Our fathers used to occasionally take us fishing with them on the Canal at Croxley Green near Watford where we caught real fish like gudgeon and the occasional wonderous roach and perch on huge tonkin cane rods with tiny wooden reels. Sometimes they would take us fishing on the Thames where we also caught dozens of small bleak until we got bored or our fathers got fed up with untangling our lines or we were losing too many of their precious Goldstrike hooks-to-gut.
My father usually used a spit cane float rod with a swingtip attached and caught much larger roach than us, and my friend’s dad had a float rod made of tubular steel which was very light and was the envey of us all.
I remember listening in awe as my father told of a huge barbel that he once caught which weighed in at a massive 3lb plus. How I would dream about catching such a huge fish as that Leviathan.
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My very first barbel in 1975 (5lbs 8ozs) |
When I reached the age of 12 my father bought me the first rod and reel that I could call my own; a 9ft ‘Abu Atlantic 403 Zoom’ spinning rod made in solid fibreglass and an ‘Intrepid Extra’ reel. We then started fishing the Thames at Kingston and the Great Ouse somewhere up the old A1. My mate and I used to catch large numbers of bleak and I remember catching over 100 bleak once, in the days when bleak were very numerous in the Thames and on the Ouse.
As I reached my teenage years I discovered the opposite sex and started drifting away from angling, and when I was at the tender age of 16 I joined the Royal Navy and moved away from home to see the world. I had been twice round the world before I was 18, visiting such far off places as Singapore, Australia, Canada, South Africa and the Mediterranean. My new hobbies were drinking and loose women whilst the highlights of my civvy mates lives was visiting the Marquee club in London. I had never visited the Marquee so I was a bit envious of them.
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In 1978 It was common to keep barbel in |
I remember in my late teens buying a ‘Craddock Combination’ rod from my mother’s catalogue; the Craddock could be made up into about 4 or 5 different rods which I could use either for fishing off the jetties for mullet or for fishing on streams and stillwaters.
It wasn’t until after I was married to Margaret in 1973 and we started to have some extra time on our hands that I started fishing more regularly again. I joined the ‘Royal Navy and Royal Marines Angling club and we used to fish the moats, lakes and rivers around Portsmouth,
Later, when we were living in married quarters in Helston, Cornwall, I discovered a small Trout stream at the bottom of the hill where we lived. I used to catch small brown trout and dace from the stream by allowing my line to drift downstream with a tiny shot and small redworm attached, and then slowly retrieve the line. It was about this time that I also bought myself a 14ft ‘Milbro Enterprise Match Rod’ the same rod model that the great Billy lane used in the world championships, I was told.
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| An 18lb pike from the Estate Lake (1986) |
I remember when I served on HMS Fearless that we had a Captain who was very keen on angling and each time he saw a large shoal of fish on the Sonar he would stop the ship and make a tannoy announcement “Large shoal of fish on the starboard side!” at which we would all cast our rods out while the ships Chinese laundry would hang a handline with a bit of silver paper on the end and catch more than all of us put together. We would also enter a ship’s team for various sea fishing matches, where all the ships could enter a team to fish on the breakwater at Plymouth Sound once a year. I used to use a ‘Jim Gibbinson Clooper Carp Rod’ for catching mullet and wrasse among the rocks.
It was in 1975 when I was drafted to the MET office in Northwood that I really started to fish in earnest, I met a brilliant angler called Budgie Burgess who was a petty officer on the same watch as me who had previously fished with Ricky Gibbinson, the brother of Jim. Budgie asked me if I had ever caught a barbel and offered to take me fishing on the river Kennet. I jumped at the chance and that was the start of my real obsession with fishing.
I will never forget my first barbel. It was my first ever night fishing experience on the Kennet and seems like only yesterday. After looking at my pathetic rod and reel budgie told me to leave them both in the car and he lent me a B.James & son Richard Walker MkIV rod (which he later sold to me for a princely sum) and a Mitchell 300 reel loaded with 8lb silcast line and a size 8 specialist hook with a short 5xSSG link leger.
It was just like Mr.Crabtree. “Cast 3/4 of the way across the stream and close your bailarm” Budgie said. “Now keeping the slack to a minimum, put the line across your finger and try to feel the bottom through the line” – and just like he had said, I could feel the gravel through the line as it drifted along the bottom until it stopped. “You may be able to feel the streamer weed brushing across your line” he said, and I did. “You will know when you have a bite” he said – and at that moment I felt a short tug followed by an express train screaming off below the surface and I had hooked my first barbel, a 5lb 8oz beauty. “It’s only a small one” said Budgie as he netted it for me, but it looked bloody huge to me. Later that night I caught another one of just over 8lb however I don’t seem to remember it as well as I do my first.
In the summer we fished mainly through the night which meant that we were often ‘guesting’ because night fishing was banned on most of the stretches that we used to fish on the Kennet. Budgie knew the Kennet like the back of his hand and introduced me to some great stretches where we would fish until dawn catching barbel between 7lb and 9lb and in the winter catching chub of a size that I had never seen before.
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| An 18lb Leather Carp from Estate Lake (1995) |
I remember after a particularly good night barbeling, we packed our rods back into the car and wandered along the bank until we saw an angler who looked like he knew exactly what he was doing with all the right gear etc. “I expect you have been fishing on this stretch for quite a long time havent you?” asked Budgie, “About 11 years now” said the angler. “I bet you have caught some lovely barbel in that time haven’t you?” asked Budgie. “Barbel? I’ve heard they are in here but I have never actually caught one” said the angler. Budgie and I just looked at each other in disbelief as we knew that the river in front of the angler was full of barbel once the sun started going down.
At the start of 1977 I remember discovering trotting with the centrepin for grayling on the river Swale in Yorkshire while I completed a Royal Naval resettlement course in ‘small business ownership’ at Caterick in Yorkshire. This is where I fell in love with the centrepin.
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| A 21lb 4oz Common caught recently from Estate lake |
After leaving the RN in 1977 I joined a local company’s angling club that rented an estate lake which had been stocked with Leney carp in the past, plus it also had some wiley old wildies left in it. It also had some nice tench, crucians and rudd, and after a brief spell I was invited to become a member of the committee where I remained for 25 years. I won many a club match chasing shoals of rudd on the surface and good bags of tench and crucians plus a few large roach. I caught my first 5lb and 6lb tench, my first large pike plus my first (and only) catfish at the estate lake.
We had our son Stuart in 1980 which temporarily put a stop to any night fishing and then, after a brief respite, the wife gave birth to our daughter Claire in 1982. My son Stuart is now almost as mad as I am about fishing but he is also into birds (not the feathered kind!) booze & playing rock music on his guitar, so he doesn’t go as often as I do but he is a really good angler and hopefully fishing is in his blood.
In the late 80’s I met some friends who got me into more serious carp fishing and I soon became a regular visitor to some of the well known carp venues around the Colne valley and in Kent. We especially liked to fish in the Darenth carp lakes complex where we used to spend many days and nights after 20s fishing ‘The Royal Box’ and ‘The Tip’ lake and developing strange new carp rigs – whether we needed them or not!
We also enjoyed catching tench. Each Wednesday morning at 4am in the summer we could be found at the back of a local gravel pit catching large bags of quality red-eyes before going to work. Usually the feeding spell ended as we packed up at around 7:30am and the anglers turning up at that time never even suspected what they had been missing, and we were certainly not going to tell them. But eventually it got out and we started to find other anglers in our swims, and sadly the Tench bonanza stopped as more and more anglers found out about the swims and the tench eventually moved away.
I was told that a few years later the pit had suffered from a pollution which had spilled in from the stream running behind it, but next to it is another pit that escaped the pollution and which currently holds the second or third largest leather carp in the country (Toadless). I also heard that the large tench have started to return to the pit we used to fish once more.
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| A nice Upper Lea barbel I caught in February this year |
In the middle of the 90s I took on the role of Match secretary and team Captain for one of my clubs and spent a lot of my time selecting team members, practicing with the team and fishing club and inter-club matches, but although the team did fairly well, winning around 50% of the matches we fished, It wasn’t really the type of fishing that I really loved. So after five or six years I eventually relinquished the role to a more match orientated angler.
About 15 years ago my friends and I joined WGC angling club where we eventually found some very special roach swims on the upper Lea and for a few years caught some quality roach up to 2lb 5oz trotting breadflake, redworms and casters close to various rush beds. But it was barbel that I kept yearning for and more recently I joined another club, Verulum AC which has some great barbel fishing on the upper Great Ouse, the Ivel and the upper Lea so I have returned to my old favourite, the Barbel.
I caught my last large carp only last Saturday, a beautiful 21lb 4oz common, whilst after tench on the estate lake. With the new river season starting at midnight tonight I will be putting my tench rods away and be in my favourite swim with a barbel rod in my hand on the first day of my 50th season as an angler.
Well there it is. My life’s journey through fishing in a nutshell. I’ve been a pleasure angler, a sea angler, a carp angler, a match angler and a specialist – and I have loved it all. I have very much enjoyed going down memory lane and hope that others will also be tempted to add their fishing story to the site.
Tight Lines
Keith Manger
