It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

It wasn’t really, but I have always wanted to start a story with those lines, ever since it became the standard opener for one of my two great literary heroes.

- Andrew Levy

My first hero, as you might expect, is Shakespeare, who, since he grew up on the River Avon, was unquestionably a fisherman. After all, who would write words like “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm” or “Bait the hook well; this fish will bite”? Sadly, however, on this evidence, we cannot properly conclude that he was a fly fisher, but I like to think that as he developed his talents and moved to London and the Globe Theatre, he forsook the worm for the fly. In those days, there was still a decent salmon run on the Thames.

My other literary giant is Snoopy, who sits atop his kennel tapping away at his typewriter, and every one of his literary masterpieces begins with the line “It was a dark and stormy night”. So, now that is out of the way, we can get on with the story, which is really called The Mists of Three Falls and begins with “It was a dark and misty night”. And so it was. Three Falls Farm is our usual fishing venue and, given that it is perched on the edge of the eastern escarpment behind Lydenburg (now trading as Mashishing), mist of the rather impenetrable kind is a regular feature. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, it is a great positive. I love a landscape clothed in grey gauze, offering only occasional glimpses of the contours and leaving much to the imagination.