My next campaign was to be Fletchers; a lovely water situated on the Shire outskirts, a 17-acre motorway extraction pit, full of weed and with a good few decent carp in habitation. Fletchers also had an island, an unusually tall island that had been left from the extraction period. In fact, at one point in its history, celebrity engineer Fred Dibner had actually dynamited this monstrosity in a bid to give the place a more aesthetic appearance. However, the water was on a day ticket basis and the controlling club’s headman was a friend from over thirty years ago, to whom I sat on the mighty Greenall Whitney committee. Albert Morris was his name and, on deciding to launce a campaign, my first job was to take Albert to his local, ply him with ale and get as much information about Fletchers as I possibly could. Albert was an absolute godsend and gave me detailed stocking records, a recordable history and a very detailed contour map. Armed with Albert’s information, and in view of the size of the water and the population size of its occupants, I decided I would have to tackle Fletchers with an army of men. I called a secret meeting of the Brotherhood at the time honoured Ring O Bells, showed them the research and we make our plans. I called for volunteers from Unit A, The Boggarts Clough Division, along with Brothers from Unit B, the Haunting Brow Troopers, with the addition of the Popes Park Unit, and together we planned our assault on Fletchers. The fateful Friday arrived and I managed to assemble some of the finest Time Bandits in the Shire, all committed Brotherhood droogs. The detail consisted of Boggart Mike, (top gun on the Clough), Fordy, Jace the Ace, The Hippy, Fat Gary (top gun on the Swan), Frog John, Polish John, Gayboy Lee, Doyley, South African Gary, Gut Bucket, Tom and Jonah, Ming, the Boggart Bivvy Butler and Young Toddy; in fact there was about sixteen of us in all. We set up camp, sixteen bivvies in line on the platform bank, marker floats out. This was the start of a great campaign, the infamous Battle of 92. I walked slowly up the hill and held my arm up proudly, ready to give the signal for the first cast. On dropping my arm, 16x 3oz leads whooshed out towards the distant horizon. That first night was a bit slow, although some of the Droogs picked up a few tench and the odd small carp, but as the months progressed, so our results improved and at certain periods in the campaign we were absolutely caning them. The lads took plenty of carp, Boggart Mike took two twenties in one night, Gutbucket took another, lots of grass carp came out and Jace the Ace took a 4lb eel, and just about everyone took bream to 7lb and tench to six pounds. I did, however, fail to catch a twenty and only managed carp to 16lbs. At the time of fishing, the pit only held about four twenties, although now it holds many more with two touching the thirty pound mark. A group of local droogs were well established on the water, and had been having great success. Obviously they were not impressed by our arrival, and I think one of their main concerns was me. At the time I was writing a rather abstract series for Carp World, the infamous “Tales From The Shire”, in which I lay mention to my exploits on certain Shire waters. This was coded in a Tolkenistic jargon which was only recognisable by the true Shire folk. However I laid mention to Badlands, Summer House, Haunting Brow, The Mersey Valley, Queenswood and Wild Boar Cleft and I suspect they thought I may mention Fletchers Valley (the names have been changed to protect the innocent of course). As time went on, however, they did become a little more user-friendly. Top gun on Fletchers was Tudge, an angler who I had a lot of respect for. Tudge commanded a detail of about five Swintonites and I must confess to taking a liking to Sonny and Del-Ken. After the first year or so, most of my detail had pulled off Fletchers and occasionally I fished up there with Taxi Paul and Eddie the Eagle. On one short weekend trip however, I took number one son, who was only a little tidgy guy in those days. I set him up for carp with one rod and a 3oz bombed bolt rig, and got him to cast out slightly to the left of my battalion of rods, instructing him to leave it there. Amazingly, by the morning, number one son’s line had mysteriously crossed all four of my rods. On questioning the little fellow he simply stated that the current must have moved it……. It was a while before I took him out again. I had a lot of long lonely sessions on Fletchers and continued to fish there for over two years. Fletchers, at one stage, had a problem with cars being broken into. To alleviate the problem, we took it in turns to sit in cars armed with a lump hammer and the problem was soon solved. One of the main problems at Fletchers was actually getting your gear down by the side of the water – indeed if fishing the overflow bank you would often have to walk a mile with all your gear. It was a case of driving the car down to the visitor’s centre, unloading your gear, getting someone to watch over it, and then finding a friendly neighbour on the estate where you could park up for the week. I got friendly with an elderly couple that used to allow me to leave my car in their driveway while I went off into the Valley for a session. In return I photographed their grandchildren for them. Fletchers also contained some nice pike, with one going up to the mid-thirty mark. In fact on one of my visits none other than Gordon Burton was on the bank trying to track it down. The Salford Mafia would also move in towards the backend, John Ferguson and Frank Mathews. Fergy took a few nice twenties and even appeared in The Sun with one, page three an all. Late summer brought down the Bolton Bream anglers, some of the bream in here were donkeys, big black old things, terrific sport, while Albert also arranged the odd match, which often produced some huge perch. Top gun Tudge banked a 15lb grass carp, a lovely fish, and another one of thirty-nine which Albert had stocked the water with a number of years earlier. Problems, however, arose in the camp when Jace the Ace borrowed Boggart Mike’s bedchair to entertain a young lady he had pulled while walking her dog. Somehow in the night Jace managed to break Boggarts bedchair, and all hell broke loose the following day. The bailiffs down at Fletchers were great, and despite not being carp anglers at the time we managed to convert young Colin. Albert shown us great courtesy and on some occasions pegged the matches out around us. We did our bit of course and would often elect Brothers to got round with a bin bag and do a clean up job after the noddies had left. This was done by democratic vote and usually resulted in the Boggart Bivvy Butler taking on the job. Fletcher was a very weedy water and you usually had to work hard to find fishable areas and clear spots, although we did on occasion take fish directly from the weed using PVA covered hooks to fall through the stuff. The weed in places was quite high and the clear spots would often be covered as the wind changed direction. I made notes of every location were the Brothers had caught fish, and this in time formed a pattern to the most likely areas and conditions. I have always kept detailed diaries, and as anyone who knows who keeps such things, they do help. The fish also appeared to move on the wind, so you had to be mobile to some extent. By the start of my second year, many of the Brothers had moved off the lake and back onto their habitual waters. Although a few time bandits did stick it out. Much of the time, however, I was left to fish alone, especially in the winter when I would fish for quite a number of week sessions, sadly, often without results. In fact my diary was looking pretty grim and my lifestyle was changing, so I eventually had to pull off Fletchers and go and earn a few pennies. Shortly after I pulled off Fletchers, Brother ‘Fat Gary’ took up residency and absolutely crippled the place. I think over the next few years Gary must have caught every fish in the pit. Gary was a carp fishing time bandit and had just had a bit of additional luck in that his wife threw him out prior to starting his campaign. So the field was his. I enjoyed my stay on Fletchers and these were indeed great days. Long live the Brotherhood! |
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