At half past four, Iris is already in the boathouse. Half past five, the kettle is on. Quarter to six, the first guest arrives — usually quiet, often wide-eyed, sometimes carrying a flask from the village. This is what the mornings look like from our side.
Dawn at Northbank is a series of small rituals, almost all of them involving water in some form. The kettle, the kettle again, the boathouse floor that we rinse at first light because a layer of cedar dust settles on it overnight from the roof beams. We oil the hinges on the north door twice a week. It still creaks, but less unkindly.
The first half hour after a guest arrives is deliberately unhurried. We talk about the weather — not as small talk, but as practical instruction. The wind direction tells us whether the eastern bay will be fishable. The cloud cover tells us whether the mayfly will come off the water by ten. The temperature tells us which of Iris’s hand-tied flies will be working.
The first half hour after a guest arrives is deliberately unhurried. The lake teaches you what to do, if you let it.
We pour two mugs of coffee and walk to the jetty. No cast is made for at least ten minutes. The lake teaches you what to do, if you let it. That is not a romantic exaggeration — it is how we have trained our keepers for four decades.
Then, quite suddenly, the day begins. A fish rises. The first line goes out. The swallows are doing their early-morning ballet, and the sun, if we are lucky, is making a noise like gold on the far shore.
By eight-thirty, most guests have forgotten about their own morning routines — the ones that involve phones and alarms and trains. That is, I think, the whole reason we open the gates at five.
If you have never fished at dawn, you may be surprised to learn how little the fish have to do with it.