Everything’s here, warts and all, completely unexpurgated, in other words nothing has been removed. The fishing, the sex, the scandal, the lies – just a minute! ….. There’s some of that, but it’s about fishing and fond memories.
Chapter 4
REFLECTIONS OF A MISPENT CHILDHOOD.
It must be over 40 years ago since I caught my first carp. I was fortunate in that I lived in an area that contained a number of waters stocked with carp; these however were not the carp of today, but mainly of koi varieties and fully scaled lean commons, possibly wildies. The koi`s, were known locally as “Black and Ambers”.
The mill owners of the cotton industry would stock with these species, supposedly to keep the filters clear on the intake values. The mill lodges and the local canal was full of them, although from memory, not very big ones with probably the average size being about 5lb in weight, however they appeared to be big fish in those days. Those Black and Ambers could often be tempted with floating crust and they would be found, on hot days, near the surface, basking in clear spots between the weeds, and they would also be attracted to the hot water outflows from the mills. Many of the canal anglers caught Black and Ambers in the 1950s, with many of these men taking them home for the table. You could wrap the carp up in wet rags, put them in your basket and they would usually stay alive until you got them home.
My fellow school chum and fishing partner at the time, was called Richard Kolbuck, Richard lived a few houses away just down the lane. Ricky’s father was Polish and he delighted at carp for a meal. On one occasion Ricky and I were walking home along the canal bank when we saw a huge Black and Amber basking next to the bank. I had a sort of doubled rod rest which had two spikes to secure it into the ground, raising the rod rest over the carp, I speared the fish right through the back, and we took it home for his dad. The fish must have weighed about 8lb, a pretty barbaric practice by today’s standards and a Koi of that size would certainly fetch a few bob these days, still that’s how it was then, and the supply appeared endless.
I can never remember seeing a mirror carp in either the canal or the lodges during this period and it was not until the mid-sixties that I actually caught one. In fact the only information I had on mirror carp came from the back of a brook bond tea card and it was only when my uncle George bought me a copy of D. L. Steuarts excellent book, “Carp – How to Catch Them”, that I genuinely became interested.
It was probably about the mid-sixties when I became friendly with a neighbour who lived opposite; he was called Jack, a friend of my fathers and a very keen angler. I would often go round to Jacks house and marvel at his fishing tackle collection, but my mother was concerned that I was being a nuisance and used to limit my visits. However, I spoke to Jack about mirror carp and he invited me to fish with him for a night session on local water. This was in the grounds of an old army prison camp and I just couldn’t wait. Jack had taken a few mirrors from this water and one of them had gone 9lb, a real monster, but he was forever talking about doubles, which he claimed the pool held.
My father had made me my first ever bivvy, this was a wooden clothes rack with an oily type material nailed across the top, a grotty little thing, but since I was a grotty little schoolboy at the time, then I suppose it was alright (cheers Bill). Jack had all the latest gear, a built cane carp rod, an umbrella and an upright seat with a back (no bedchairs and bivvy`s in those days). Methods were free-lined honey paste, one rod only and a piece of cigarette foil bent over the line between the reel and the butt eye.
I was using a kind of cut down built cane rod with a tin plate centre pin reel, while Jack was using one of the intrepid fixed spool reels. The paste bait was the size of an apple and I suspect the carp had to whittle it down first to be able to get it in their mouth; however the method did catch carp occasionally.
The first action came, surprisingly, to my rod, not a steaming run, like the ones you get these days, but a very slow controlled run giving plenty of time to set the hook. On Jacks instructions, I grabbed the centre pin with both hands and whacked into the carp, apparently too hard, but still I hooked him and he stayed on the line. I think I had read somewhere that you had to hit them hard in order to pull the hook through the paste (no hair rigs of course).
The carp gave me a bit of a struggle in the fight and from memory Jack had to take the rod from me on more than one occasion, but eventually the carp came to the bank and Jack jumped in the water and lifted it out. It was a really beautiful mirror and if Jacks spring balance was correct, the carp weighed in at 5lb. Jack on this occasion blanked.
Jack took me again to the prison camp a few weeks later, but on this occasion we both blanked, I did however have some action though, which I didn’t realise until a few weeks later. The wind was up on this occasion and the cigarette paper wouldn’t stay on the line, so I found a hairgrip in the bottom of my tackle box and placed the grip over the line and gently pushed it in the ground. On a few occasions the pin would lift out of the ground and sort of hang between the reel and the butt eye, every time I noticed it in this position, I simply pushed it back into the ground.
It was a few weeks later that I noticed a chip in the varnish beneath the butt of my rod, mentioning it to Jack, he suggested that it could have been done by the grip hitting the rod on a fast run, but who knows? Jack however was having marital problems, and my mother suggested that I didn’t go round for a while. It was not until few years later that I again went fishing with Jack.
The Appleby’s lived round the corner from me, they lived in a house which had a garden allotment that stretched down to the canal bank, the Appleby’s were three brothers who were keen on fishing and who had extended the canal into their garden. They had simply dug a pool and broken down the banking so that the canal poured in. They even managed to attract large numbers of roach into this new canal extension.
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| The Monk with his Llandod 11lber. |
On one occasion they had built a raft together, this was a well-constructed affair, built with railway sleepers for the platform deck and oil drums tied firmly underneath. It was a fantastic raft. On the occasions I was invited to use it, we would load the tackle on the raft in the Appleby’s private shipyard and then sail into the canal. This stretch of the canal was about two mile long between the locks, so we had plenty of water to go at.
The advantage of fishing from the raft was that we could drift between the reed beds in the central channel of the canal, areas in which it was difficult to fish from the banks. A favourite spot was to drift between the rushes North of Mills Hill Bridge, one morning in particular, I can remember using fly spoons across the channel and taking three good perch in quick succession, two which went over the two pound bracket.
We used the raft all summer one year, until one morning I turned up for fishing and found that the raft was not in the dock. Apparently the Appleby’s had located the raft a mile along the canal, it had been stolen and dismantled in the night, and they never built another one after that.
The Boarshaw stretch of the canal was the first place I caught bream, I had been put onto this section by old school chums Kevin Crawley, Ernest Kenny and another friend called Alan Willows. We would lay-on for the bream using worm and maggot and occasionally we would catch the odd tench. Bream and tench were relatively rare in the area in those days.
I’ve not seen Alan since this period, Ernest however, a few years later, took me on a number of pools, which were owned by a cigarette company, he had a permit for those waters because his father worked at the cigarette factory, and I was fortunate to guest on them on a number of occasions. It wasn’t until about fifteen years later that I again bumped into Kevin Crawley, after the Cheshire Specimen Group disbanded; he joined the Manchester Carp Group, and its strange how angler’s paths often cross throughout life.
I think it was 1972 when I again bumped into Jack Berry and by this time Jack had moved away from carp fishing and turned his interests to Salmon and Sea Trout on the Scottish Rivers. I, at the time, had teamed up with a work mate, “Piker Alex” who actually lived in a flat at the side of Badlands. Alex had taken all the big pike from Badlands, but I’d talked him into to doing some Winter Grayling fishing up at Grassington on the River Wharfe.
Prior to my trip with Alex, I had called round at Jacks, mainly to get him to tie some grayling nymphs up for us. Jack however fancied a bash at the grayling, and as I was about 17 at the time I had began to drive. The following day, I picked Jack up at about 3AM on a very cold November morning, I was driving a Vauxhall 101 in those days, which allowed plenty of room for the tackle, and they were great cars, with a column change and really long seats which you could comfortably sleep on.
We arrived at Alex’s flat by about 3.30 AM and we were surprised to find all the lights on, Alex’s tackle all over the landing and his wife screaming and clung tightly onto one of his arms, poor Alex had got married at 16 and already he appeared to be having problems, it’s a sad fact of life that women and fishing don’t appear to go hand in hand. We waited in the car until things had settled down and eventually Alex ran up the road wearing a torn shirt, threw his tackle in the boot and in hot pursuit was a screaming woman with a baby in her arms, I quickly threw the car into first gear and we were away.
Jack didn’t stop laughing until we got to Grassington. We arrived at the Wharf late morning and had some terrific sport with the grayling, bumping leaded nymphs across the current, a truly wonderful fish. I never saw Alex again after this trip and have often wondered what happened to him. If you are still out there old mate, give us a ring sometime?
In the early seventies I was fishing with Bill and Dave Melia and Racing Gary. We spent a lot of time on the rivers, fishing the Dane and the Ribble for chub and dace, although none of us had ever caught a barbel (there where no barbel in the Dane and Ribble in those days), so we launched a few attacks on the Yorkshire rivers, we fished the Wharfe, Aire and the Swale. It was difficult to get over to Yorkshire in those days, as the M62 had not yet arrived, so we often took a leisurely overnight drive up the A62, calling in at most of the pubs on the way, this usually saw us at Topcliffe in the early hours of the following day.
On one particular trip, Racing Gary took us in his Ford Consul, I was a bit apprehensive about Gary’s driving as I think he’d modelled himself on Jack Brabham, however we made the trip. Calling in at the usual pubs en route. On leaving one particular pub, we climbed back into the car and a police car mysteriously materialised directly behind us. I would say at this point that the drink driving laws were a bit lapsed in those days and I think Gary may have had more than his fair share of the evil liquor.
The police pulled us and suggested that we visited the local police station so they could take further samples from Gary, apparently they had to wait a couple of hours to retest him, the retest however proved clear and Gary was let off with a caution. We arrived at the river, much worst for ware and slept in the car till noon. This was however, the last time we ever allowed Gary to drive anywhere.
We continued to make a few trips up to the Swale at Topcliffe, often fishing the river all night, and eventually we got into the barbel, I think 3lb was about average. Methods used to be two glass Avon rods, bait droppers, worm, bacon and cheese with two heron indicators to wake us up, it was basically light carp fishing methods and lovely to watch the gentle sway of the current on the tips of the rods.
On another occasion I was looking down from the top of the bridge at Topcliffe, when I saw some enormous barbel, I ran down to the bank and trotted a worm in their general direction, I hit one of these bloody things, but it kited straight through the bridge and the line snapped.
Topcliffe however was a beautiful place and my nights spent on the Swale will stay with me forever. Some day I will return! One of the other rivers we used to fish was the Ure, Kevin Clifford was taking some good barbel at the time, and up to about 9lb I think? But we never really got to grips with the Ure, great days though!
(Note: the pictures shown may have no connection with the story, they are simply to show you what the author looked like along with some of his catches.)
