Memoirs of an Angler of No Importance Part 11

THOSE WERE THE DAYS – DACE AND MUD ON THE TIDAL TEES!

It was still dark when my father turned off Yarm High St, and drove under the arches of the viaduct to try and find a parking space. Fortunately there was one, near to the towns little Trumpton-esque fire station with its one fire engine tucked neatly inside. Out of the car window I could see the grass verges sparkling with a heavy frost, it was now I wished we’d not had the car heater up so high, leaving our little tropical capsule for this frozen world didn’t seem all that appealing. However this was no time for faint hearts, it may still have been dark, but we were a good twenty minutes later than we’d planned, it would be touch and go if we’d get swims. Opening the doors we took the plunge, grabbing our coats, wellies, and tackle out of the boot in double quick time we hurried off down by the side of the fire station to the riverside path.

Once there our fears were confirmed, plenty of anglers were already setting up. We might not yet be able to see them in the gloom, but their presence was given away by those familiar sounds, rods being removed from their bags, the bang of a seatbox lid, the unmistakable pop of an opening bait tin, and the clatter of a shot dispenser being dropped from cold numb fingers, and the oaths that naturally followed.

In the days before the barrage was installed, and the lower Tees was still tidal, winter fishing above all else meant the free town stretch at Yarm. The trouble was the stretch isn’t very long so competition for space was keen, and scenarios as described above happened to me on a regular basis. Yarm is a nice market town with a wide high street, and nearly as many pubs as shops. It’s built in a loop of the River Tees, there’s a wonderful railway viaduct that spans the whole town over the river and its valley, standing by that is a medieval bridge. While the town may be pretty the river in those days wasn’t, the substantial tide drop left a big muddy tidemark. There was also (again thankfully not anymore) an outlet pipe from the chrome works at Urly Nook, and it sounds like such a whimsical name, funny how names can be deceptive. This pipe used to cascade greenish yellowy steaming water straight into the river. It looked for all the world like gallons and gallons of, well I’ll leave it up to your imagination what it looked like.

Despite the lack of aesthetic beauty, and the influx of dodgy effluent the river at Yarm fished really well in the winter, it might have fished well in the summer but I don’t think many tried it. The one fish above all others synonymous with Yarm was the dace; big shoals would drop back into the deep tidal water at the onset of the cold weather. There was also a few chub, roach, and gudgeon, not to mention the saviour of many a winter league blank, the flounder. These flatties were usually only postage stamp size up to perhaps palm size, however I did hear of one being weighed in at 1lb 13oz, a ‘good un’ in anyone’s book. Now and again you might even come across the odd trout, and lets face it they must have been odd, considering farther up stream there’s miles of clear fast streamy water ideal for the old spotties. What these individuals were doing in this murky tidal water I never knew, perhaps they were lost, or deranged, or maybe both.

If dace were the fish that epitomised the venue, then the tactic that went hand in hand with them was the stick float, at least when the tide wasn’t running too hard. Although the Tees Barrage has changed the nature of the tidal river, and increased the quality and diversity of the fishing (I caught my first decent pike from Yarm, something that would have been unthinkable in the tidal days) I can’t help but feel a little nostalgic as I write this. Those winter mornings following the tide down the muddy banks, feeling the anticipation as the small dome top I was watching so intensely trundled towards the end of the swim, the bite zone. At this point the intensity was so strong it seemed I could almost predict the bite, there were times when I’d strike and feel the jagging of a big plump dace before my brain had even registered the dip of the float.

It was a very dirty pleasure, the mud was not only thick it was greedy, reluctant to let go of your boot, and trying its utmost to suck them from your feet. This was particularly bad for me in my young days, days before I had proper waders, only standard wellies. Quite often I’d take a step only to leave a boot behind, leaving me stranded, standing on one leg like some moronic stork trying desperately to get my foot back into my stricken welly. A delicate and fraught manoeuvre this to say the least, to lose my balance and fall head first into the gook didn’t bear thinking of, for a start I know I’d have had to walk home. It was also advisable to keep one eye down on your feet while stood fishing, just in case you’d sunk out of your depth. The trick was, as I found out later to carry a plywood board about eighteen inches square to place on the mud to stand on. This acted in the same way as a snowshoe spreading your weight over a larger area, and stopping you sinking too deep. It worked really well, however it was hell to prise up again when you’d finished.

I wish I’d known about this before I lost a pair of almost new waders, not on the free stretch but a little downstream. I’d been happily watching my float run through, and even catching, but forgetting to check my feet. When I did look down the mud that had been round my ankles, was now past my knees. No matter how much I pulled the boots would not move. What made the situation worse was the tide had changed, and was on the way in. One last frantic pull bought my foot up the leg of wader, and with a satisfied slurp the mud closed in, pushing the boot flat, leaving no chance of getting my foot back in, and nothing to do but climb out altogether and abandon the waders to the rising waters. I know it’s said mud is good for the complexion, but when it’s coming through your socks, and oozing between your toes on a cold winters day it’s hard to see the funny side. Fortunately, very fortunately the guy fishing next to me had a spare pair of waders and boot socks in his car, which he was kind enough to lend to me to see the day out. However, the walk back to the car took me through a hawthorn thicket, and if the cactus spikes in the Wild West are anything like those I walked on, I now know why the Indians make that noise in the old cowboy films.

I can only wonder if in the future some next millennium Tony Robinson and a bunch of archaeologists might just dig up my old waders, and perhaps wonder what happened to the rest of me. They might just put it down to some ancient offering to Peg Powler the supposed spirit of the Tees.

Of course it’s not just my old wellies that have been consigned to history. With the coming of the barrage splodging through the mud is only a memory. Robbed of their fast flow the dace have by and large moved up away from the old tidal reaches. While visiting flounders now find their way blocked. Even the old Fire Station fell to the modern fixation for budget cuts and centralisation; it’s now just a house. The river though is cleaner, and the Yarm town free stretch still popular, except that in the occasion of extra water the river is at much of a standstill, and stick floats will rarely be seen.

A little while ago I read in one of the angling weeklies that a well-known ‘Devils Advocate’ (and that’s being polite) claimed stick float fishing wasn’t an art. Well it may not be rocket science, but it is something of an acquired skill, and in these days where we seem obsessed with bottom fishing (me included) I’m glad that in my formative years I had the chance to learn this discipline, and many others.