Some pictures by Chris Bishop but the majority by Andy Pearson from fenland fishing and previous globe trotting adventures
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“I guess you could say this is going to be home for the next year,” says Andy Pearson, patting the giant Hutchy rucksack which is going to accompany him on the fishing trip to end all fishing trips.
After years of dreaming, months of planning and weeks of packing and unpacking, he’s literally about to fish his way around the world. Andy’s no stranger to fishing via long-haul flights, having already wet a line in more countries than you can shake a stick at.
Now it’s time for the big one. That means pack in work, rent the house out, buy a £ 1200 round the world ticket, stick everything you can carry in a rucker and head for Heathrow. From there it’s Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Pacific Islands, then the US from California through deepest Texas and the deep south, and finally onto finish off in Florida.
“It was Tight Lines, the old ABU catalogue that got me started,” said Andy, now 36. “I got one from Lathams of Potter Heigham when I was on a boating holiday in the broads with my parents in about 1976 or 78, when I was eight or 10 years old,” he said. “That was what got me interested in the foreign fishing side of things, it stuck in my mind forever.
“It had a report on how the winners of their Gold Award Competition for the previous year had won the prize of a trip to the Florida Keys. “They caught huge tarpon, psychopathic barracuda and kingfish, amberjack from the wrecks and reefs and leaping bluewater sailfish. “All this in tropical sunshine. Even though I was only eight at the time, it made a huge impression on me, being accustomed to catching 12 roach on an average Sunday morning down the local drain.
“I remember a 3lb tench had me in a daze for a week and for years somewhere inside I always had the desire to go and have a bit of the action myself.” Andy grew up fishing the Lincolnshire Fens, where the fishing generally consists of drains, drains and more drains, and the weather generally drizzles for much of the year – unless it rains. But while many of us see our fishing ambitions disappear once wives, kids and mortgages appear on the scene, Andy stayed single and his feet never stopped itching.
In 1991, the young lad who’d been blown away by pictures in the ABU catalogue 15 years earlier finally realised his ambition. “I went with Watto, John Watson,” he said. “I knew he’d been over there so I wrote to him, then we started talking on the phone, then he said: ‘Look lad, don’t go for a week. Go for three and I’ll come.” The Keys were all an eight-year-old could have dreamed of and more as far as the fishing went, with tarpon, bonefish, permit and snook that fought like demons.
What the grown-up version never imagined was how blue water fishing would change his life forever. “Little did I know how much it would both enhance my fishing, and at the risk of sounding melodramatic, how much it would change my outlook on everything,” he said.
“In fact, the three weeks spent driving up and down the Keys and the Atlantic coast of Florida with Watto, staying in the cheapest motels available, were really a pivotal time in life. The first week it was bloody hot, but the fishing was great, the second week acclimatisation had been achieved to some extent, but the fishing was even hotter.
“By the third week, the tan was looking great, the fishing was as hot as the weather – as were the food, the weather and the beaches. “Even after brushes with roaches and scorpions in the room and the district attorney after a night out on the town, I was working out in my head how I could wrangle a way to stay even longer.”
Even as a single bloke, the cost of a decent trip took two years to save for. And that meant work, a vicious circle that means your jet-setting time’s at a premium even when you can afford it – even more so if you fall into the trap of going self-employed to spend more time fishing.
Trips to Egypt, Gambia, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mexico, India and Canada followed. Andy shrugs off his abilities when it comes to words and pictures, but his adventures to date are documented on his website www.gulliblestravels.co.uk.
Suns set over tropical paradises as huge fish turn even a seasoned adventurer’s knees to jelly. Fish you’ve never heard of, like cassava, captainfish, thick lipped grunts, and sompot. Then there are the ones which fall to the Fen piker’s trusted free-roaming livebaits and then try to eat their way out of your weigh sling.
Just one of the highlights so far is Zambia, where Andy and his mate Steve Younger had big Tigerfish and Vundu Catfish pull their arms off for a week or two. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a piking trip in the Fens a few weeks later wasn’t quite in the same league.
“We’d come from 40 degrees and it was minus four,” Andy said. “We had a few then Steve had a scraper 20. It didn’t fight at all, he just reeled it in and it came along the top like a surfboard. “We looked at each other and went: ‘Err, great being back here isn’t it – not.”
For all the fishing we have over here, there are obvious drawbacks. The weather’s pants and no freshwater fish the average angler stands a reasonable chance at goes much over 40lbs for starters. Back in the deepest Fens it’s a glorious day and I’ve got to scratch my head hard to remember the last time I caught anything over 4lbs. Not today, Hose.
Andy’s not bothered. The rucker’s already sorted. Shimano Exage and TFG Journeyman travel rods will be strapped to the sides in their tubes, while inside are lures, end tackle for everything from sharks downwards, TLD, Baitrunners and a Calcutta multiplier, butt pad, first aid kit, sleeping bag, hammock and cameras. “Oh and there’ll be room for a clean T-shirt and a couple of pairs of underpants,” he adds.
Some of the time, he plans to stay in hostels. The rest he hopes to camp by the water. Either way, Andy’s out of here in a week or two. Lucky bastard. * Read about Andy’s adventures and check out the pictures on www.gulliblestravels.co.uk.
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