Wheel Tracks In The Sand

Assessing Venues For Access.
One of the most difficult issues to be overcome by a disabled angler is finding suitable venues, and that isn’t to say that the venues themselves are a problem, it’s getting the information out of people in the first place. When you are looking for somewhere different from your own (metaphorically speaking) stamping ground which you have sussed out and know like the back of your hand to go fishing, the biggest mistake that you can make is to ask if the venue “is accessible to the disabled, this really is the kiss of death to getting any sense at all out of just about anyone who isn’t disabled themselves or has the right attitude as all sorts of ridiculous assumptions are automatically made unless you are very , very lucky. Look at a mountain, now if ever there was a place that wasn’t accessible to a disabled person that’s it, but how come we have disabled mountaineers then?, just who are the makers of mountaineering friction pads and all terrain wheelchairs etc. selling their stuff to, the Martians perhaps?. No, of course not , it’s us, just bear that in mind.
How then does one assess the chances of being able to get at a particular fishing spot, well the first job is to assess ourselves, as we, and only we know just what we are capable of, what for instance is the highest object that you can lift a dismantled wheelchair over from the ground, how big an obstacle can you haul yourself and your tackle over, can you bum shuffle up a flight of steps, what distance can you realistically cover on your backside over a beach dragging a tackle laden wheelchair behind you and avoid the poodle poop at the same time?, only you know, so know yourself.
The next thing you have to look at in terms of realistic performance is your helper, and consider (A) whether you want someone to help in the first place, and (B) if you do just what are their performance capabilities, are you going to team up with a strong energetic person and go for the big stuff, or are you going to be with someone who is less able and set your sites a little lower, whichever option you choose the result should be that you end up fishing exactly where you planned to, if you don’t then sort the situation, don’t accept second best, especially if someone else didn’t think it was a good idea.
Search Techniques
After your general location has been decided on start to refine your search, collect as many of the location reports as you can from the angling press and use what information is there, and if that comes up blank get a detailed map of the area for a rough idea. If a beach, pier, or any other location is popular with anglers then it will be served somewhere nearby by a tackle shop, and this is the best place of all to go for information. There is for some reason that has always escaped me a certain tolerance amongst tackle shop owners for a little madness, it might be from dealing with anglers all the time, but, as you will probably be regarded as barking mad for wanting to go sea fishing from a wheelchair in the first place you should be treated like anyone else and get the information that you require. (you could always try the Internet too I suppose).
Sharing
I’d like to know about your own patch especially, and if you have made a discovery and managed to conquer a new venue let me know about it too please, and how you did it so I can share it with others like us. A little information on your particular situation regarding your level of disability would help, not confidential medical stuff either, but just a general outline so that I don’t go recommending a venue as accessible without help to someone with limited upper body strength and a weak heart which was conquered by a member of the British paralympic weight lifting team and I didn’t know.
I need to know whether you were able to park nearby, was there a tackle shop handy, an accessible café, could you get to a suitable loo, did you manage single handed or did you need a helper, were the natives friendly. It will all help us to help ourselves, and who is there better qualified to do that than us?, nobody!!!.
Some people say that there are not many disabled sea anglers, and if the evidence of us being a bit thin on the beaches was any thing to go by this would be true, but I believe that this is simply not the case. There are lots of disabled sea anglers, or sea anglers that are disabled if you prefer, it's just that we don't go fishing a lot, and why is this? Attitudes mainly, and our attitudes too, not those of able bodied anglers and not physical or sensory constraints either, we get round difficulties very well in other aspects of our life, one way or another so why don't we apply the same thinking to sea angling and just do it!
I am a full time wheel chair user, and I hope that the experience I have gained, usually the hard way, and I will speak only from my own experience, will be of some help; be it practical, or perhaps simply by inspiration and awaken the spirit within disabled anglers to get out there and give it a go.
Getting Started
The only person who can start you is yourself.
Forging Ahead
Rolling now? good, keep on rolling but take time to think, you will roll further.
Tackle
The first mistake I made was not to catch up with modern technology as far as tackle goes, and when I decided to go beach fishing again after a long lay off, I was still thinking in terms of heavy fibre glass rods, moody multipliers with no braking systems, and fixed spools built with the same attention to weight and refinement of design as a concrete mixer. It almost put me off altogether, big mistake! and one lots of others returning to sea angling have made. Things have changed in our favour a lot, the power / weight ratio of rods has improved tremendously, and when chosen carefully require little strength to use effectively, multipliers behave themselves and you don't need a touch like a brain surgeon to use one, fixed spool reels are light with design features that have brought them, for practical fishing purposes into the same distance league once exclusive to the multiplier. Also line diameters have reduced and much lighter leads can be used to hold bottom, reducing the weight of the tackle in the anglers hands tremendously. The list goes on, and it's mostly good news too.
Consider carefully before you buy your tackle, it's a big investment and being stuck with an expensive "turkey" wont help at all, neither will buying cheap junk, you need to make the most of limited physical resources, and going to a reputable tackle shop where you can see what you are buying and get well informed and practical advise will pay huge dividends, including possibly making fishing friends who may be able to help you out in all sorts of ways. If your digits are less than nimble then take plenty of ready made traces with you and simply clip them on, there are no prizes and few fish for a makeshift set of terminal gear knocked up on the beach, use your loaf and plan ahead, applying this type of thinking will make you far more efficient, conserve energy and make the whole fishing experience more enjoyable. One of the most useful accessories I have is a pair of rubber palmed neoprene gloves, they grip a hand rim like nothing else when wet and my hands stay warm too.
Casting.
With the right rod and reel combination, bought with your own physical limitations in mind, and providing you have a reasonable amount of upper body strength there is no reason why you shouldn't learn to cast, but be warned: - The action of casting from a sitting position uses muscle groups that don't seem to be used for much else, and strains bits you didn't even know you had, so loosen up first, take it easy and if in doubt ask a G.P. and / or see your physio. explaining exactly what you propose to do. Casting a good distance is down mostly to a sound technique anyway and if you are straining your guts out then you are doing it wrong. I found to my great surprise after I became chair bound that I couldn't cast any more, even though I was good at it before, so I swallowed my pride and went along to a casting instructor and learned again from scratch, great fun it was too seeing a steady improvement in distance just by using the right technique. I also learned that buying a rod which is too powerful for you is an expensive and could even be a dangerous mistake, you simply cannot buy distance, but you can reduce it and your fishing enjoyment in a spectacularly expensive manner at the turn of a credit card.
Venues
Venues can be the biggest problem when it comes to fishing from a wheelchair, piers are an obvious choice to start with, for example Deal pier in Kent has good access and even a disabled loo, but check before you travel miles to fish one that isn't familiar, some have steps up to them, and some can only be fished from a lower deck which can only be reached by a staircase, again a call to a local tackle shop will usually provide the answers.
Concrete sea walls are another good choice but make sure your brakes are set good and firm, I almost went in once when unknown to me the constant wriggling about whilst casting had "walked " my chair forward until one castor was hanging over the edge, with a raging sea below, I would certainly have been smashed against the wall and drowned had I not noticed it in the nick of time. Sea walls can be slippery too when wet because of the algae and weed that collects there, especially the lower tier, and the gentlest of run off slopes can quickly turn into a helter-skelter so plan your escape rout well in advance should the level you are on become awash as the tide rises, or as the weather turns.
Beaches
Beach fishing is the best form of sea angling, to me it is anyway. This is the true home of the sea angler, but be under no illusion, beaches are damned hard work, or at least travelling over them is, and although some modifications can be made to your chair at little cost to enable you to negotiate sand and shingle with a reasonable amount of success, short of importing a custom built ratchet drive beach chair from the U.S.A. at around lots of bucks you will struggle. I have modified my "gardening and mucky jobs" chair by using a pair of main wheels fitted with fat mountain bike tyres, and fitted a pair of golf trolley wheels to the front on an auxiliary axle. Even with these modifications I have found no way so far of carrying tackle, and propelling my chair at the same time over a soft sand or shingle beach, a trailer is out of the question, it's just more weight, and the only real answer is to "bale out", then load the tackle on to the chair and "bum shuffle" along pulling the laden chair behind me. Going it alone on a beach has many practical drawbacks, the main one being that by the time I have got myself and all my tackle down to the sea I am so exhausted that I have to recover for some time before I can set up and fish and so I seldom attempt to go alone. When you have finished fishing you have to get back too, remember you will be cold, tired and the return journey is invariably up hill all the way, you may even have to carry lots of fish, (we live in hope) so if possible have someone else come with you and carry the gear, it's a lot safer and fishing with a carefully selected pal is more fun anyway. A tip for moving over soft surfaces is to get your helper to pull the chair with a rope attached low down at the front rather than push from behind, it sinks in less. (Have you ever seen a cart before a horse?). Don't forget either that if you have asked someone to help you that although you are in charge of what you want to do and where you want to go, that your helper isn't a slave, and has feelings, too which will be offended by your barking orders at them. So spare a thought or you will soon be on your own! Don't forget that when you encounter a steeply shelving beach that you do not have to go right down to the water's edge to fish. If the beach is that steep, then the sea isn't that far away, and using the height advantage gained by staying on top of the bank can often increase effective casting distance. The classic method of retreating before a rising tide can be positively dangerous too, and I have had to make more than one rather undignified and somewhat damp retreat to higher ground when the sea has washed the sand from under my wheels and bogged the chair down solid, as I said before I learned a lot the hard way, fortunately I was able to retrieve my gear, but that situation could have been fatal.
It's all very well being fiercely independent, but remember, swallowing your pride and asking for a bit of help isn't the end of the world, and if you get into danger by being pig headed then someone will have to get you out, it isn't just your neck you are risking.
As I said at the beginning, this article is a summary of some of those things that I have learned by practical experience, mostly the hard way. The learning curve is steep and sometimes expensive and painful, but the rewards are boundless.
Be safe, have fun, go fishing.