The ghost of the past

Second sight is a form of extrasensory perception, the supposed power to perceive things that are not present to the senses, whereby a person perceives information, in the form of a vision, about future events before they happen (precognition), or about things or events at remote locations (remote viewing). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An event  last weekend has led me to much esoteric pondering. Let me explain..

The night before a planned fishing trip, as I try to sleep, I often imagine the catching of a big fish. I imagine where I will catch it, how I will catch it and what it will feel like to play the fish, to land it and hold it in my hands and to watch it swim strongly away. I try to let the images come of their own accord. If my fish stays stubbornly in the dark background I am not confident of success. But if my fish swims big and bold and bright I believe I will have success the next day when I will try to match my real life actions to those of my imagining. Sometimes by now I am already asleep and the images are as dreams to be remembered in the morning. 

If this is all sounding a bit hooly-booly consider that visualisation techniques are an important tool for sports coaches and for tribal peoples around the world who prepare themselves for the hunt in this way - as surely our ancestors did. 

I know of other anglers who will themselves to dream big in order to catch big. Perhaps sometimes precognition reaches further still..

here's where it gets a bit spooky.  

From time to time, purely for my own entertainment I like to create angling inspired artworks.  Back in February I caught a new personal best perch. To celebrate this memorable event and to create some sort of record I decided to put together an imagined scene of my perch in its watery lair. I know the swim to be very snaggy with  bricks scattered about on the bed so I began to build up a rough image along these lines. I tried to imagine what other objects might be down there in the murky depths, unseen to my eyes. For some reason the idea of a teapot popped into my head. I couldn't explain why but I liked the idea and could really visualise my big perch sitting next to it on the canal bottom. It seemed important that it should be a Victorian teapot so I Googled some source images and eventually found one that looked right and I put it into my digital painting. Other demands on my time took over and I didn't get any further with this particular piece, but here it is as it stood back in early spring..      

Now on Friday I decided I really should revisit this spot and try for some perch on the fly. I figured that this would be a good opportunity to try out a 'new' rod that had been passed to me by a good friend. 'New' because the rod is actually a top section from a very old split cane rod that has been refitted as a light spinning rod. I reckoned though that it would actually cast a fly line pretty well too so I was keen to give it a go. As it turned out it makes a nice little 3 weight, albeit with an oversize handle and this lovely perch obligingly christened the rod.   

The going was tough though and with no further takes  eventually I decided to turn away from the water and head home. As I was passing the spot that inspired my picture however, I decided on one last cast. As I retrieved my fly I felt the line go heavy. Not sure if I had connected with a large fish or just a snag, I lifted into the weight and I could feel an object rising from the murk. Well here is what it turned out to be, and I can tell you that I felt a curious shiver down my back when I saw how similar it is to my imagined teapot! Blind coincidence or something else?   

Who can say, but it sure gave me the willies. I can't really account for why it seemed so important to place a Victorian teapot in my picture but once it had popped into my head I imagined a whole back story of how it had dropped over the side of a barge and was much missed by its owner. And now when I hold the real-life object (which appears to be a some sort of Victorian teapot shaped lamp holder) I wonder if it arrived on the canal bed by a similar journey. The lamp holder contained a cray fish which I evicted and returned to the canal. I took the lamp holder home thinking to hang it in my garden. But as I write this I am thinking that I may return it from whence it came. Oh and I really must add a big old perch into that picture..