Unless you are a fisherman you wont understand......

One of the huge pleasures of my hobby, is the mass of memories I have accumulated.  My brother has decided to write his memories down.  Clearly that is not my what my blog is about, but I thought I would jot a few thoughts on fishing memories.

You will know from previous blog entries that Fishing is not just about the sport for me; but everything around it as well.  A favourite author of mine Chris Yates (former Carp record Holder) once said;
" A river has been running through my head since I was a boy.  I saw the Hampshire Avon just once, when I was ten and immediately thought it was the most beautiful river in the world" 

I agree with Chris, being a born native of the City of Salisbury where the 5 rivers Ebble, Nadder, Bourne, Wylie and Avon confluence, it was inevitable I would be a fisherman.  The seed is sown early, you just cannot fail to walk over any bridge and not stop -  and stare into the depths.

Not being as eloquent or articulate as Mr Yates I was unable to explain my fascination or why the watery environment allowed the rules of nature to be bent. Yet again Chris posed the  question perfectly;

" in the bird and mammal kingdoms, you will never find a seventy pound badger, a horse fourteen feet high or an elephant twice the size of a house"  

However, in the water world you do see occasional fish that are massive for their species.  Consider, roach most of my early life I chased the elusive 2lb roach, always described as a rare thing.  Why?

Well it was rare because most (the biggest percentage) roach seemed to peak around 1lb 8oz  but there was an occasional biggie.  Clearly I was spoilt as the Avon had more than its fair share of really big roach.  So lets say Barbell or Carp, or Grayling (my favourite) or dace even the humble minnow.  Why do some grow bigger than others?  And why do we need to catch and hold - just for a moment -the big ones.

This is what I think we all look for when we stare into the depths off the bridge of  our choice.  Unless you are a fisherman, you wont understand the joy of strapping your Avon Mark IV rod and reel (Shakespeare Europa I think cant quite remember) to the cross bar of your bike balancing the wicker creel basket Tackle tin with treble hooks map spinners coffin leads and lead shot; on your back and racing off to Elizabeth Gardens.

 Hanging off the long wooden bridge, (town path to Harnham) using a wasp grub and a peacock quill to tempt what looks to be a massive 2 1b Grayling sat hovering in crystal clear water between the streamer weed and the yellow flag iris on the bank below.

 Its 5 am, and as a Milkman from Churchfield Dairies goes by in his silent electric float the glass bottles chinking together.  The early morning mist is lifting across the meadow and even though I didn't know who Constable was then, I think now how much he would have enjoyed painting the view before me.  It had barely changed since his famous painting of the Cathedral.

There was something in the air, no not my mate Neil s stolen underage fag, stolen from his dads roll your own baccy tin.  It was a tangible taste of expectancy that only a fisherman understands.  If the family are reading this then I admit now I smoked (coughed) my first "old holbourn" rollie aged 13.  Dad used to get me to roll his while he was driving and I pinched one without him seeing once.  Might as well get it all out now, I used to pinch his pale ale and mums Mackeson from the coal shed too. There I've said it.

Obsession meant that I couldn't wait for my brother Gordon to take me somewhere fishing. So many days were based around how far I could cycle, and getting the balance between travelling and fishing time.  I would always go for first choice a weir pool (my favourite if you could avoid the bailiff was 14 Hatches at Quidhampton Lord Pembrokes Estate).

But where ever you went there were stories of that elusive monster Pike or Perch.  Still to this day the "obsession" gets a grip and I have to drop everything and go fishing........it gets me like that still.

I have always been a tackle tart, well at least when I could afford to be. My first kit was hand me downs from my brother Gordon and a mixture of stuff from Woolworths. Can you remember your first good rod? I can it was a Bruce and Walker 12 foot float rod. First proper reel, Mitchell 300 brought from John Reids at Wilton (small tackle shop, next to his woodworking shop) from the second hand " trade in" bucket.

Oh how I wished to be like the big blokes, who match fished. Not the new breed of Carpies who stayed out under groundsheets (at the mystical Steeple Langford lakes) and filled the lake with par-boiled potatoes.

Match men, they wore Barbour coats, flat caps, coveralls or boiler suits covered in Bream slime.  Some had new fangled Italian poles. Their fingers were stained bronze by chrysodine or nicotine you could never be sure.  They went to far away Ireland where you used dustbin loads of groundbait and caught over a hundred pound -yes over 100 lb - of Bream its amazing.  This new bloke Kevin Ashurst son of Benny I think, he was the man of the moment at one point.

They fished with extremely fine Bayer Perlon  fishing lines and impossibly small hooks.  The match boys, didn't struggle with a picnic basket sized creel.  They had new "plastic" molded Drennan or Keenet purpose built lightweight match boxes to sit on or stand next to in their chrysodine stained bait aprons.

And the canal boys, well they had funny aluminium and wood Italian or French made boxes. With ready made rigs for their "6 meter long"!! Poles.  Another new arrival from Europe.Some even had custom made rods to aid the perfect cast of a copper wired dart float to far bank reeds on the canal.  Bait, well they used to get in the canal bay and drag a long scythe like implement through the silt and use microscopic red "blood" worm pulled from the blade edge.  They would do scientific things like mix breadcumb and milk powder.  This alchmey produced milky cloud in the clear water and draw in the massive 2 lb Bream.

Mustad hooks, Carbon and Boron rods were starting to replace the fibreglass which had superseded cane. My cane landing net handle with triangular net made of knotted string looked daft next to the mesh of a "round" landing pan of the match men.

Although it was unthinkable really to want to leave the five rivers, once whilst listening to Rod Stewart singing about running away with Maggie May and stealing his daddies cue and making a living out of playing pool.  I did consider running away to a place up in the Midlands called Redditch.  Apparently that's where all the good fishing gear was made.  Heaven.

Now I have never been a fasion-easta but, to me they looked great, the bad language, smoking, long hair flares (bell bottoms) tucked into wellies or turned down waders; or if you were really posh "Derry boots", with laces. It was a different exciting world from the constraints of a strict upbringing.  All that being one of the lads and piling on to the coach and off to the match.  Magic.

The banter that goes with it was great too, and though I didn't personally witness all of it, the stories of what Springsteen would call Glory days are still recounted.

 I love to sit and listen and hear "can you remember when................ An example of banter was when several leading match anglers of the day were remorsefully pulling the leg of one lad as he creaked his way along the bank with his wicker basket ( the "lads" who all had the new plastic tackle boxes) would say "what you doing with that, have you got your cat in there, are you taking it to the vets"!! followed by roaring laughter.

Needless to say the lad in question hastily purchased a plastic box. No more the butt of the joke.  Harmless fun, a chance to laugh in this depressing world.

The posh blokes still used cane and centre pins, some aspired to be like them, waistcoat, trilby or hat with artificial fly tucked in the peak, puffing on a pipe. It was like the difference between your Dad or the clean cut pop star Marty Wilde or being Led Zep or Slade.  I wanted to be Led Zep.  The Match man.

I am older now and realise no matter how you dress or what kit you have it don't matter - just go fishing. As the t-shirt once said " Work is for those who don't know how to fish"

So it was pocket money on the Anglers times (the only fishing paper or the new Anglers Mail), cut out Crabtree from dads paper. I couldn't afford the books by BB, but Gordon gave me a book I treasured and read the print off it, by Fred J Taylor about Tench Fishing.  This was before the popular Crowood Press publishing house which has produced many a good fishing book since.  Think the publisher was Penguin or was it Ladybird.

Anyway it did turn me from wanting to be a match man to a specimen hunter.  This was compounded by a  book called the Specimen Hunter by a new Hero Tony Miles - what a book.

But early days meant scan the AT to see how Barnsley Blacks were doing, how the Beckham of the day "Ivan Marks" had fared.  He came to fish at Salisbury once, near the Fire Station, the fast flow and shallow water didn't suit and after a couple of minnows and he buggered off.  A sad day when your hero does that.

 Last week I saw two young lads at the same spot, hanging their rods into the river in expectation.  I wanted first to chastise as they were fishing the river out of season (before the magical 16th - remember that feeling), but I didn't dare approach for in this day and age it would probably look weird if an old bloke approached two young lads.

Shame because all I really wanted to do was recapture that excitement again of peering into the depths, looking past the Dace for the monster Chubb. At that moment I was not an old jaded man but a young innocent ten year old who would be boasting "my bruvver could catch that hes a match man you know".  Awe would descend over the group, which would be shattered, match men forgotten, as a battleship of a
3 1b Jack pike glided into view.

I stopped today on the bridge to peer into the gin clear water of my youth.  A couple of things have changed. One is me. I am ashamed to say bitter and twisted and too hard on myself.  That's got to change.

Second. The river was not quite as gin clear, the gravel bottom had silted over, the freshness, bubbling gurgling pace of the river all gone.  The slower tired shabby river had lost its rannuculus streamer weed, gone and been replaced by a shopping trolley "costa coffee" cup, and alien weed that was nitrogen enriched from the chemical run off of nearby fields.

Melancholic, I walked away. But then I walked back and looked again.  A flash from the Lady of the stream a Grayling and it all came rushing back.  Ive got get my gear and try and catch that fish.

I've decided, I don't know how many more opportunities I will get in my life to stop and peer into the water, but I am going to relish every chance; and unless your a fisherman you probably wont understand that.  I hope one day it grips you like it has gripped me I wish you all fishing joy.