Ed 20 Why is Cow Parsley such a b@st@rd?

 

Whenever I’m trying a bit of stalking, concentrating hard, focusing on the fish, my position relative to it, any cover, stealth, and all the other permutations, why is it that Cow Parsley reaches out, snatches my cast, tippet or line, usually all three, then simply won’t let go at all? 

The flowers I could maybe forgive once in a while, although I prefer to see it roadside rather than bankside, but by late autumn or winter it’s those evil seed heads that are the real menace. You struggle with the cat’s cradle that forms the instant your line or cast merely touches those seed heads, and the outcome is inevitably tying on a new, complete cast, because even if you strip the hundreds of seeds away one at a flippin’ time, their stems still spitefully grab, twist and kink your line, cast and tippet to b@ggery! 

I always used to think Alder trees were a bad enough and constant enemy, but the hours of down time caused by the clumps of Cow Parsley dotted around, waiting, un-noticed within the fringed banks of many a fishery, have probably accumulated into at least a whole day’s lost fishing, frustrated retying, and cursing. I hate the bloody things!