I remember the email arriving as if it were yesterday…
“Deanos, can a come ter bingo with you and yer mam?”
I thought, this Sean Meeghan’s got a bit of a reputation with the ladies and might be trying to get his hands on me mam’s coal wagon to put all his fishing tackle in. Well, you can’t be too careful can you?
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Deanos’ mam, 2nd left, with Auntie Kath and cousins, |
Why not go fishing with the lad instead?
Getting up early is not in my vocabulary, so it was with bleary eyes that I crawled out of the neighbour’s potting shed at 9.30 am after a heavy night at the workingmen’s club the night before.
Arriving in the quaint market town of Boroughbridge at 10am, outside famous Fatty Foster’s chip shop ‘The Golden Bite’, I was shocked to find it was actually shut!
10am…AND SHUT!…..AND THIS IS IN YORKSHIRE!
I was, by this time, starving anyway. Sean ambled off to the tackle shop whilst I looked after the serious business of finding a bakery with a decent selection of pies and doughnuts, etc! Now Sean is a talented angler, I can assure you of that, but he does need to sort out his priorities, I thought, as the first pie went into my gob.
We set off for the river
Well, to be honest, I think Sean has done a bit of ‘get-away’ driving in the past and I was only able to see where he was in the distance due to old ladies flying off their bicycles into the turnip fields as he haired around the corners on two wheels. I had to put a chocolate doughnut down and use two hands on the wheel to keep him in view!
We arrived at the river and it looked good! Sean started to help me over a style whilst moaning about him getting hernias and stuff. Twenty minutes later I finally managed to get over, due in no small part to the style and surrounding fence actually collapsing, but then we were ready to tackle up.
This was to be a day of tuition. As you are aware, Sean holds the title of ‘Miyagi’ the master, due to his barbel fishing exploits and endless help he gives to angling’s no hopers, like myself!
We opened our respective tackle bags; I was impressed straight away. Sean had an eight pack of blue ribbon wafer biscuits (with real chocolate) and a couple of Tunnock’s Chocolate Teacakes. What a fella!
Talking tactics
“Let’s talk tactics,” said Sean.
“OK,” I replied, “Now, I have a hot pasty and a Twix, if I eat this now I should still have enough grub left for lunch. Do you want all those Blue Ribbons mate?”
Well, a nasty accident then occurred. After several attempts, Sean managed to accidently poke me in the eye with his barbel rod! He went into shock and started to shout something about, “If I had a length of lead pipe I would leather you with that as well. Now shut up you greedy fat bastard!”
“Let’s start fishing!”
Now, those who know me might describe my approach to angling as ‘minimalist’.
I do have a hook, a couple of shot and a float, but don’t always remember to take them!
So anyway, Sean had a massive tackle bag full of kit so I yomped off along the skyline to find him.
“Help yourself Deanos.” he kindly offered. Well, I put half a dozen of his Chocolate Tunnocks teacakes into me mam’s washing peg bag that I use for carrying me tackle in, a handful of feeders and stuff, then I remembered!
“Bloody hell, Sean! I was in a bit of a rush this morning and forgot me bait! Are those pellets in that bag mate?”
I couldn’t help but notice that Sean was being a bit tight with the bait, so I shouted “Look over there, Sean, a 16lb barbel!”
His head shot round, so I gave his bag of pellets a slap and most of them fell into my Co-op carrier bag.
Now armed with a few bits of tackle and enough pellets for even Bob Robbins to fill in a swim with, I stomped back to my peg ready to start fishing.
To be honest, my swim didn’t look as good as Sean’s, his just screamed ‘GUDGEON’ to me, so there was only one thing to do!
The Trent Floodwater Special
I strapped a 4oz weight to the Trent Floodwater Special 8oz feeder that Sean had lent me and my beachcaster rod and 50lb line that I bought for £ 15 in Skegness last year really came into their own! I lofted the feeder upstream into Sean’s very large swim and it came down hitting the water in a fashion reminiscent of a depth charge going off in a second world war U-Boat hunt!
Here’s a strange thing! About a minute later, he appeared at the top of the bank with all his kit and started off upstream shouting and swearing! It was all unintelligible with most of the words being carried off with the wind, but I can only think it was because he wasn’t catching owt. Nowhere near as patient as me you see!
An hour later and I had lost all the feeders that Sean had lent me. I don’t like to say this, but they were crap anyway and kept getting stuck in the trees on the opposite side of the river! Why anglers don’t invest in decent tackle I don’t know, especially if they’re going to lend it out to mates.
Due to all the summer’s bankside weed growth I had a bit of trouble finding him again, but by walking along to likely looking spots and jabbing my landing net handle into the vegetation I did manage to find him. In fact it was a good thing I came along as I had no sooner jabbed my landing net handle through the bushes when there was a scream and enormous splash. Sean had fallen in!
I rushed through the bushes and took emergency action. Firstly, I grabbed hold of the last of his Tunnocks Chocolate Tea Cakes, then another handful of his crap feeders. Crap or not it’s much better than buying them.
At this point I felt that it was only right to offer some advice about not making lots of noise in your swim, because fish are not daft and if you jump in they can actually be aware that you are there!
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| Deanos’ with his barbel (Deanos’ face blurred to conceal his true identity to prevent him being stalked by unsavoury characters like Jeff Woodhouse). |
He offered a lame excuse saying that something had hit him in the back just as he was standing up to cast out. Anyway, after clambering out of the water, drying himself with his groundbait-stained hand towel and wringing his socks out, Sean was tackling up again and after looking in his now empty tackle box started to try and scrounge a couple of feeders off me. Now you should always bring enough tackle with you, I say, and bothering other anglers by keep asking for stuff all the time REALLY ISN’T ON….IS IT?
Anyway, at the end of the day we both caught. Sean had a couple of nice barbel, I am afraid I didn’t catch any gudgeon, just one barbel at 71/2 lbs, but you can’t win ’em all can you!
As a footnote, I hope the following may serve as a warning to other anglers!
Sean was parked about 5 yards in front of me. I was just bending over to take my boots off ready to go home, when his car revved up, the reversing lights went on, the wheels spun, throwing mud all over, and his car backed towards me at full pelt!
 The Miyagi managed a fish after I’d sorted him out with a spare feeder. |
Luckily I fell over into a ditch with his car just missing me by inches. Sean made light of the incident by winding the window down and waving his fist and shouted, “DIE YOU THIEVING FAT BASTARD!” before screeching off into the night! I can only imagine his remarks were directed at a rather large nearby magpie who he’d suspected of nicking his last Tunnock’s Teacake.
All I can say is, get out there with the other lads from FM. Its great fun, but be patient with the less experienced anglers who may fall into their swims or try to cadge tackle or are simply not very good drivers and get confused about where the gears are. We’re all learning at the end of the day!
Footnote from FishingMagic
Derrick Deanos is an acknowledged gudgeon fishing expert in the North of England and will undertake guided fishing trips for a lot of money if anyone wants to go. However, he cannot guarantee you will always catch one of the wary, wily specimens.
