POSTSCRIPT TO FISHING MEMORIES

I suppose all good things must come to an end. Unfortunately for me, after over 60 years of fishing, my lifelong adventure with angling has indeed come to an end. Today, August 15^th 2013, I have made the ultimate decision to hang up my fishing tackle. I know that many, many, anglers, continue to enjoy their fishing well into their seventies and beyond. At the age of 68, unfortunately, due to ill health, I will not be one of them. I am afraid I do not have the body strength or will to carry on the pastime which I have loved. My decision has been made despite joining my local fishing club, Newton Abbot Angling Association, only a week ago.

There is a story attached with my demise. Thinking on it, the start of the demise came about a year and a half ago. I had a stroke about that time and although no major damage was done to my main organs, it weakened my body’s ability to stave off other conditions. Very soon after the stroke, I developed the shingles virus which attacked the nerves in my head. Normally you get the blisters with it which are very painful. The condition which I had diagnosed was that the nerves in my scalp were attacked, but no blisters. It was and is still quite painful, especially when I am under stress or I have concentrated for a long time.

Over the last year I have also suffered with a muscle wasting disease called fibro-myalgia in my neck, shoulders and both arms. The left arm has been affected the most and at times I have great difficulty lifting anything except the smallest of weights. Over the last six months I thought it was improving but it is back again with vengeance, especially in the mornings when the muscles are cold. Because of this I have had to keep my fishing trips to a minimum of only twice in this time. Because of the weakness, I have found it gradually harder and harder to carry fishing tackle and hold a fishing rod for any length of time. I find it hard to get to sleep at night and have to take pain killers to do so. I find myself feeling more and more tired during the day.

I did not want to admit to myself that I was not capable of continuing to go fishing so I decided to find out what I was capable of doing. Earlier in the spring, I decided to go on a fishing weekend with my brother Wilf.  We went to a well known carp lake which advertised 30lb+ fish to be caught. I had never caught a carp of that size before, so with my brother at hand, I thought to give it a go. Just our luck, it seemed that the carp chose that week to spawn and we blanked. Being under canvas for 2 days and nights took its toll on my body and although I had my tackle taken to my swim and even had my bivvy put up for me, I suffered badly.

 I had a job to drive home and it took me a whole week to get over the experience. I suppose I felt pretty low as we also blanked. The whole session was a gross waste of money and did me no good at all. I did know by then, however, that I could not go night fishing, or do long stints on the bank side any more.

That was over two months ago and having rested up I thought maybe I might be able to do short stints for silver fish. I decided last week to join my local angling club at one of their come fishing open days. The club had a number of “Fishing Buddies”, who had their tackle set up and you could spend the hour fishing with them. It was mainly for young kids and an introductory to fishing for them, but they were happy to let me try.

 I quickly found out that I had a real problem with landing the fish as I had no strength in my left arm to lift the landing net with a fish in it. The anglers around me came up with several ideas as to how I could get over the problem. The best one was to set up the landing net in the landing position at the start with the tip of the net just under the surface. The idea was for me to play the fish over to the net and to just lift the net up just enough to stop the fish swimming out, but not taking the full weight of the net plus the fish.

The problem we had with the method was that the landing net would continually slide down into the water. What it needed was an attachment like a hook on the butt section which could be hung onto a bank stick with a rod rest attached to the top of it.

I thought that I would see just what I was capable of and arranged a day’s fishing at the lake, on my own, for the following Wednesday. That was yesterday. I took plenty of time loading my gear into the car the day before and intended to go early morning for my session.

I arrived at the lake just before 6am. From the car to my swim was a journey of some 60 yards. It took two return journeys to get my gear there. Even though I had left all my bulky carp equipment at home and only planned to do silver fish angling it was a bit of an effort to lift it all. It left my shoulders and arms aching and it took a lot out of me. When I finally sat down after erecting my angling chair and adjusting the legs, I had to rest for nearly half an hour before I could think about tackling up.

 I managed to tape the metal hook onto the butt section of my landing pole and I set about manipulating the net into position so the tip of the net was just below the surface and within the reach of my left arm. The hook linked onto the bank stick, stopped any sliding into the water. It was about 8am before I made my first cast.  The whole landing net set up worked a treat as I played a 6lb+ bream over the net and by just holding the net above the surface, I was able to drop my rod onto its rod rest and use both hands to slide the landing net up to my unhooking mat.

A further bream of around 3 and a half pound followed after about another hour. During the session I did lose a large fish which tore off to my left in a bid for freedom. I managed to stop it, but after tearing off to my right and under an overhanging tree, it escaped. Two other tench didn’t though and found their way into my landing net. I did manage to also catch about a dozen roach and rudd up to about the 8oz mark to complete my session haul. After about 6 hours fishing my whole body was aching and I had a bad headache. My arms hurt and felt like they were dropping off.

I packed up my gear and started the first trip to the car. By the time I reached the boot I was really aching badly and sweating. I found it really difficult to carry the fishing box and chair on the 2^nd journey and when I finally got to the car I could hardly walk and I had sweat running off my head, down my neck. After loading my tackle into the car, it was all I could do to plop myself down into the driver’s seat position.

On the way back I had to turn the cold blower on quite high to cool me down, but still having to continually wipe my face and neck to soak up the sweat. I arrived home and I was dreading having to carry up all my tackle to our flat on the first floor. Even though my wife, Glenys, helped me with the carrying, I was a real mess by the time we had finished. I remember thinking that I would have to do this every time I went fishing and was it really worth it, especially if I got worse.

I think that my body wouldn't be able to cope with more of that sort of punishment. Today I sat on my settee and made the decision to stop fishing. I am feeling really old at present and I thought this day would never come. I would be one of those anglers who would probably die on the river bank. I don’t know what I can do to replace the gaping hole that not fishing will make.

Well here we are and I suppose that I will still have my fishing memories to look back on.    

So to that last cast into the Sun before it all ends.  Thanks for the memories mate, irreplaceable life experiences for me, it's been an honour Ed or Gary.

The Match Angler’s Leveller - River Huntspill and King Sedgemores Drain

 

This will be the last of my short stories. It is aimed at all the ordinary match anglers who never seem to make it big in the fishing world and probably have a low opinion of themselves. I found myself fishing the National Angling Championship. I can’t quite remember if it was for Andover Angling Club or the Pewsey Angling Club, but it was one of them. This was in the late 1970’s and over 30 years ago so forgive me my memory.

The match was being fished on the River Huntspill and the Sedgemoor Drain in North Somerset between Weston Super-Mare and Bridgewater. The lucky anglers got to fish the famous Huntspill which normally produced the National Winner from the equally famous Gold Corner. A really large catch of bream comes from one of those swims. Unfortunately, I was one of the unlucky ones who was drawn on the other venue, the Sedgemoor Drain. 

  

The drain was a featureless scar across the countryside and was used to take the excess water from the Huntspill and the surrounding hills when a lot of rain entered the system. When it had rain, the drain usually had a bit of a flow on it but when I fished it, the drain was almost still with very little flow.

My team had just about afforded to get the money together to buy the bait we needed and to get us there and back home. We had no sponsors and had to pay for ourselves. We could not afford to go up and practice on the Sedgemoor Drain but a couple of lads had made it to the Huntspill the week before and gleaned what they could from bank anglers and local angling shops. None of my team had even seen the Sedgemoor Drain until match day, so we were in the position of knowing nothing of the venue.

I got dropped off with two of my team to walk to the three sections in this area. I was directed by a match official towards my peg with the warning that if I moved away from my peg at any time during the match I would be disqualified and any fish that I caught would not count, and also my team might also be disqualified. I remember thinking, “What a nice man and what a good start to the match, not”!!

After walking half a mile I got to my peg. As I sat down to recover from the trek, I looked up and down the drain. Every swim looked the same. What a featureless scar on the countryside it was.   Nothing like the beautiful mature stretches of river I was used to in Hampshire with overhanging trees and bends.

It was straight for what seemed like miles and when it did bend, it was only slightly. I never saw one fish rise anywhere and it did not fill me with confidence at all. I glanced over to the swim to my right. I recognized the angler by sight, but did not know his name. (after conversation with GR I am almost certain this angler was Mervyn "Topper" Haskins , he of the famous loaded river float design Ed).

I did know however, that he was the captain of the Bristol A team. It did not take me very long to set up my float and leger rods, followed by a pole that one of my mates had let me borrow.

When I was ready, I looked round at the angler to my right again. I could not believe my eyes at what I saw. He had a vast array of armour on show. He had about 8 different poles with different tips, 5 different float set ups and the same amount of leger rods of different lengths. Moving on to his bait. He had as many as 14 bait containers around him. Together with a massive umbrella, I began to wonder how he had managed to stagger to his peg with all that gear. He must have been a very fit and healthy guy to do that.

   

I also wondered what he would be like by the time he got to my age. All in all he must have had 20 to 30 thousand pounds worth of kit at his disposal and at least 3 hundred quids worth of bait with him. Obviously he and his team were heavily sponsored. This turned out to be the case as he was sporting a waterproof jacket with a famous angling manufacturer’s name emblazoned on the back. Two other sponsors names appeared on his hat and on the side of his expensive tackle box.

He was fishing in a different world to anglers like myself, who were living on the breadline. All his kit looked brand spanking knew as if it had just been provided for that one match only. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the angler myself and you can’t blame him for accepting the sponsorship. They had probably used all the backup teams to practice on all the sections and shared the collated information at a couple of team meetings before the match. Good luck to him. It does show the vast gap between us two different anglers fishing the same match though.

I knew that the Bristol boys were absolute magic on the Bristol Avon and were rarely beaten on their home waters. They were all excellent anglers and deserved what they had become. Again, I could feel more of my confidence evaporating as the start grew nearer.  The sheer size, location and cost of fishing such a big match makes it impossible for our small teams to compete against the giant teams of angling.Sorry cant make this any bigger but its the all conquering Bristol team from 1971Ed 

Until a few years before this match, they used to award places based on weight. This did give the small teams a chance, but the change to points had taken quite a bit of magic away by making it impossible for the small team to win the team trophy. The only chance we now have is to be lucky enough for one team member to win the individual trophy. I wish we could go back to the old days when every team had a chance to win this once a year match.

As the match progressed I kept seeing bank runners out of the corner of my eye to the right. They were obviously updating the captain on how everyone else was progressing and what baits were working in what circumstances. He still didn’t look to happy whenever I caught his eye.

At the end of the match I had not caught or even seen a fish caught around me. It seemed to me to be a barren ditch in the ground. Was it polluted or something? There were blanks for six anglers to my left and also the same to my right. This included the illustrious Bristol A team captain with all his backing.

To all you ordinary club match men reading this story in the knowledge that you too have blanked in important matches, I have a simple but true message to give you. I bet you have beaten yourself up, thought you fished rubbish and felt weighed down with guilt as you approached your team mates. Hold your heads up high and remember this. It doesn’t matter how much bait you have, how much gear you have at your disposal, how much practice and back up support you have. If there are no fish in your swim, you can’t catch them.

Although I was a bit sad and annoyed that I had blanked, 

it was tempered by a slight smile in the knowledge that the crack match man to my right, probably felt far worse about blanking than I possibly could. The next time you blank, don’t feel quite so wretched, have a little smile and remember what I have told you. There is always tomorrow and another chance to bag up.

Gordon Rowland                                                               29^th July 2013

FOREWARD TO MY FISHING MEMORIES

These are stories about my most memorable fishing memories covering more than 60 years of my life. They are written from my point of view and from my opinions about fishing. They are subject to my thoughts and memory. I have written them down because as each year passes my memory fades a bit more and I find it a bit harder to jog my memory. I want my stories to be as factual as I can get them.

If you recognise yourself in any of the stories and feel the facts are not quite as I have written from my memory, I urge you not to attack me, but to sit down as soon as you can and to get your own fishing memories down on paper. In this way the young anglers of today will get to know what fishing was like before they were born.

The old methods we used and how they came about, will be interesting to them I am sure. I have tried to make my stories interesting, entertaining and above all, not boring. I hope I have achieved that.  I did have it in mind to go back and fish the places in my stories one more time, but having done it for a couple of them, I was so saddened by the poor state of the venues and the drop in standards of the catches, that I couldn’t bring myself to carry on doing it.

It seems to me that normal types of fishing venues have been let go and the angling scene seems to be vast lakes of easy carp fishing for fish artificially fattened up with boilies and pellets. It’s not for the likes of me thank you.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the main players in my fishing life. The likes of John Stephenson, Brian Duckett, Gordon Tedd, Fred Bradbury and Tom; and not forgetting the most important fishing buddies of all my two brothers, Wilf Rowland and Gary Williams.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife Glenys for putting up with me over the fishing years and for allowing me to hog the lap top over the last year.

Tight Lines to you all,

Gordon Rowland

River Avon – Pony Fields above Christchurch Harbour

  This will be a short story about one of the lowest points in my fishing history. I had always thought that I knew my fish having caught just about every type of fish swimming in and around our river and still water systems. It just goes to show you can’t be too careful when identifying a species as it could be the difference between life and death for them.

One of my fishing mates, Brian Duckett and I were doing a practice session for our next Winter league Match to be held on the lower Hampshire Avon between Ringwood and Christchurch Harbour.

 We had already practised in the harbour and just above already, so we thought that we would try fishing the Pony Fields sections of the river. This section was located about three quarters of a mile upstream of the harbour. There were a few swims on a very deep and acute bend on that stretch and we thought that we would find out what they were capable of producing in the way of species and weights. The bends obviously forced the flow from one side of the river and then forced it back over to the opposite side. This caused a number of deep holes where the flow had scoured into the side of the banks and causing undercuts.

These areas had the ability to produce some good specimens and were home to some quite big shoals of roach, dace and chub.  On our walk to our swims we had noticed a huge shoal of mullet making their way upstream from the harbour and open sea. I know we would be very happy to draw one of these swims and thought they would be reasonable candidates for section wins and even an outside chance of the whole match if they fished to their potential. We both caught good bags of fish and were drawing near to the end of our session.

With about half an hour left and the light fading, I hooked into a heavy fish on my hook baited with bread flake. I saw it break the surface and I felt sure it looked like a mullet.

 I landed the fish and weighed it at just over 5lb. I thought to myself that as it was a sea fish and not a freshwater species, I would take it home to eat. Just as I was about to dispatch it with a heavy bank stick, Brian came over to see what was happening. When he saw me about to kill the fish, just about threw himself on me to stop it happening. He shouted at me “ That's a massive chub, you idiot”!! When I looked down at it a bit more carefully I could see that he was indeed right. It was a chub. I felt really sick and very guilty at what I had almost done.

I don’t quite know how long a chub lives to attain the weight but I knew then it was the biggest one I had caught in 20 years of fishing for them, so I felt really bad about the situation. Since that catch, I still haven’t caught a chub bigger than that in a further 30 years of trying. Food for thought I am afraid.

Christchurch Harbour Mullet Fishing

A good friend of mine, Dennis, who I worked with, invited me to fish from his boat in the Estuary at Christchurch. I am not sure which of the two great rivers, the Avon or the Stour it was, but I think both rivers entered the sea very close to where we were heading. Dennis told me that the place we were to wet a line was just past the Christchurch Yacht Club.

I sat in the little car park at 5 am having got up in the middle of the night and traveled down from Salisbury in Wiltshire. Tried to keep my eyes open and looked around, expecting to see his car and trailer, with a boat loaded on it. That didn't really happen. I did not have to wait long before I spied his car entering the car park by the river. The car was minus the trailer and most important, it was minus the boat that we needed for fishing.

I needn't have worried though. He drew up alongside and opened his back doors and the boot. He then proceeded to extract two oars, two rowlocks and a small heavy little anchor with a chain attached to it. It all became clear when we carried the stuff into the small marina by the riverside. Dennis pointed to a small boat which was lying overturned on the bank. I suppose it was left like that so it would not fill up with water if it rained. Dennis unlocked the chain which was securing the boat to a thick cable attached to a concrete bollard. We turned the boat over the right way up. Dennis attached the rowlocks to the boat and fitted the oars into them. After stowing the anchor onto the back end of the boat, we carried it to the riverside and dropped it into the water, taking care to tie it up so that it did not float away. We then went to fetch our fishing tackle from the cars and stowed it all onto the boat.

 I sat in the back, in charge of the rudder, while Dennis manned the oars. I was glad about that because I had done little in the way of rowing and there was a bit of a current flowing. I had expected him to have an outboard motor to fall back onto if we got into any sort of difficulty, but no.

He told me that the species we were after was mullet. I don’t know which type, only that they went up to about 4lb in weight and gave a good fight on light tackle. Dennis had managed to get a couple of packs of ragworm for us the night before. How he got them and how he had stored them I didn't know and didn’t particularly want to know either. He had told me to bring a light leger rod with me and a couple of small silver spinner spoons with small trebles on them. He showed me how to apply the ragworms to the spinners so that they trailed behind when you reeled in. The ragworms were savage little creatures with little nippers that came out of their heads when you handled them and stabbed you on your fingers if you weren't careful.

Dennis rowed us along the estuary and we anchored the boat just past the yacht club on the opposite side. The idea was to cast across towards the pontoons outside the club and to let the current pull your spinner round slowly. The spinners had to be tried at different levels to locate the shoals. They seemed to be deeper if it was sunny, but higher in the water if it was cloudy. Obviously it was something to do with the light levels and the fishes eyesight. For the first hour we didn't have even a nibble, but Dennis told me to be a bit patient as the tide was soon to change. After a while we began to see fish following our spinners in but then shying away at the last minute. It was exciting to see the little submarines appearing behind our baits. All that was missing was the big dorsal fins sticking out of the water, like sharks, but then I’m fantasizing again.

I decided to change my spinner to one with a little red eye shape on the spoon and that seemed to spur the fish into attacking it. We were pleased that the shoal had chosen to be there for us and I found it exciting actually being able to see the fish have a go at my bait. We found the answer to catching was to fish at one depth for a few yards and then to change depth, therefore covering more water on our retrieves. We starting hitting into fish, but unfortunately, because the mullet had bony mouths, we would lose half of the fish we hooked before we could net them.

We had loads of strikes at our baits and even though we lost quite a few fish we had a hell of a morning. The fishing gods had really shone on us that day. The mullet ranged from a couple of pounds to the biggest weighing around the 4lb mark. By lunch time I had caught 15 fish and Dennis had 10. I think he caught the biggest on the day. It was in our minds to keep the fish and put them in our freezers for eating over the next few months. We really felt good when we rowed back to the marina. We decided to split the catch in half and placed them in black bin liners ready for transporting them back to the cars when we docked.

Just as we were climbing out of our boat feeling very proud of ourselves at being able to bring home the bacon as it were to our respective families, we told a bloke on the bank of our good fortune. He looked at us and said “ Eat them mullet at your own peril me mateys”. “There was a sewage leak a few days ago upstream and some others who have eaten fish from here have been very ill”. Well. What can I say? What the fishing gods have given, they had decided to take away.

We were absolutely gutted. Was the bloke lying because he was jealous or was he indeed, telling the truth? We just couldn't take the chance of all our families throwing up all over the place could we? You would have thought that the harbour authorities would have put some sort of notice to warn us about the pollution. I suppose they didn't want to put people off and give themselves a bad reputation for pollution. It was a pity though, as if we had known we would have put the fish back to fight again rather than having to throw them into car park dustbins.

The Tidal River Arun - Pulborough

I fished an inter club match on the River Arun below Pulborough in West Sussex. I am fairly sure that my mates had never seen the river before, I certainly hadn't  None of us had any real idea as to how we should fish it on the day and didn't know what to expect. 

We were really at the mercy of any snippets we could ascertain from our opponents and fishing neighbours. I find that most anglers are willing to tell the truth regarding how a venue is or was fishing. Normally it is,” You should have been here last week, it fished its head off”.

At the draw I got talking to a couple of the local anglers and I was told that I needed to draw in “Bream Alley”, which was a 60 yard stretch of the river which had real “slabs” in it. By slabs they meant it had bream weighing about 4 – 6 lb in weight and real dustbin lids. I was told that if I didn't draw in the area I could forget about winning the match.

  If not the alley, I could expect the normal river fish such as, dace, roach and the odd chub, but not in any great numbers. The lads would not however, reveal how I was to fish the river if I had a good draw. I suppose that’s fair enough. They obviously wanted to beat us and saw that as their main weapon against us beating them on their own water.

We made the draw and walked up river to our pegs, at least it was up river at that time. I was told that being tidal the river would flow both ways at some time during the match as the tide turned. The two lads smiled at me when I told them what peg I had drawn. “Sorry mate but your just out of bream alley and below it I am afraid”.

This did not fill me with confidence as I approached my swim. It seems that the alley was a straight bit with a slight bend just below. 

I had drawn on the end of the alley as it made the slight turn into the bend.  To be fair, my swim looked just like all the others and I could not see what would hold the bream in any of the swims. There wasn't any real holding spots that I could see. Perhaps there was a change of depth or something which made the difference between the swims. Looking across the swim to the other side, I could make out one bed of weed down the middle. There were beds of weed down the far edge and right in front of me in the near edge. I figured that if I hooked a near decent fish I would have a job landing it through the weed beds.

For this reason I decided to fish with decent sized hooks on both my float rod and my leger rod. I put a size 16 hook onto the float tackle and upped it to a size 14 on the leger. If I did hook a dustbin lid I wanted to give myself a chance of landing it.  I noticed that as we started the match no one was eager to put ground bait in or to go on the leger, so I thought the best thing was to do what the locals did and start on the float with loose fed maggot and casters. I mixed up a load of ground bait as I thought that if the main quarry was large bream I would need it at some time during the match.

For the first hour the river was flowing left to right towards the sea and I spent most of the time trotting the nearside and then switched to the far side. It was difficult to hold your line off the main weed bed in the middle while fishing the float on the far side. After that first hour the flow slowly came to a standstill and after a further ten minutes or so. The river started flowing right to left.

I was then fishing what I regarded as upstream. It felt really weird fishing a river which flowed both ways.  I can understand why the locals had held back on putting in any ground bait earlier as if they had, they would have their feed in the swim of the angler above by now. I decided to wait and see what happened, but with only a few bits in the net I was getting a bit edgy as almost half of the match had gone and no bream.   Any sort of fish were becoming really hard to get at this point.

On most normal rivers you usually caught your fish in the flow, especially if it was slow moving. After a while the river started to slow down a bit. I had caught nothing in the last hour and I was a bit worried by then. The river flow stopped again and came to a standstill. At this point all the locals started to lump in big balls of ground bait. I thought that I should follow suit and did so. The whole scene was quite a bombardment and it was if we were on a large destroyer giving the far side a broadside.

Everybody switched to leger rods and I followed suit even though I didn't know quite what to expect. I baited my hook with worm tipped with red maggot to help to keep the worm from flying off on the cast. I knew that if I hooked a decent fish I would have to bully it up and over the two main weed beds. After about 20 minutes an angler about 6 pegs to my left hooked and lost a good fish. A short time later the angler to his right landed a nice bream. Almost immediately the angler two swims to my left caught a bream.  It looked like the shoal was moving down towards me. I could wait no longer. It was obvious that no one was holding on to the shoal and before I could stop myself I threw out two more balls of ground bait into my swim on the far side. Ten minutes went by and nothing.

Then the angler on my right hooked into a big fish. I thought I had blown it and that the shoal had passed me by without stopping.  I was put out of my misery by my rod tip pulling round. I lifted into a good fish and stood up to my full height. Pointing the rod up to the midday position I gave the fish some stick to get it to the surface and over the middle weed bed. Thankfully the fish hit the surface and I was able to bully it over the nearside weed bed and into the landing net. Nothing for about another ten minutes and then the angler two to my right hit into a fish. I really thought that the shoal had moved on past me. I needn't have worried as almost immediately I got another fish.

 I had a period of about five minutes when I thought I had to introduce more ground bait, but for some reason I decided against it as no one else was doing it. Even though the river started to flow left to right again slightly I managed three more bream.

Together, my five bream and a few bits, pulled the scales round to just over 23lb. Apart from my fish the rest of the anglers only had one bream and bits so I had won comprehensively.  How lucky can you get when fishing a water for the very first time with no real plan on how it should be fished. I felt very fortunate with my red letter day, returning home very happy indeed.

An Association with Captain L A Parker

In the early 1970’s I worked as a storekeeper for Budgens Cash and Carry. They had a warehouse in West Harnham just around the corner from The Old Mill at Harnham. The Old Mill was on the River Nadder just where the river joined the River Avon in Salisbury. The warehouse was run by a nice chap and his family. I am sorry, but I am unable to remember his name after all these years. 

I do, however, remember that he was quite religious and a member of the Jehovahs Witness faith. He was a really good man and looked after his workers well. I think I worked for him for about two years.  

Now, let me tell you a bit about Captain L A Parker and how I came to be linked to him in a small way. He worked as a river keeper on the Hampshire Avon. He lived in a small cottage at Bicton Mill which was close to the village of Charlton near the towns of Fordingbridge and further on down the river, Ringwood. 

I believe that he spent the years each side of World War two looking after the river at and around Bicton Mill. He had a wife and son who lived with him at the cottage.

In those days only the rich got to fish the great river legally. The main stretches of the river were owned by aristocracy or rather elite fishing clubs. I think that Captain Parker worked for one of these rich men. The majority of his time was spent ensuring that the river was always in tip top condition. 

When he was not doing this he was looking after clients and ensuring that their visits were fruitful in fishing terms. Over the years he became very well known in angling circles around the country and was revered for his ability and angling knowledge of the river. Many famous anglers of those times made their way to the famous stretches of the river in that area.

Being so knowledgeable he was often pursued for his views by the angling press. He was invited to write articles in some famous fishing books, including “The Art of Angling” by J Mansfield and he also wrote a book himself entitled “This Fishing” by Capt L A Parker. This book was all about the Hampshire Avon and it describes the methods of angling at that time. 

He also describes swims that he and his colleagues had fished and how they had fared regarding fish numbers and weights. The book, “The Art of Angling” had three volumes which consisted of various articles by famous anglers of the day including himself. 

All these books can be found in specialist bookshops in and around Fordingbridge, Ringwood and Bournemouth. A copy might be bought in the Salisbury area.

The whole story comes together because Captain Len A Parker had a son who like me, worked in Budgens Cash and Carry at Harnham. His son was Len Parker the same as his illustrious father.

Len Parker junior new that I was an avid angler and overheard me lots of times going on about my fishing exploits. He knew that I fished the River Avon around the Salisbury, Downton and Fordingbridge areas. Often, we got to talking about fishing and I noticed that even though he told me he lived at Bicton Mill and that his father had worked on the river, he showed no enthusiasm for fishing himself.

Finally, after getting very emotional one day, he told me why. He said that he hated his dad and also anything to do with fishing. The reason for this was because his dad was married to the river and all the cronies that he had to look after as part of his job. His dad spent the majority of his time away from the home and that he and his mother were left to their own ends without his father on many, many occasions. All Len junior wanted was a father that looked after his mother and spent time with his son like other dad’s did.

That obviously never happened and it had a very bad influence on their father- son relationship. I did feel very sorry for him and I could understand his predicament because I too had been raised by my mother after my father walked out on us when I was aged 9.

One morning Len junior walked into the canteen at the warehouse hand handed me the 4 books I have already mentioned. The books belonged to Captain L A Parker and were signed by him as his own personal copies. He also put his address on the inside cover of each book just above his signature. All of this time, I have kept the volumes of “The Art of Angling”, for over 40 years.

Unfortunately, Captain Parker’s own book “This Fishing” was lent out to my mate Brian Duckett and he moved to the Bristol area to work in a bank. Brian never returned it to me as promised. I have always regretted lending him the book.

Just a little aside, in one of his articles, Captain Parker describes “Clay Ball Fishing” in one of the swims on the River Avon at Burgate. From his description, I was able to single out what he described as the “Armchair Swim”. It turned out to be a swim at the bottom end of the stretch, just where a fence entered the river to separate the fields. You could indeed get right down into the swim and with the bank about 12 ft above you it probably felt like you were in a giant armchair.

When fishing the swim it felt very strange to realise that some 60 years earlier Captain Parker and probably some other famous angler, were fishing in this very swim. They probably used the clay from the bank with a stone inside each ball as he described in the article, to hold the bottom in the fast current below. They were after barbel and probably using much simpler gear than I was, then.

Perhaps, one day, I will try to find out more about Captain Parker. I wonder of any of the old boys in the Angling Clubs around the lower or middle River Avon, ever knew him? Are there any more things written about him?

Dorset Stour at Longham

One of my most memorable experiences was when fishing a Winter League match on the Stour at Longham. It was the first time that I had ever fished the stretch before so I did not know what to expect. The only thing I knew from my team mates was that you could catch the usual river species such as dace, chub and if you were lucky you might get a good roach or even a decent barbel. As the main species in the winter was chub I decided that I would try and concentrate my main efforts on them.

Having been given my peg number I drove over to the stretch of river and trooped down to my swim. As soon as I saw my swim, I thought “ No chance”! I had drawn a cattle drink. 

While everyone else had the full width of the river I had a beach in front of me followed by inches deep water and then in the last 6 feet before the far bank a deep gully. The gully was the only feature in my swim. If there were no resident fish there I was done for with no other options to switch to. 

I was not a very happy chappy I can tell you. I remember thinking “Thank you God”. The weather was wet and windy and it was impossible to get an umbrella into the shingle beach, so I had to sit it out in the wet. All it needed know was a herd of cows to decide to share my swim with me and wouldn't that be just perfect. Feeling a bit low and already feeling cold I put my gear together and set my stall out on the shingle beach. I must have looked quite stupid, more or less, sitting out in the middle of the river. 

The water was quite clear and except for the gully you could see every stone on the bottom in about a foot of water. After about an hour after the start of the match I was really freezing and my teeth were chattering a bit. Because the water was being channelled over onto the far side it was hammering through and that made float fishing it impossible, so I had only one option and that was to leger it. I had to use quite a heavy lead to have any chance of holding bottom in the really fast current on that far side.

To my complete surprise after about two hours my rod tip flew round and I had a fish on. I could hardly hold the rod and turn the reel because my hands were so cold, but I hung on and netted a chub of around 2lb.

Even though it was not a huge fish it was difficult to get it from the gully onto the shallows. At least I am not going to blank and that really cheered me up.

That’s one for the team I thought to myself. I still had 3 hours to go. Where there is one chub there are others, so back in with the leger and let’s get a few more. Over two more hours passed and not even a knock. So much for a shoal of chub!

 With only 15 minutes left of the match I felt resigned to my fate. I was just thinking of packing in some of my gear and all of a sudden the tip of my rod shot round. I grabbed my rod and it was all I could do to hold on to my rod. Everything went solid for a moment and I thought that the fish had transferred the hook in some way to a tree root or something. 

Then I felt a kick and it was as if the bottom of the river started moving upstream. I felt the fish shake its head trying to get rid of the hook. It slowly got to the top of the gully, then it turned and shot down the full length of gully. I just could do nothing with it. The rod was bent double and I could not put any more pressure on it. It was like playing a submarine with the fish definitely in charge of proceedings. 

One good thing in my favour was that the fish didn't seem to want to come out of the gully. I felt that if it did it would have just ploughed through my neighbors swim either side of me and be lost.  Before I knew it the whistle was blown to end the match. I had 10 or 15 minutes to land my fish or it did not count, I’m not quite sure from memory, which it was. It came to five minutes left of extra time and the fish was still ploughing up and down the gully. I knew that if I was to land it I had to get it onto the shallows. 

By this time a lot of anglers had packed up and I had a large crowd behind me willing me on to land the fish in the time I had left. I made the final decision that the next time it made its way to the top of the gully run it would be at its tiredness having swum up against the current. I would give it everything and if my line snapped then so be it.

The fish arrived at the head of the run and with a lot of trepidation I gave the old “Heave Ho”. I really expected that either the line would snap or my size 16 hook would straighten, but to my absolute surprise and delight, the fish gave way and wallowed onto the shallows. The fish must have been totally exhausted because it then gave up without any more fight and I was totally relieved when I slipped the net under it. The fish bent double as it nestled into the landing net.

I took the hook out as quickly as I could and guided the fish into my keep net.  I couldn't believe that I had managed to land it in time to count as a match weight.

The gallery behind me cheered as I landed the fish which as you probably have worked out, was a big barbel. It tipped the scales at 11lb 6 ounces and dwarfed the chub which was 2lb 3ounces, giving me a total 13lb 9 ounces as my match weight. What a result!! 

My barbel was the biggest fish on the day and got a special mention after the match. I won my section and came third overall in the match. Something worth mentioning to the reader is that the big barbel was the first one I had ever caught and also the last one to date over 30 years later. It just goes to prove that Winter League fishing wasn't all bad for me.

The London Angling Association (LAA) – Hampshire Avon at Britford

Just below the Bournemouth roundabout in Salisbury is a mile and a half stretch of the Hampshire Avon known as Britford. The LAA  held the fishing rights at the time. The water was a very well known hot spot for specimen roach and chub. Gary, my brother, and I fancied having a crack at trying to catch a 2lb+ roach, so we made inquiries about it. 

We found out that the bailiff who patrolled the river lived in an end of terrace house in East Harnham, right next to the bridge which crosses the river at Harnham. We knocked on his door and asked how we could become an associate member of the LAA. He duly came up with the info and that is how we got to be able to fish the best stretch of river in the Salisbury area.

This stretch of river is the same one that eventually flows on past Savilles and Petersfinger Lakes. We knew because of this that there were some big carp inhabiting the river which escape from the lakes at times of flood and high water. 

This fact made it even more exciting to us as the possibility of catching the roach, chub, barbel and even bream in the river. To start off with we concentrated our efforts on the top end of the fishery, just below the Bournemouth roundabout down to the corner where it ran past the Salisbury College of Further Education on the Southampton Road. 

I think it was during the Summer months we made our first foray to the river.

As it was Summer the river was full of streamer weed and running quite clear. Just below the road bridge there was a line of overhanging trees leading down to the local kiddies playground and field, just opposite two large blocks of flats. 

Incidentally, I actually came to live in one of those flats later on, so it would become easier for me to just nip over the road to fish the river. At this time however I was living on the other side of town. It was very difficult to fish the river when it was covered in streamer weed so we did the majority of our fishing after the first frosts had bitten in early November. 

We did some fishing earlier than that but we were restricted to mostly legering with our rods pointing up at the sky to keep the line off the weed as much as possible. The first fish we ever caught from the river were chub and I am not on about small ones. These were sometimes over the 4lb mark and that was a reasonable specimen in those days.

 These chub resided under those over hanging trees on the far side of the river which was about 30 feet across. The best bait to catch them was Gary’s favourite cheese paste.  (Primula cheese in a tube mixed with crumb) We went to great lengths to make it as soft as possible because once in the water it would harden very quickly making hooking fish difficult. If your cheese was hard to start with it would be like concrete after 5 minutes in the cold water. 

Gary got the mix just right and we did quite well, catching our fair share of chub under the trees. We really enjoyed this type of fishing and we were able to catch chub from both sides of the river as long as we had a feature of some king to cast to. I think that about four and a half pounds was the largest we caught, but fish of that size were not to be sneezed at and fought like tigers. They would use their surroundings to their own advantage and it was never a foregone conclusion that a hooked fish would be landed. They were experts at diving into the thick weed beds or the roots of trees under the water close to the bank. I think that this was one of the reasons we enjoyed that type of fishing and it was a great challenge which we both relished.

The river really came into its own from December on-wards. After a few really hard frosts which hit the weed growth in a big way, followed by torrential rain to wash away the weed, the river then had colour in it and was a completely different kettle of fish. There would still be some beds of streamer weed to contend with, but that gave the huge shoals of fish the cover they needed and we were able to trot a float down between the beds and present a bait to the fish.

Although we took advantage of the whole mile of banks at our disposal, our favourite swims were on the island which was situated about 80 yards downstream from the Bournemouth roundabout bridge. The river actually split into two at the top end of this island. The main river branched off a little to the left and a small stream went off slightly to the right. You had to approach the island from the right bank and this included clambering over a little man made bridge which traversed the stream. 

Often in high water the island became quite flooded so you needed waders at that time to be able to slosh your way through the water and mud. Not a journey for the faint hearted. With all your tackle on your back, getting over the little tree trunk bridge with only a bit of rope to hang onto was quite hairy. Once over that potential man trap you then had to try not to get bogged down in the deep muddy pathway along the island. 

The island itself was quite overgrown and you would be forever pushing branches out of your way to get to the 4 or 5 swims that were actually fishable. The top half of the island had a couple of reasonably easy swims that were accessible, then you had the middle part of the island which had reed-beds of iris right along your side of the bank, making it very difficult to carve out access for fishing. It was not impossible and with a bit of hard work you could cut out access and trot down past the weed fringed bank on your nearside and of course this opened you up to fishing the middle and far bank parts of the swims. You would have to collect bits of branches or stuff that had floated onto the island in the floods to make a place to fish from and on most occasions you would be held up from sinking into the river by your little nest of branches and the roots of the reeds. 

You really had to be careful if you didn't want to take an early bath into the swim. It was still very worth taking the time and trouble to do the hard work. The best swims were from half way down to the bottom of the island and they were far easier to fish and were a joy. These were our favourite swims, but we have in fact fished every swim on the island and the little stream which flows just behind you. We have had some tremendous bags of roach, chub and dace from the main river island swims and believe it or not we have caught the same species from the little stream which is only about 5 feet wide for the length of the island.

 In fact, the little stream really comes into its own when we have had rain for a number of days and the main river has been high. The fish probably enter from the main river below the island where the stream re-enters it.

I have many other stories to tell about this wonderful stretch of river, but the one I am going to tell you now had the biggest impact on my fishing life up to that time. Both Gary and I knew of the potential of the island swims and more than once a famous angling personality had inquired of us while we were fishing there, whether it was true that you could catch 2lb+ roach from these swims. 

In fact we had seen roach of over 3 lb swimming just below the Bournemouth roundabout bridge so we knew there were specimen roach to be caught there. I don’t know whether Gary ever told anyone else about this fact, but I am fairly sure he didn't and I never did. I knew that if the fact got out we would probably never get the swims again as we would be inundated with specimen hunters and that was the last thing I wanted as I had never caught a roach over that magic weight before.

It was in the month of February I think. The river had the least amount of weed in it than was usual. It was fining down and turning from a tea colour to that lovely green tinge that told us this could be a good time to give the island a go. We were both very lucky that day. We caught loads of fish and amongst them we both caught 2lb + roach.

 Late in the afternoon I was very fortunate to hook into and land a huge roach which looked on the face of it to be over 3 lb. Because we were expecting the next fish on every trot down to be a specimen, I dropped the big roach into my keep net for weighing later. That was to prove a rather big mistake because when I weighed and had it witnessed and photographed later it brought the scales round to 2lb and 15 ounces. It is possible that in that final hour and a half it could have shed an ounce but I could not know for sure. 

Never the less, what a fantastic fish it was when you add in the fact that as it glided into the landing net the hook fell out, but not before the net was raised triumphantly above the surface of the water. I could go on boring you with how I played and its attempts to evade capture, but I won’t. 

I just feel very fortunate to have caught such a fish after spending a lifetime in search of one and that is enough for me. I will however make you aware that I made the two angling papers of the day and won a fishing rod in one of their monthly competitions. 

Enough of blowing my trumpet, everything comes to those who don’t wait, but work hard to make it happen.

Over time Gary and I have caught some memorable bags of fish from Britford and I may include one or two of them at a later date.

Incident at Steeple Langford Small Lake

 

I have already written about this incident in my private life memoirs I thought it was worth mentioning as most people will never see those memoirs and after all it is fishing related.

I decided to do a night stint one Autumn evening. I chose to fish the small lake at Steeple Langford. The small lake is situated at the bottom of the fishery and is separated from the main lake by a small causeway between the two. The size of the lake is only about the same as half a football pitch.

It was the shape of a figure eight. I arrived after work at about 7 pm in the evening. I decided to sit on the causeway with my back to the big lake.  The wind had died down and the lake was like a mill pond. I could see lots of evidence of feeding fish with masses of pin prick bubbles rising to the surface in clumps here and there. 

I felt confident of catching a few fish. The evening wore on and one by one the other anglers packed in and went home. By the time darkness fell there were only two anglers left on the small lake. One angler who was fishing down and around the corner to my right and myself. By that time I had a couple of reasonable sized tench in my net. It was getting a bit hard to see my float and I was squinting in my attempt to keep the tip in sight.

I made the decision to switch to a float with a little neon light fixed into the tip of it. As I was changing my tackle the other angler came over to me and told me that he was going to fish till midnight and then get his head down until 5 am in the morning. He asked me if I would nip over and wake him up at that time so he wouldn't miss the early morning action. 

I agreed and continued fishing my swim. By about 4 pm I had not caught any more fish and then I noticed that a heavy mist was rising above the surface of the lakes. It became quite thick and you could not see across to the other side even on the small lake. It had become quite cold and chilly so I put on my thick fishing jacket for warmth.

Just before 5 am, as if someone had thrown a switch, the wind got up and started to blow the mist. The mist was swirling about over the surface of the water. I suppose it was the drastic changes in temperature which caused the strange phenomenon to occur. It all felt quite eerie and strange to me.

At 5 am I made my way over to the other anglers swim. When I got there I could see him asleep on the bank. I thought it strange that he didn't have a sleeping bag or a ground sheet of any description. 

The wind was quite cold now and even with my extra clothing I still felt chilly myself. I went over and as I approached him I called to him to get up as it was time. No reaction. I shook him and called again. No reaction! I shook him really hard this time and told him wake up. No reaction! I felt his skin and he was freezing cold, so I tried to check his pulse in his neck. No reaction! I was getting very worried by now. “My God” I thought, “He’s dead”. All sorts of things started to race through my mind. What do I do now? Remember that there were no mobile phones in those days. The nearest public phone would be over a mile away.  Would it be working? Should I walk round the big lake and hope that there was another angler fishing it?

What if someone came and stole all my gear while I was reporting the death? I was really shaking by then, trying to decide what I should do. I decided that I would make a quick walk around the big lake first. I turned to begin my walk, when all of a sudden I heard a really long sigh. 

The dead body rolled over and started to get up onto its feet. He took a couple of steps and I jumped back and nearly filled my trousers on the spot. He just said, “Thanks mate”, then sat down on his fishing basket and prepared to start fishing again.

I really had thought that he was dead. 

With the fact that there was such an eerie atmosphere about the place and that I was on my own had really shaken me up. I couldn't fish on. I packed up my gear and went home a bit quick.