The Early Years - River Trent

River Trent as a Young Boy.

The Island Swim

At the age of Ten, I was gifted some fishing tackle from my mother and stepfather.  My greenheart rod was a split cane one and was about twelve feet in length and my reel was of the open spool type which you opened the line layer to cast and it would snap closed as you wound the handle after casting.

My nearest river was the great River Trent flowed which flowed just below the local gravel pits in Beeston, which was a suburb of the city of Nottingham. Bait was tough to come by, but we used to get about a quarter of a pint of maggots from the local sawmills.  I had no mentor as such, and angling literature was not affordable, so I was self-taught through trial and error.

I can remember fishing a little island which had formed on a bend of the river, due to shallow water conditions caused by the unusually dry weather.  I was able to just about wade over to the island, although I did get wet legs before I made it over to my chosen swim. I had to hold my rod and tackle box up over shoulder height to ensure that they did not get waterlogged, so I was a bit tired by the time I got to the island.

Although I had a small seat to sit on if I needed to, I always stood up to cast and trot down the river alongside and below the island. It made it easier to lay the line directly behind and upstream of the float. This kept the bait going down the run on a straight line. I used to hold the float back a bit so the bait got to the fish before it did. The island was a good spot to fish from and I caught many decent roach and dace from it. Not many anglers were prepared to go to the trouble of getting wet legs and feet to fish there and in those days not many young anglers could afford waders, so I did not have to worry about others crowding me out.

Often I was the only angler on the river at that particular venue. It was free fishing and most other anglers fished the gravel pits or the short stretch of canal.  One of the main reasons why others stayed away from the river was the unusual condition which prevailed at the time. Due to the low water levels, coupled with large amounts of insecticides and pesticides used by farmers on the fields around the river, a thick layer of scum covered the surface.

When the wind hit the water it would whip it into foam which blew along the river. This gave the appearance of washing machine suds. It all went to covering the surface with a layer of about three inches of a kind of scum. It made fishing with any kind of normal dotted float impossible and mending your line very difficult without pulling your bait off your chosen line very difficult.

Having scum on your first six feet of line would be picked up by the wind and would knock your tackle off line. When this happened your bait would act unnaturally and the fish would leave it alone. Fishing with an arlesley bomb  leger rig was also difficult as the scum would build up and the wind would move your rig all the time.

I did manage to solve the problem of float fishing but never found an answer to the leger rig movement. The answer was that I treated the layer of scum as just the natural surface of the water and as such I allowed my float to stick out just above the scum and when it disappeared I would strike. Sometimes I would  strike as the wind altered the surface thickness and it would look like a bite had occurred as the scum went a little higher and above my float, but I made allowances for it on most occasions.

To minimize the movement of the float off line I used a long heavy crow quill and placed the main shots about eighteen inches from the hook to give the tackle stability. I was then able to mend my line behind the float and hold my main line off the water. This gave the wind less of a chance to pull my tackle off line and allowed my bait to trot down more naturally.

This thick scum situation was completely abnormal to ordinary conditions and one that I have never come across since the rivers have been cleaned, cleared and returned to more normal levels. As this was during one of the really hot summers of the nineteen seventies, I suppose the amount of water in the Trent was low and it was not sufficient to dilute the stuff that was being washed off the land and into the abnormally low river.

It did not seem to worry the fish. They were of sufficient quality (6 oz)and in good numbers, so I have to believe it did not harm the stocks. I did not know anyone else that fished the island over a prolonged period before the abnormal conditions and because I moved away from the area soon afterwards I don’t know if the catches were higher before the scum or what they were after I left the area.

What I do know is that if you look at any problem hard and long enough you will find an answer. This thought process has stayed with me over my angling life, which is over fifty years and has stood me in good stead ever since.