Home Features Diaries Memoirs of an Angler of No Importance Part 5

Memoirs of an Angler of No Importance Part 5

July 8, 2003

I would like to say that as a youngster my fishing was inspired by the great writers like Richard Walker and Bernard Venables, however it would be a lie. This wasn’t a conscious snub, it was simply due to having no angling heritage, I simply didn’t know they existed. Books were bought on the subject of course, but in a very random fashion so much so I can’t really remember any of them, save one. Ironically this was a Crabtree-esque cartoon strip book, and it was by far my favourite, even if it didn’t have the enduring charm of its illustrious predecessor. Unfortunately it wasn’t built to last, being long and thin with pulp pages and a soft cover it was doomed to disintegration. I suppose cartoons are appealing to the young, they were to me at any rate, normally in the ‘Wizzer & Chips’ or ‘Beano’ but a fishing cartoon was even better. While it lasted that book was my escape to another idealised world, a world where success was guaranteed, and usually in less than three frames.

MISTY DAWNS AND GREEN TENCH

My father and I joined Middlesbrough AC in 1974, at which time the club had not long gained the rights to a couple of ponds just outside the village of Hutton Rudby.

These ponds were everything our last venue was not. In contrast to the Stockton Bricky and its urban setting these ponds were out in the country, nestling in the corner of two fields. In all probability they were old farm ponds, well established with lily pads and reed beds, the smaller of the two had an island of submerged willows in the middle. It was the small pond that received all our attention, as it was widely believed to hold more, but smaller, fish than the larger pond, which made up with quality what it lacked in quantity. Seeing as we were simply trying to get a bite rather than specimen hunting the little pond seemed the obvious choice. However this assumption may have been quite wrong, as I’ve recently been led to believe that Hutton Rudby small pond actually held the Yorkshire tench record back in the 1960’s.

The trouble with the small pond in those days was you could only fish from about a third of the bank, the far side being shallow and weeded up. In fact there wasn’t really a bank at all, just a muddy fusion of water and land made from thousands of cloven hoof prints from years of cattle drinking.

The whole place is forever engraved in my memory, although I think a memory is too simple a term to use. A memory is something like “it rained last Wednesday” what I’m talking about is something from much deeper in the subconscious that’s more than that, something much more profound, but at the same time much less specific. I believe that when we’re fishing we reach a state of awareness that makes us hyper-receptive to our surroundings and, even if we don’t realise it, we’re absorbing every sight, sound and smell. This is definitely the case with Hutton Rudby ponds and me, it’s as if I hold some of its essence deep inside. In moments of quiet meditation I can close my eyes and touch a collage of summer mornings from over thirty years ago, and see it in perfect detail.

Dad and I came of age at Hutton Rudby, and they gave us many firsts, in fact my very first fish from freshwater, which were two modest roach. Although these fish were small, their size was totally overshadowed by my huge elation. The ponds also gave us our first perch, rudd and, of course, tench. There were even a few chub, I don’t know how they got in there – and I probably don’t want to. It’s strange to think that nowadays I often vent my spleen about chub in stillwater, but back then I was so na