Castaways Curse

Kilnsey Park is a small, friendly, well marketed 2 acre fly fishery that lies some eleven and a half miles to the north of Skipton in the central stretch of Wharfedale. It is regularly stocked all year round with a good head of hard fighting rainbow and brown trout that come in various different weights and sizes making it a bit of a Mecca for moneyed sightseers, fly fishers of all abilities and persuasions, and finally in miserable weather conditions the bearer of the Kilnsey Curse, me.

Now do not let the last part put you off from visiting Kilnsey Park as I do not walk the banks in a ragged robe partially engulfed in fog, wielding the rod of doom with carrion crows to act as my harbingers! In truth my disposition upon arrival is quite the opposite, for I look forward to the promise of an easy days fishing casting everything from the close natural imitation to last years Christmas decorations at these preference free partisans.

You may well be saying at this point words to the effect of hang on so where the hell has this idea of a curse come from? Well allow me to enlighten you affliction free anglers as to my watery woes! Fishing at Kilnsey should in simple terms (as far as plans go) really boil down to a no brain day of stocky bashing with a ridiculous number of fish to each rod come close of play, save in the instances where I am concerned!   

It seems that Robert Burns was very right when he wrote “The best laid schemes o’ mice an men, Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!” for however infrequently I incorporate a visit to this Stillwater into my fishy plans it seems that the day somehow succumbs to a plethora of problems that I rarely experience at any other time when I am out and about fly fishing.

Having never harboured a superstition or Calvinistic belief in my life I am a bit stuck as to how I should set about breaking this curse! Perhaps I need to go and have a word with the two blokes who sit at the table in the café in the funny get up chanting over the cutlery and condiments on hand, or perhaps you just need to finish reading this yourself and get up there to see what all the fuss is about, I swear it’s something in the water, possibly the size of the fish…