A Day With The Gaffer

What has all this to do with angling I hear you ask. Well, I’ll tell you. Recently I was given a real lesson in one upmanship, a real education on how you can fail to win the battle but still win the war. I am talking of course of Mr Marsden, Old git No.1, McWallet, or as I now refer to him – ‘The Gaffer’.

Whatever you think of the guy, you have to admire him. On a day when, fishing-wise, I put him in his place, I returned home feeling I had been well and truly put through the mill. Let me explain………..

“I fancy a trip to the Ribble,” his email said. “Are you up for it?””Yeah, no problem,” I say. “I can make Friday.” “Thursday it is then.” Says the Gaffer.

Score: 1 – 0 to the gaffer.

“By the way, can you bring me some cheesepaste, I haven’t got time to make any.”

2 – 0.

We arrange to meet in a boozer, “where else?” (as he said in his fanciful version of events ‘On The Ribble With Barney And McWallet ) and of course somewhere between the door and the bar he stops to tie his lace. “Mine’s a pint of bitter,” he shouts from his crouched position. As I pass him his drink I glance down to see he is wearing Wellington type boots…..no laces!

From the pub Graham leads the way, and despite the fact we are only five minutes from the stretch and Graham has been there many, many times, he still gets lost….obviously his sense of direction hasn’t improved since our trip to DDI but what the hell, he is getting on a bit!

Once we arrive at the swims we decide to fish in neighbouring pegs about 20yds apart to make it a bit of a social.

“Which one do you fancy I ask?”

“I’ll take this one,” he says. “Only because I can’t walk any further though.” And drops his gear in the much fancied downstream peg.

4 – 0, and we haven’t even cast a line yet……….

As is sometimes the case the fishing is very quiet, the river is running low and very clear. It’s so low in fact there is next to no flow and I don’t expect any action until after dark. We begin to chat about rigs and I make the mistake of showing him the new hooklink material I’ve been using. “I wouldn’t mind trying some of that,” he says. “Leave the spool with me, I’ll tie a couple of rigs.” The spool comes back half an hour later with about two yards left on it. “Seems all right that stuff,” he says….. I suppose I was lucky to get the spool back.

5 – 0, and counting….

Just on dark I get a couple of bites, nervous, twitchy ones but at least there were chub about. “What you getting ’em on?” Shouts Graham.

“Cheese paste.”

“Really?, I’ve tried it. It’s crap, I don’t think I’ll let you give me any more of this stuff.”

“B*****d!” comes the reply, between howls of laughter.

After missing about four gentle takes, a switch to bread flake results in a lovely fish of 5lb 1oz falling to my rod.

The score is now 5 -1 and Barney’s back in the running.

But the gaffer bounces straight back, explaining that the bread he is using is crap. Usually he gets it himself but he let the missus buy it for him this week and she’s bought him a crap, low quality loaf. About 30 seconds later his grubby little mitts are in my bag of Warburton’s Toastie and half a dozen of the freshest slices are soon whisked away to his swim.

6 -1, an instant response to my pitiful attempt at getting one over on him.

By now I can hear a constant muttering coming from the next peg, real Harry Enfield stuff. Fish are swirling on the far bank and when I suggest he cast across to them he tells me to **** off and then begins to blurt out his latest cock up. Apparently he got snagged and upon pulling for a break he did just that and broke off. Unfortunately the break he got was next to his reel and 35 yards of line have been lost. The problem now is that in a flash of inspiration he had decided to fill the shallow spool on his new reel for this trip and it took only 50 yards of 6lb mono. This meant unless we could come up with an alternative, he would be fishing mid-river for the rest of the night. Obviously, I went over to help, and having a new spool of 4lb line in my rucksack handed it over.

“I’ve got a better idea,” he says. “I’ll put 20 yards of this 8lb line on as backing. Stay here and help me spool up, its dark now and I can’t see a thing.”

Great, chub crashing all over my swim and I’m helping the old git re-spool. Twenty minutes later and I’m back in my swim. The chub have stopped swirling……

“I’ll keep hold of this spool you gave me mate, just in case”

7 -1 and I’m getting bloody hammered now!

Plop! In goes Graham’s bait, tight to the far bank and quite close to where I’ve been casting. “I’m in!” He shouts. And soon a pristine barbel of seven and a half pounds is being played, and played, and played. Obviously I’m at the side of him as he has only brought a butterfly sized landing net and he needs my larger one. Twenty minutes later I’m back at my swim trying to remember when I last spent so much time on the bank without actually fishing.

8 -1. If this was a boxing match it would have been stopped by now.

8 -2. Another nice fish for Barney but not enough to stop me getting a mauling.

So there you have it, let that be a lesson to any of you that think you can go up against the gaffer and win. I thought I could handle the situation and was put firmly in my place. He now has a nice big ball of cheese paste in his freezer, plenty of stale bread, a new spool of line…..and incredibly, to round it all off, he’s even managed to persuade me to write a bloody article graphically describing how I was well and truly stitched up…….. by the gaffer!

9 – 2 Game, set and match……..