I would like to say that as a youngster my fishing was inspired by the great writers like Richard Walker and Bernard Venables, however it would be a lie. This wasn’t a conscious snub, it was simply due to having no angling heritage, I simply didn’t know they existed. Books were bought on the subject of course, but in a very random fashion so much so I can’t really remember any of them, save one. Ironically this was a Crabtree-esque cartoon strip book, and it was by far my favourite, even if it didn’t have the enduring charm of its illustrious predecessor. Unfortunately it wasn’t built to last, being long and thin with pulp pages and a soft cover it was doomed to disintegration. I suppose cartoons are appealing to the young, they were to me at any rate, normally in the ‘Wizzer & Chips’ or ‘Beano’ but a fishing cartoon was even better. While it lasted that book was my escape to another idealised world, a world where success was guaranteed, and usually in less than three frames.

MY LOVE OF RIVERS

I love rivers; each one has its own personality. I know you can say stillwaters are all individual, but to me they lack the schizophrenic mood swing of running water. You really have to get to know a river, and the river I’ve got to know best over the years is the Tees. It’s not that I know everything about it, far from it, but we do have a certain rapport. However, since the Tees Barrage was built in the 90’s I’ve had to come to terms with a new personality on the lower river from when I was a lad.

I love rivers at any time of the season, but I think they are at their most beautiful in September into early October. The whole river smells ripe, and lazy late bees dusted white with pollen visit the last remaining bright pink flowers of the Himalayan Balsam. Most of the flowers have long gone to seed and are now swollen bomb pods hanging on a hair trigger, just the slightest touch sending a shower of shrapnel seeds flying in all directions. Sunbeams cut sharp to dapple the water through air thick not just with early autumn haze, but also tangible melancholy. The world knows summer’s gone, and in a few short weeks the first frosts will start to bring down the leaves, and flatten the balsam as if it had been scythed. This thought only goes to makes these last golden days even more precious.

As much as I love rivers now my courtship with them was far from smooth, in fact it wasn’t a courtship at all, more of a blind date. My father and I had fallen into the understandable, if not inevitable, trap that catches many relatively new starters. This is after numerous failures finding a venue where we were almost guaranteed a bite; therefore we’d fish it exclusively. This venue was Hutton Rudby ponds, but there comes a time when you want to spread your wings. With this in mind we joined Stockton AC who affiliated to Teesside Association of Anglers and control many miles of fishing on the Tees.

‘The Place’

The change was going to be something of a culture shock, which could have been lessened if some reading and research had been done on the subject, but it hadn’t. So when we pulled up at the village green at Low Worsall on a grey November morning before our long walk down to where dad’s mates had assured him was ‘the place’.

It had been something of a daunting decision to go in the first place; even on the drive there when we reached the Kirklevington roundabout the urge to turn left to Hutton Rudby was great. Even though it was November there would still be a few greedy perch willing to have a go. As it happened our metal held, and we went straight on to Worsall.

Totally clueless we were doomed before we had begun. The little investigation I mentioned would have told us that the river carrying four foot of extra dirty water wasn’t its normal condition. It would have also told us that casting a cane-stemmed bodied waggler at it was by far from the best tactic on the day. It’s not that we mind blanking, after all we’d done quite a bit of that in the past. However, blanking when you know you’re totally out of your depth is different, when you can’t control your tackle, which is totally inadequate for the job leads to a certain kind of hopelessness, and doesn’t want to make you return in a hurry. It wasn’t long before my whinging started, “I told you we should have gone to the ponds.” Dad’s response was non-committal, but in his heart he probably felt the same. Fortunately he was made of sterner stuff, and he was determined to get a handle on the running water lark.

His perseverance paid off, and as we got more familiar with it Worsall was added to the small but growing list of venues.

The nature of the river

Low Worsall lies at what was then the top of the tidal stretch of the Tees; the tide lift wasn’t great, therefore there was no unsightly inter-tide mud, the vegetation being able to withstand the twice daily dowsing. This gave the place a much more picturesque look than farther downstream at, say, Yarm. The small tide lift also made it kinder to fish, but the change of flow was still keenly anticipated, as it would often trigger a feeding spell. The flow would slow to a standstill, and then slowly creep the other direction. The whole nature of the river would change; the water would become darker and more mysterious, it even seemed to change consistency, looking somehow thicker and glutinous like molasses.

By now I was totally independent of my dads supervision, which meant I could go off and do my own thing. The thing I liked doing best during the first summer we got to grips with the river was fish at the end of a natural jetty that had been formed when winter floods deposited a large tree trunk at a right angle to the bank. The accumulation of sandy silt around the trunk made it possible at low tide to walk out a good third of the way across the river. There I’d sit and fish in the little depression hollowed out by the flow as it curled round the end of the promontory. As a small boy I was in heaven, just under my rod tip I could get a gudgeon a chuck. The fact that my new vantage point put me much closer to the chub that inhabited the far bank willows escaped me, some may consider this to be unimaginative, or a lack of ambition, but I called it contentment. The tree was only a temporary visitor though, and the next winter floods continued its journey towards the North Sea.

My own creel at last

My newfound independence had been marked that Christmas when I most gratefully received my own creel, the old-fashioned wicker type. It was so big, or rather I was so small I could have climbed inside it and closed the lid. Being my own angler was great for my self-esteem, but it did have its problems. The main problem being one of simple logistics; it’s all very well having your own gear, but you have to carry it, and Worsall was quite a hike. Long before we reached our destination I’d started to wobble, but any offer of help from my dad was always firmly rejected – even though the creel strap was cutting off the blood flow to my head – after all it was a matter of pride.

The return trip was of course even worse being mainly uphill and, without the incentive of the fishing at the end of it, seeing as most of our summer visits were on our usual Friday evening trip the only incentive being home, bath and bed. We did have the tradition of stopping on our return to admire the view from the top of the floodbank in the gathering gloom before our assault up the hill to the village green. It was one of the most evocative views I can remember, where the river ran over the gravel shallows, its molten silver surface was dimpled from bank to bank with topping dace (‘raining dace’ was our term for it) and the whole scene was made perfect if a low summer moon was hanging transparent in the pearly sky.

If there was one thing that did slightly break the spell, that was the farmer on the far bank shouting in his horse. Every Friday night without fail, and every other night I suppose he would come out to shout in a big white, (or should that be grey) horse by the name of Betty, which always seemed totally oblivious. I’m not surprised the poor animal was confused when you consider the shout went “Come on Betty, come on Betty, come on son.” Funny how things like that stick in your mind. The last part of the walk up the hill certainly sticks in my mind, with every step that creel got heavier. By the time we reached the car I was really flagging, and the relief when I finally took it off was enough to make me take a few steps backwards.

Of course as I grew older the ordeal became more tolerable, and the creel stayed with me for many years, well into the advent of the fibreglass seat box. It had left its unique crinkly imprint on many a bankside before it finally gave out. I had wanted to set it ablaze and float it down the river, Viking funeral style, but the bin men got their hands on it first – somehow I don’t think being crushed in the back of a British Leyland dustbin cart was a fitting end for such a loyal companion.

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