“I’m doing a slide show for the Glasgow branch of the Scottish Pike Anglers Alliance, fancy coming along, taking part and maybe getting a bit of fishing in?” Says my mate Eric Edwards. Why not, I thought, and agreed. That was it, that was about the extent of the planning that went into my trip. Can’t beat being organised, eh? It was November and the show was arranged for early December, Tickets went on sale and posters went up in the pubs and clubs of Glasgow announcing the imminent arrival of the two Sassenachs from the North-West of England, there was no backing out now. Tickets for the event cost £ 5.00 but I’m reliably informed that on the black market they were changing hands for about 20p. I also had the pleasure of taking a couple of rather abusive phone calls from a couple of mates who live north of Hadrian’s wall, they screamed abuse at me down the phone, charmingly explaining in the way that irate Glaswegians do, that they weren’t going to waste good beer money just to see me rambling on…I knew they were joking though…weren’t they? Slide show in Stoke To compound matters we were travelling just a few days before I was booked to do a talk and slideshow in Stoke on Trent for the Staffordshire Predator Anglers Group (SPAG). It was their annual presentation night and the Chairman, John Davey had already asked me to do a talk some time ago. Well, I say ‘ask’ but that’s a bit of a misnomer. What he actually did was phone me up, tell me the tickets were on sale, the posters up and that I was on at 8.30…..that’s the way John asks for speakers. You either turn up as he arranged or look like a **** if you have other arrangements and can’t make it. Anyway, my problems were as follows. I’ve got a week to prepare two completely different slide shows, finish off all the jobs I’m busy on at work and get all the fishing tackle together needed for a couple of days boat fishing. What Eric and I decided was this; our combined talk in Glasgow would cover all aspects of pike fishing. Starting with livebaiting, moving on to deadbaiting, a bit of wobbled baits/sink and draw, then finally a section on lure fishing. So, as we wouldn’t get the chance to meet before the trip Eric would get his slides together, in that order, I’d do likewise and whilst we were away we would combine the slides and basically ‘wing’ the slide show. Well we can both talk (and bullshit) for England so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Upon my return I had Sunday evening free to put the slides together for the SPAG presentation night. A tight timetable but achievable. So slow to Glasgow Thursday night saw Eric and the rest of the gang arrive at my house on the last pick-up before we hit the M6. Accompanying us on the trip was Eric’s son Joe, and Kevin Dunne, a mate of Eric’s for some time and someone I had known since my early days in the now infamous St Helens PAC. Most of the gear was loaded in a trailer, the rods strapped to the roof and Eric’s outboard placed inside the car. As space was at a premium Kev and I decided to rent our engine from the guy at the boatyard and stupidly left Eric to arrange this for us.It took us several hours to arrive at our destination, due mainly to the fact that as an old fart Eric now drives at 54mph in the middle lane of the motorway (54mph being the speed to give optimum petrol consumption for his new 4 x 4 as stated in the handbook – tight git!). Anyway, we eventually arrived and Eric swung the tartan blanket off his legs and immediately had a row with our prospective landlady, – he wanted her to get up at 6.00am to make breakfast. She said that he was being unreasonable, he said it was her job – great, we’ve been here 30 seconds and were already in trouble. It took all my considerable skills as a trained negotiator (learned during my encounters with NRA bailiffs) to placate the lady and we settled on a 7.30 start. After haggis and chips scoffed at breakneck speed outside the local chippy, Joe was sent to bed early while the grown ups (?) went out for a well earned beer. Just a couple though tonight as we were fishing in the morning. We left the pub about 1.00am after a lock in, a gallon of ale and a series of single malts then proceeded to walk up and down the town looking for an Indian restaurant…..will pike anglers never learn? Onto the loch The venue for the fishing was Loch Venacher just north of Glasgow and we arrived at the boatyard at 8.00am. Eric had arranged for his contact to meet us at 8.30. This would give us enough time to bale out the boats which were both full of ice cold water. I immediately jumped into the boat with 6″ of water leaving poor Joe to bail out the longer boat which was almost over the gunnels. At 9am Eric and Joe are away, with their outboard. Me and Kev, however, are left on the quayside without one and don’t really fancy tackling a huge Loch with just an electric engine. But come 10am, with no-one arriving, we were forced to do just that. Eventually we locate the contact who was doing a bit of DIY on a local cottage. He gave us an engine; well that’s what he called it anyway. It had no tilt mechanism, the gear lever was broken and operated by pushing a coin into the slot, the throttle handle was limper than Michael Barrymore’s wrist and it pissed oil and water. Oh, and it only worked for two minutes before it packed in completely. Marvellous…. We started with a favourite method of both Kevin’s and mine, namely slow trolling with deadbaits and after an hour or so I had my first take. It felt like a big fish but it unfortunately came off. Like a fool I phoned Eric to tell him we’d had some action and he immediately motored over to the precise spot and dropped anchor!
How big is yours? Meanwhile I received a call from Eric, “Joe’s had one” he said. “So have I”… I exclaimed….”How big was it?” “Can’t tell you,” came the childish reply. “How big was yours?” “Big enough.” Was my equally immature response…here we go again! It was late afternoon before I had any further action, the line being tugged from my curled finger as something found the jack pike of interest – must be a beast! However, it then refused to move off. I paid out a little line but the float never re-appeared. It was set 6ft deep in 18ft of water so I knew something was lying doggo on the bottom. With no other option I wound down and struck. A spirited little fight resulted in a pike of 11lbs visiting the boat, not the monster I’d hoped for but a result on a day that was turning out to be a bit of a grueller. The only other fish caught that day turned out to be the one Joe had caught earlier weighing around 6lbs. We packed in and returned to our lodging where we decided to take a quick shower before meeting in the lounge to give our slides a ‘once over’ prior to driving into Glasgow. I was first downstairs, followed by Eric and Joe – no sign of Kev yet but Eric tells me he has a bit of a reputation for taking longer than a woman to get ready. Half an hour later and there’s still no sign of him. We’re getting twitchy now. Its nearly 7pm and we’re planning to arrive in Glasgow on a Friday night, in the middle of Christmas shopping by 8pm and the drive is estimated to take 45 minutes – we are cutting it pretty fine. At 7.30 we send a search party out for him, Eric drags him downstairs and we all jump into the car. Kev claims he’s been ready for ages and he’s been watching TV but Eric tells me his hair dryer was still warm when he went in his room! The plan was to drive to a pub on the outskirts of town, meet a couple of my mates who live locally, park the car safely and share a cab back to the club where the talk will take place. We enter Glasgow around 8.30 – from the wrong direction (my fault this time). As we are going past the club in question we drop off Kev and Joe and tell them to get the projector, etc, set up and we’ll be along shortly….yeah, right. Just then two blokes come up to the car, bang on Eric’s window and start doing a pretty good impression of Rab C Nesbitt. Eric, the colour visibly draining from his face immediately hits the central locking mechanism, explains that he has a wife and kids at home and tells them to leave him alone. As it happened it wasn’t a car-jacking but a couple of pikers who recognise him and are merely trying to direct us to the club in question. We explain our intentions and ask them to let everyone know we’ll be arriving shortly. Back on the phone now to the Glaswegian muppets who claim to be mates of mine. Muppet number one directs me out of the city towards our arranged meeting place. It takes about half an hour of bumper to bumper traffic before we enter a pretty rough looking area. Around this time the phone goes again and this time muppet number two explains his mate has cocked up big style and sent us in the OPPOSITE direction to where we should be going – great! To make matters worse he knows where we are and tells us that under no circumstances should we stop the car, let alone get out. We are told in no uncertain terms to turn around, ignore any red lights and just get the hell out of there – cheers guys ! Anyway, to cut a long story short the multitude of road works, diversions and one way systems mean we arrive at the club just before 10pm. The veins in Eric’s head are pulsing and I need a drink – quickly. Six pints later…… We walk in the room; ironic (or maybe idiotic) cheers ring out and we’re straight into the show. Fair play though, the guys have stacked a few drinks up for us and as Eric’s driving I feel it would be rude not to indulge and pour about six pints down my neck in the first half hour, suddenly I feel much better; can’t think why… We stopped halfway through for a great buffet and another drink or two (easy on that coke Eric!) before finishing off around midnight. The show seemed to go well, it would though wouldn’t it bearing in mind everyone in the room was half cut. And we emerged from the club in the early hours of Saturday morning. By now I’m holding a bag of uneaten sandwiches under my arm and looking for a night club, claiming Glasgow is the best city in the world, all thoughts of tomorrow’s fishing have gone now but fortunately Eric guided me back to the car then pointed me in the direction of my room. Can’t wait for tomorrow ! Raring to go First light and we were all up and back at the boatyard raring to go, well we would have been if first light had been at half ten. Saturday turned out to be much windier than the previous day (and it rained) but we all attacked the Loch with renewed enthusiasm. Being a jammy git I was first in again this time thanks to Kevin. He had located a small channel at the southern extreme of the lake and as I lowered a bait of the end of the rod I felt a slight pluck on the line and seconds later the line poured off the spool helped by a jack of around 6-7lbs. Once returned I claimed it had been cleverly captured by an ‘all-round angler’ using the sink and draw technique, Kev sort of agreed… “Well, sink anyway,” he said! That was the triple crown – one on deadbait, one on livebait and one on sink and draw. I only needed a lure-caught fish for the grand slam. I phoned up Eric to tell him my plan. He groaned and said it was going to be bad enough listening to me all the way home with the three I’d had (he was still blanking) and please god don’t let me get another. Aren’t mate’s great. I simply explain that as we had covered each aspect of pike fishing in our show it was our duty to show that each method worked and a truly great angler would highlight this by catching a fish on each method during our two day trip. I also told him that this had been my intention all along. Unfortunately I appeared to get cut off during this conversation…must have been the bad reception caused by the surrounding mountains. Something stupid grabbed hold! It was late afternoon when Kevin and I finally drained the last drop of power from our batteries and the electric engine gave up the ghost. Fortunately we had anticipated this and had already made our way to within a couple of hundred yards of the boatyard. We allowed ourselves to drift a while before dropping anchor as we approached the drop off. We had perhaps half an hour or so left. My favourite (and some unkind people would say only!) lure was clipped to the trace and I began casting the Rapala ‘Super Shad Rap’ towards the bank. I’d love to say that I expected what happed next but as Kevin was in the boat he’ll only tell people that when my rod slammed over I shouted “I don’t believe this, something’s been stupid enough to grab hold”. Kev didn’t help me by stating it looked like a twenty when it first surfaced but eventually it succumbed and despite the fact that I’m sure he, Eric and Joe would have preferred to knock it off the lure, he didn’t and Kev made his usual expert job of the netting. At a little over 16lb I was more than happy, but as Kevin snapped away in the gathering gloom I just KNEW Eric could see the camera flash from his mooring in the boatyard. I later found out that this was the case and both he and Joe were praying that we were merely flashing the camera to try and wind them up…..sorry lads ! However, being the modest kind of guy I am during the four hour journey home I never once mentioned the skill and sheer dedication required to achieve that most cherished of pike angler’s dreams……The Grand Slam. |
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