Yesterday evening, I thought I’d string up a rod to have it permanently handy for popping down to the Square for a bit of casting practice. A quick two minute job, no?
No. First, as soon as I got the rod out—I’d chosen the ZXL 8’ 5wt—the cats went bonkers and started twirling round uttering those little bleating mews that cats do when they see something they *really* want to chase. So I had to keep fighting them off.
Then I found that after the last outing when I got the large rainbow at Syon Park, the leader had wrapped itself round the internal mechanism of the reel, so I had to cut it loose, then disassemble the reel to get it out.
While I was doing that, Little My, the most mischievous cat in the world, bit the built-in loop off the end of my Mastery Trout XPS line, so I then had to dig around in my kit bag to find my last remaining Minicon and glue it on, all the while trying to keep kitties off everything.
Then I found that Hardy co-polymer leaders don’t come with a perfection loop at the fly-line connection end, so had to rustle one up, with superglue on my fingers (from the Minicon). Again, while keeping the cats off.
Finally, I had to find a place where the cats would not be able to get at the assembled rod and line, and settled on the top of the cupboard above the kitchen sink—a place only I can reach. So far. But there’s a glint in their eyes.
One hour is the new two minutes.
notsokrates 