazine I’m really not sure how to take this, is it highwayman-speak for “hand it over, bitch” – or should I wait for a proper demand?

I opted for the non-committal, “… nice dogs, they yours?… and can you tell the big one to give me my nuts back?”

I was safe, these were kindred sporting spirits, the kind that our angling organizations wish to attract, can’t find, are scared of … who don’t like to walk far after shooting, running over, and unleashing ravenous killer dogs on their prey. They were friendly and good natured, made doubly so by a couple of large blunts circling the campfire, and warming themselves and Miss Tomato Acreage after an arduous morning of four-wheel gun crazies.

While me and the Two-Gun-Kid exchanged casting techniques, some his dad had taught him, and some my dad taught me, I gave Miss Tomato Acreage my rarified eye, the selfsame glance that makes a Whiting neck recoil in fear.

I figured her taste in gum ran to Spearmint, dinner out was Mac & Cheese, and the bit of ample that pooched out of her too-short tee showed the eight-ring of her deftly inked bull’s eye, suggesting Miss Tomato was both chaste and pure – of a sort.

… the frown suggested my portly and aging were no longer letters of Marque, it was a friendly and disinterested refusal, there was never a chance and we were both relieved …

On further reflection, the vast acreage owned by the local Tomato cartel pale in comparison to what Miss Gravel Aggregate could potentially offer her beau, unfortunately for the genteel there remains the pesky insurgency offered by us fishermen and … off road crazies?

… hell, nobody likes them.

Well maybe the six o’clock news does. It’s just as likely they’re tired of us hand wringing enviro types and could use a bit of sound and fury to rattle Grandma off her couch …