A ghostly tale-

[no-one in particular]

Had a good chat with one of the other sea anglers yesterday about this and that as you do and he told me he was fishing off Dungeness point one night on his own which is an eerie place at the best of times. He hadn't caught anything when suddenly this bloke appeared next to him which he thought strange as he didn't hear him walking on the shingle as he approached. This bloke asked him if he had caught anything and then advised of a spot a bit further along the beach where he guaranteed he would catch something within 20 minutes or so, its opposite the lighthouse and there's a gully called the dustbin. So he thought why not and walked with this bloke chatting and got to the spot and cast out. Straight away he caught a fish and turned to thank the bloke and he had completely disappeared, again he hadn't heard him walk off which you do on shingle as it makes a loud crunch sound, just gone the same way he had appeared.
He learned later that an angler had drowned off this spot and was known to "walk" the beach at night.
I know I for one will never fish there at night alone or otherwise! bolex to that for a game of soldiers.

 

[chrissh]

Had a good chat with one of the other sea anglers yesterday about this and that as you do and he told me he was fishing off Dungeness point one night on his own which is an eerie place at the best of times. He hadn't caught anything when suddenly this bloke appeared next to him which he thought strange as he didn't hear him walking on the shingle as he approached. This bloke asked him if he had caught anything and then advised of a spot a bit further along the beach where he guaranteed he would catch something within 20 minutes or so, its opposite the lighthouse and there's a gully called the dustbin. So he thought why not and walked with this bloke chatting and got to the spot and cast out. Straight away he caught a fish and turned to thank the bloke and he had completely disappeared, again he hadn't heard him walk off which you do on shingle as it makes a loud crunch sound, just gone the same way he had appeared.
He learned later that an angler had drowned off this spot and was known to "walk" the beach at night.
I know I for one will never fish there at night alone or otherwise! bolex to that for a game of soldiers.

Funny you should say this I haven’t thought of until you posted today

Back in the late 80s I used to fish Dungeness in the same spot known as the dustbin and one night myself & wife was the only people there fishing for cod it was a freezing night ice had formed on the rods and the lugworm had frozen.

In the small hours of the night a guy jusst appeared sitting on a fishing box about 30 yards away from us. (As you have said we did not here him walk on the shingle), my wife remarked he must be freezing as he only had a jumper on, my wife was making a hot drink said to me ask him if he wants a brew. The stove we had was one of the old camping gas ones that took for ever to boil a kettle so I didn’t rush to ask him anyway when the kettle had boiled we look over to where the guy was sitting only to see no one there not even a sound of him walking up the shingle bank…

 

[no-one in particular]

Funny you should say this I haven’t thought of until you posted today

Back in the late 80s I used to fish Dungeness in the same spot known as the dustbin and one night myself & wife was the only people there fishing for cod it was a freezing night ice had formed on the rods and the lugworm had frozen.

In the small hours of the night a guy jusst appeared sitting on a fishing box about 30 yards away from us. (As you have said we did not here him walk on the shingle), my wife remarked he must be freezing as he only had a jumper on, my wife was making a hot drink said to me ask him if he wants a brew. The stove we had was one of the old camping gas ones that took for ever to boil a kettle so I didn’t rush to ask him anyway when the kettle had boiled we look over to where the guy was sitting only to see no one there not even a sound of him walking up the shingle bank…

Bloody hell, and I trust you because your an engineer-I'm not going there, I know that.

 

[S-Kippy]

I knew there was a good reason why I dont sea fish apart from living miles from the sea. This will most certainly do.

 

[mikench]

Spooky! Dungeness is no longer on my " must try" list!

 

[103841]

The whole area is very eerie imo. I fished a gravel pit at Lydd which isn’t too far away and that was a very windswept unforgiving landscape, just lacked a creaking pub sign blowing in the wind.

Pink Floyd used Dungeness for an album cover

 

[john step]

Ghosts don't exist but if they did then this one is no threat to anglers just the opposite. No reason not to fish there?

 

[S-Kippy]

Ghosts don't exist but if they did then this one is no threat to anglers just the opposite. No reason not to fish there?

I think I'll be the judge of that but by all means you go ahead !

 

[john step]

I think I'll be the judge of that but by all means you go ahead !

A bit far for me but I did read somewhere once that there has never been any evidence of a person being harmed by a ghost.

 

[seth49]

A bit far for me but I did read somewhere once that there has never been any evidence of a person being harmed by a ghost.

Can agree with that, it’s the live ones you’ve got to watch out for,

 

[Another Dave]

Ghosts don't exist but if they did then this one is no threat to anglers just the opposite. No reason not to fish there?

Probably the lighthouse keeper discovered a gold-laden shipwreck, pretty sure i saw a documentary on this.

 

[no-one in particular]

I have heard so many ghost story's by perfectly rational people, I could tell a few and I often think only one of them has to be true but they are always improvable! The thing that got me with this one was the no noise made by someone walking across shingle same in Chriss's post, its not something someone making up a story would readily think of.

 

[Keith M]

I don’t really believe in ghosts; however I have experienced several strange events around our remote estate lake; like the time a friend and I were both fishing almost facing each other around a corner of the lake and he asked me who was in my swim earlier as he saw someone in my swim staring out across the lake right in front of me, and a few minutes later the figure slowly turned around and walked off, but there had been no one in my swim at all that night.

On another night we both saw some lights moving in a swim on the other side of the lake. and decided to creep up on whoever it was. Thinking that it might be someone who was poaching.
We hadn’t had any lights on and the person was very unlikely to have known we were there, plus we both knew the lake like the back of our hands and could creep around the lake at night without barely making any sounds at all.

We both moved around from different directions and as we both got to where the light was shining it just suddenly went out, and there was no one there, and we searched high and low.
I had experienced Gurkhas creeping up on me during an exercise in the forces before; so know that it could have been someone expert in camoflage but this was quite un-nerving.

When we had employed a few people to remove the thick silt from the lake using a mud-cat, the workers had lived in a couple of caravans by the side of the lake and one morning they looked very shaken as one of them had been having a smoke outside at about 1:30 am and he heard a loud rushing noise and witnessed a horse and carriage come rushing up the track and across the bridge across the lake; and there were locked gates on the track on both sides of the bridge; and he was a ghostly white and looked quite shaken and they had all been woken up by the noise.

I realise that they might all have been very good actors but you don’t really know.
There have been several other ghostly things happen over the years.

Several times we have heard distinct footsteps on the hard ground outside of our bivvies and when we open our flaps there is nothing there, but I’ve seen hares stamping their feet and muntjac deer stamping their hooves before so this could easily have been something like this.

Keith

 

[S-Kippy]

Sod that ! Anything like that happened to me and I would be gone double sharpish.

 

[no-one in particular]

We moved into a house called Bosun's Cottage once and the Bosun had died previously and for two weeks we heard noises, raps on doors and once the TV had been moved about 3ft obstructing the living room doorway. There was an old bloke lived opposite who walked his dog late every night and we told him about it and he said "Oh don't worry about that, its the old Bosun he doesn't like new comers, he will settle down again; I see him some nights walking up the road and before I get to him he turns and disappears through the wall". Great, we all felt better after that.
My favorite story from the same town is a bus was waved down one night on a deserted bit of road by a woman, she got on and went upstairs; the bus conductor went up to get the fare and no one was there, apparently it was witnessed by other passengers in the downstairs bit. I used to drive along that road a lot at night and always put my foot down going through that bit. I like the land of the living me.

 

[theartist]

Had a good chat with one of the other sea anglers yesterday about this and that as you do and he told me he was fishing off Dungeness point one night on his own which is an eerie place at the best of times. He hadn't caught anything when suddenly this bloke appeared next to him which he thought strange as he didn't hear him walking on the shingle as he approached. This bloke asked him if he had caught anything and then advised of a spot a bit further along the beach where he guaranteed he would catch something within 20 minutes or so, its opposite the lighthouse and there's a gully called the dustbin. So he thought why not and walked with this bloke chatting and got to the spot and cast out. Straight away he caught a fish and turned to thank the bloke and he had completely disappeared, again he hadn't heard him walk off which you do on shingle as it makes a loud crunch sound, just gone the same way he had appeared.
He learned later that an angler had drowned off this spot and was known to "walk" the beach at night.
I know I for one will never fish there at night alone or otherwise! bolex to that for a game of soldiers.

I had the same thing happen to me whilst fishing a tiny river that run into the sea, would say it was the same 'chap' as I was also on a shingle beach, trouble was it was in Norfolk, think those old salty sea dogs are quite light of foot, reckon it's down to all the air in those big white beards and perhaps smoking something light in the old pipe

 

[no-one in particular]

Sod that ! Anything like that happened to me and I would be gone double sharpish.

You need protection-As it happens I have a couple of crates of holy water and crucifixes, only £5 each. I am taking orders.

 

[103841]

I’d just keep a priest close by.

I’ll get my coat.

 

[nottskev]

Never had anything ghostly happen while fishing, despite being out alone at all hours.

For a few weeks, in a house we'd just moved into, a while after everyone was in bed and it had been quiet for a time, we'd hear a bathroom tap running. Not trickling, like it had been inadvertently left on, but gushing, fully open. After this had happened several times, I discussed it with a mate; we both thought it was odd. Don't "ghosts" usually just appear, rather than do anything physical? "Good point, Kev", said friend "Think how strong its little hands must be to turn a tap on." That reassured everyone.

When I lived in north-east Lancashire, I often drove back to Nelson in the early hours from a friend's in Todmorden. Passing through one spot on the moors, I'd sometimes feel unaccountably anxious and afraid, with that feeling that something dreadful was about to happen. It was strong enough to make you check the doors were locked and drive as fast as you dared. It seemed absurd, so I kept quiet about it. Years later I mentioned it to the friend, who said that the area was known for reports of alien abduction.
I never saw any aliens, but there was something in the air.

Fishing in Galway - there's a chain of prolific lakes a couple of miles inland from the Atlantic - I drove up to the next county, Connemara, one morning. My then girlfriend had planned a long walk in the mountains while I fished, and I'd drop her off and pick her up. She had no qualms about this type of things - she'd walked in the Himalayas and in the Pyrenees, and had grown up amongst cavers and pot-holers. She didn't scare easily. We drove to the spot she'd picked as starting point. We both sat in the car for a bit, taking in the most powerful sense of threat and foreboding we'd ever met in a landscape. The place exuded something that made you inexplicably fearful. "Forget it", she said "I'll walk from where you're fishing". Some places just have that power, including some waters, as anglers will tell you. I don't have any logical explanation, but the region was devastated by the famine of 1840's; maybe places are marked by events that happen there?

 

[thecrow]

Only once have I fished a water that gave me that feeling that something wasn't quite right, it was at the bottom of a wooded valley and although we never fished together there a mate that also fished it mentioned to me how he had the same feeling, I only fished there for that season.

Not a ghostly experience but scary all the same, I did a bit of taxi driving in my spare time for a mates firm, I was sent to pick a passenger up from Measham and take him to another town, on a long and very quiet road the passenger who was sitting directly behind me and hadn't spoken a word said "this is a lonely road" I was glad to drop him off at his destination.