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
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 29th
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
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