Vaccinations

I know there's nothing you least want to come across on the river than a bore, wasting your precious fishing time, and testing your skills of polite conversation and diplomatic extraction. Today might have been an exception, as the Teise, like the Severn, may have experienced another kind of bore, when the water level rose from an historic low of 16cm up to a slightly healthier 25cm, in less than 30 minutes. That would have been a very interesting bore. The fish must be relieved, if a little surprised, but I'm glad that someone at the SmallBridge Pumping Station finally woke up before the river disappeared altogether.

Alas, I wasn't there to see it, as I was feeling a little fragile after having my Pneumonia and Shingles vaccinations yesterday. That'll be something for many of you to look forward to, but I'm assured the very minor side-effects are an awful lot better than contracting the illnesses themselves.

While I was consciously not looking at the needles going in, I noticed a poster on the wall of the consulting room with guidance about 'Sharps Injuries'. The snappy headlines were:

• Bleed it

• Wash it

• Cover it

• Report it

I was intrigued because I'm sure that I'm not the only one who regularly injects their fingertips with a 'sharp'.

I asked the nurse about the 'Bleed it' advice, and whether she thought it should apply to anglers and their very sharp flies, and she suggested that we really ought to try and 'bleed' the puncture if we've pierced the skin, especially if it's anything other than a brand new hook that's never even been in the water. Otherwise, we're potentially injecting ourselves with traces of fish or whatever nasties might be in the water. Remember that sewage treatment works cannot remove potentailly harmful bacteria from the water, so be particularly wary on beat 3b.

The advice was to squeeze out a bit of blood, if the hook's pierced that far, Wash it (preferably in some clean drinking water, rather than the river), and possibly use an anti-bacterial wipe or gel. Covering it is not always practical of course, as it can be hard enough tying flies anyway, without plasters on your fingertips, but hopefully any injections will be very slight. As for Reporting it, I'm not sure that applies, unless you find yourself going down with some serious unexplained disease, or growing scales.

Something to think about anyway, and apologies if I'm being a bore.

Cheers

PeterB