There he was. As usual. In Gilligan’s Gully. The swim where he had been every Friday from early evening ’til Sunday at dusk since I joined the club seven years ago. That’s about 50 hours in anyone’s currency – or a staggering 2,600 hours a year as it’s a non-close seasoned club, more’s the pity.
Religious in his ways. Two matching rods, one out to the lilies (or dying lilies autumn onwards) and one down the margin, and three rods after October 1st (Rule 7, subsection 21a applies). Two ounce leads, semi fixed bolt rigs. One with fruit flavoured pop up, the other with a fishmeal bollie bottom bait. Lead core leaders until they were banned. Spod rod leaning in the bush next to his Big Dome Bivvy for a prolonged campaign three times a day.
Last year he had a great season – this is no run’s water – so his six fish, including Bugsy, Split Tail, Cut Dorsal, the Big Black Mirror at a new top weight put him on the leader board. Six fish. 2,600 hours. Work that one out.
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The footpath |
But he’s happy, enjoys his outdoor weekend life and has two currys and a Chinese delivered to the gate. Washed down with a few large Peronas, a case of lager and a few mugs of piping hot tea. And he doesn’t miss out after his daily lay-in either – two big Cumberlands, a fine brace of eggs, sunny side up and the wonderful waft of four rashers almost pervades the gentle lakeside breeze.
Now, don’t get me wrong, while this might not be my kind of fishing, it is the fishing of the masses in a carp-obsessed society.
And ‘he’ helps keep my club going, he helps keep your club alive and he most certainly helps keep the angling trade alive. Fishing is big business; indeed I am told it is a three billion pounds business. That’s not my figure and I have not checked it out – and I’m sure some Fishing Magic web site forum participant will comment if that ’s wildly inaccurate.
But suffice to say he is the future of fishing as we know it in the UK. I don’t mind of course as he and me are chalk and cheese – me a rivery sort of chap with my cane and pins, traditional floats, maggots, dendras and breadflake. And I’m happy in the knowledge I wont meet him on my river banks.
Now, don’t get me wrong, he’s actually a lovely chap – unless he’s had a skin full then he does tend to want to throw his two ounces about, and especially to the far bank lilies, right under the rod top of Geoff who’s also a session boy and usually in the opposite swim on the canal bank.
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Bugsy |
Though you would never know he’s there, as his entire kit is in camo – he’s even had his face and entire upper torso tattooed in cam, just in case it gets a bit warm come July…
“Tw*t, look at him, thinks he owns the place,” shouts Geoff, feeling rather indignant about the lead that’s fallen just in front of his feet in the margin. “Shouldn’t be allowed, but ’appens every bloody week.”
Wearing the hat of diplomacy, I wander off to have a word with him – and there was I only having a quiet walk round the lake of a Friday evening after stopping off at the clubhouse for a cuppa and a chat with the bailiffs on the way home from work.
“Do you know about the half -way rule?” I enquired when I reached the corner tree-lined swim that is Gilligan’s Gully, with it’s slight jutting-out features that makes it easy to fish to the left margin, or the right quite easily, as well as out to the pads or into its namesake – the gulley. It’s probably heavily silted by now but I guess it was there from the day the digger excavated the contents of the gravel rich vein beneath it some 100 years ago.
“Half- way? A rule? Oh, that!” says he, “No one takes any notice of that.”
“Oh, yes they do,” says I, “and if they don’t they get their club card clipped.” Two hole punches through the card and they lose their club ticket.
“Excuse me then, I’ll just wind in and fish that rod down the marginal shelf, ” he quips, confessing that he already has one hole in his cub card and he wishes to stay the right side of the committee. He’s only a young chap, but he’s been a club member for about 12 years so should know better. Some people just push it to the limits.
The half-way rule by the way, applies whenever another angler is fishing opposite. Put simply, you don’t cross the theoretical half way line in the lake, unless you can comfortably fish behind a set of pads that the other angler cannot possibly reach or fish to. It’s a simple rule and it works; it just takes a little education of the long stay boys in the main who can be a bit crafty when it comes to tactics.
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Gilligan’s Gully |
I caught his mate three weeks ago using tigers – and we don’t allow nuts or pulses. Plenty of reasoning behind that, but I won’t go into it now.
‘Oh, before you go, Gazza, have a look at these – the very latest techno-buzzers and what do you think of my new six season sleeping bag.
“Six seasons? But aren’t there only four seasons in a year?”
‘Oh yes, but the material they used for this is very special.. in the summer it acts as a cool, but warming layer …(whatever that means)… but also breathes to keep air circulating. So that’s two seasons and it does the same again in winter. So that’s four – then add spring and autumn and you have six..”
Isn’t there a well known saying, not necessarily in the country’s tackle shops, but certainly in my mind – that all this new fangled tackle that comes onto the market every week, and is tried and tested, or field tested, in Angling Times or Angler’s Mail by the famous expert anglers is designed more to catch anglers than fish!
Especially since a rod or reel endorsed time after time by the greats of our sport and pastime, and especially in print in weekly columns, suddenly becomes the second best thing since sliced bread when said writer moves his endorsement to another tackle company.
Anyway back to Gilligan’s Gully, so named after the chap the record books say caught the club’s first twenty pounder, in the days when a 20 was a huge fish – it still is to me, especially as I have still to catch a twenty, but there’s no hurry. It was caught on an Old James MKIV and a piece of honey impregnated crust off the surface near the lily pads in the summer of 66 – a week after Bobby Moore lifted the Jules Rimet trophy (sorry lads, you have to over 40, to know what I’m talking about). What a fortnight that was.
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Now, don’t get me wrong, while this might not be my kind of fishing, it is the fishing of the masses in a carp-obsessed society. |
“Have you had many fish recently Gazza?”
“Oh, a few modest roach from the Colne, some grayling from the Test, and near six pound chub from the Lea, and a clonking Gudgeon from the Gade”.
He laughed.
“Well have a look at these “
He showed me 100 pictures of his six fish – head first, both flanks, across the back, on the unhooking mat, in the weigh sling, being lovingly slid back….makes you wonder just how long these fish were out of water.
“That’s The Plod at 28 six, Crack Fin at 29 three, Buster at 24 nine, Back Bone at 24 one – a new lake record for that fish – Three Tone at 28 eight……. (no, it’s not a take off of that huge Kentish fish – or is it a fish of Kent? Well I guess it depends on what side of the Medway it was caught?) It’s more a case that the first three anglers to knowingly catch it were called Tony, and it was the third of these Anthony’s who decided it should be named.
I caught a bream once I called Keith, but he looked so much like his brothers I couldn’t really tell the difference when half the shoal graced my net one evening. So I dropped the name and hoped Keith did not mind.
But why is it that it’s only carp and more recently barbel that have been christened? What’s wrong with the other species that they don’t have names? You could certainly re-recognise some of the tench on my club waters – but have you ever caught Terry? Or that large battle scared still water two pound roach that gets caught once a season. Roger Redfin?
No you haven’t. Can anyone answer that one for me – it’s been keeping me awake at night since Christmas?
Gary Cullum
