On Home turf

On Home Turf.

I really should have wrote this one first as chronologically this is where it all started.

There will be elements of exotic fishing here but it will be mostly about my early years and fishing locally.

Back in the sixties and seventies our normal Sunday afternoon routine was to parcel my grandparents, myself, brother and mother into the car and go for a “run out” as my mum would call it.. Boring as hell I’d call it.. Until my dad bought a fishing rod in woolworths and i a fishing starter kit. 

The next Sunday afternoon was spent fishing on the river Esk near Whitby, a noted salmon and sea trout river, as an uninvited guest of the riparian owners.. I kept wondering why my dad kept looking over his shoulder.. He said he was keeping an eye out for bulls.. I was oblivious.. Fixated on a moving float,suspending  two maggots on a size 16 hook. 

That first day i caught about 6 salmon parr,each around six inches and each perfect that was it.. I was off. 

I would usually start pestering Friday night, as i knew my mum would go into town on Saturdays and pass the local tackle shop from which she would buy sixpence worth of maggots and transport these in a plastic bag sandwiched between half a pound of pease pudding, fresh bread and crumpets and often tripe or rollmop herrings.

I would eagerly await her return, usually just as Big Daddy was about to do over Giant Haystacks, rummage through the bags and if bait was present, my life complete.. If not I’d  go into a massive huff and try to explain to my parents how selfish they were. 

I used to try everything to get fishing, from openly asking the neighbours to take me to threatening to report my parents to child services for putting me through excess hardship by denying me my right to go fishing every Sunday. 

My dad would sometimes use the fact he had no hooks as an excuse not to indulge me. My good friend who lived just round the corner had a dad who also loved fishing. I would brazenly go round and ask for half a dozen hooks, whereupon he would open a cloak room cupboard and reach into an olive bag and show me a many compartmentalised box stuffed with hooks... Oh if only ihad a box of hooks like that.

This i think led to an adult obsession for buying hooks.. I literally have millions.. And little compartment boxes for them to live in.. I keep buying hooks... I bought some today... Word to dads everywhere.. Dont be stingy with the hooks you will mentally scar someone. 

The neighbours, Beryl and Tony, were somehow not allowed to take me fishing, i never did find out why “Fingers Tony” was restricted, as, he always seemed so keen and frequently offered,until one day he just went away and when i asked where he had gone no one would  tell me anything further. 

Our annual holidays were more than often taken in the West Country, Guernsey or Scotland.. All had fishing potential and i ruined many a good holiday for my parents whining on to let me fish off pier, rock, beach, riverbank, wharf, or farmers pond while they did boring stuff like relax and enjoy their only two week break from horrible filthy jobs in the steel works and sugar factory. On odd occasions my dad would accompany me, or even better go out for an hours mackerel fishing off a boat.. A huge adventure and always super productive. I would stare at the beautiful mackerel stripes and colours and wonder at thier silvery sides before they were whisked off me and unceremoniously dumped in a wooden fish box. 

I remember drawing a crowd at padstow harbour trying to get a big mullet take my bread, no i don’t mean a scary hungry hipster from the 80s..a mullet as in rhe fish.. Eventually it slurped down the crust and i hooked up to cheers from the gathering.. The fish was duly landed and many a photo taken.. I felt like a celebrity. I was just about to release the fish when a kind but scruffy looking man offered to release it for me.. In a place where it would not scare away the other fish. I cannot be certain but i am sure he wrapped the fish up in newspaper... Probably to keep it nice and warm.

Things carried on along this vein for a few years until i finally got......a BIKE. The world was now my oyster and with rod strapped to crossbar and a tub of worms nesting next to a squashed egg sandwich, no stretch of water was safe from me.. Private or otherwise. Unfortunately for me my Father had instilled in me from our very first trip that it was acceptable to fish where you like as long as you don’t get spotted.. It was not till i was a little older that i had the joy of experiencing fishing without looking over one shoulder. I think i was about fifty three when this happened. Even when caught its surprising what you can get away with, with a set of blue eyes, a, shaggy blond hair cut and the phrase” I let them all go mister....honest”. Some were kind enough to give me permission to fish insisting that i tell no one and just fish by myself, maybe seeing their younger selves in me or just kind benevolent gentlemen the sort you rarely see these days. 

In this manner i caught many a trout from local rivers and streams, along with chub dace and eels and roach and perch from municipal ponds plus tench from local estate lakes. I even extracted several large goldfish from the ornamental pond in the middle if the shopping centre with a spool of Bayer perlon a split shot and a size twelve.. Funnily enough there were several good perch in there that should not have been.. And a mirror carp... An almost mythical fish, i caught a lot of them too, except for the carp, often to the disdain of passing shoppers who would hurl abuse at me as well as soggy chips and ends of pork pies. I didn’t  give a toss.

This was by no means the least of my forays into urban fishing either, a man on the estate next to ours had a huge koi pond.. Now I’m not saying anything further as memories can last a long time and the owner of the pond had large ears, and a trunk.. The fishing i agree to, but not the theft of his wifes knickers, which she had left on the washing line. 

At school i was the odd boy.. The strange one.. My love for fishing had turned into a social shot in the foot. My preoccupation with catching fish led to a lack of interest in football. So what!! You may say.. Well I’ll tell you what.. Not being a good footballer, not knowing about football and not being interested in football teams was about the worst way to alienate yourself at school in my area at that point in time. 

Even the teachers watched with glee as i was always one of the ones last selected for the teams..i honestly had no interest in it, I didn’t  want to play it and hated being forced to do it. And... if you were seen as a shit footballer you were obviously less of a person. 

It would seem your footballing abilities were the rule to which you were measured. ..such was the mindset at the time and the general mentality of the pupils around me. It was a shame really because inside i always knew that there was nothing wrong in having a love for the outdoors and a sense of adventure. I would dream of lining them up on a river bank, throwing a bag of tackle at them and saying.. Go on then..locate feeding fish.. Tackle up bait the hook, and get catching... Oh.. And no clues from me... 

I have always kept this in the back of my mind and it has given me a great amount of self belief. Later in life, whilst on exotic fishing trips, i would find myself mixing with people from all walks of life, Doctors, TV personalities, lawyers, night club owners, and many millionaires and i never once felt out of my depth with any of them and soon established my place in the team early on. Fishing is a great leveller. 

Mind you when i asked one of the millionaires if i could marry his daughter he started to avoid me for some reason.... 

From ages nine and up to my mid teens mostly all of my fishing alone was done at a weir pool not to far from my house.. It was well within biking distance after school and many a time i would be on the river by 4.30pm escaping shrieks from my mother regarding uneaten beans on toast. 

Saturdays were spent fishing with my dad on a local put and take reservoir for brown and rainbow trout.We both had season permits, and never missed a week for many years. Dad soon morphed from bait fishing to flyfishing and to be fair never looked back. 

Anyway back to my formative years at my favourite weir pool.. 

By about now i had a, pair of uniroyal thigh waders, and so equipped would wade the tail of the pool casting upstream.. Dace were the staple fish with large gudgeon, roach and quite frequently brown trout. Chub were there, but scarce. Eels, were a pest if you fished on the bottom, but i rarely did, preferring the stick float. 

I once hooked a large fish at the tail of this pool, had it on for a while but never got to see a scale of it.. I presumed it  a good sized chub.. Ill never know.. I still think about it... 

By about the time i was fourteen, maybe fifteen i was starting to think about something else. At the very same pool, i was innocently fishing away when three young ladies arrived on their bikes, within a few minutes each had stripped down to bra and knickers and proceeded to bathe right in my swim... I learnt a few things that day: Numero Uno.. Fishing is not everything in life... Just almost everything.. Numero.... Errr two..it is well known all men were not created equal but this also applies to women aswell.. The sight of three lovelies emerging dripping wet, bra and pants transparent, left little to the imagination i wondered if i should go over and introduce myself, the fishing seemed less important now, but i chickened out, replaced the bait and recast. The ride home was an interesting mix of thoughts .... and sexual angst. Back in those days you could go blind by having mucky thoughts or worse, not like today. 

Having not gone blind, but with the addition of glasses i passed my driving test at seventeen and from then on i was my own boss... I had a little job in a shop that paid for my petrol and the odd bag of chips and a ten year old ford escort van. 

Working at the shop i had to put up with allsorts of nonsense. The owners wife would often drop by with their toddler son. Poor kid had a slight speech impedement and when asked what he would like for lunch, would often reply "Tits". 

No he didn't have tourettes either.. But was not afraid to request chips at the top of his voice "A wont thum tits!!! Tits mam... Tits, a wont thum tits." 

I don't know how i kept it in..glad it didnt last long.. Soon however he developed a liking for currants, the results were disastrous.

Tits are one thing.. Or possibly two.. But an infant pestering his mother for" thum c*nts.." is, still one off the most hilarious things ive ever heard. 

Anyway. 

Now i could fish further afield and try for species i was unfamiliar with. The first two to knock off were carp and pike. 

Once i had located waters holding these species i managed to catch my fair share. 

Up to and during this time i was also spending quite a lot of time stillwater fly fishing.. Mostly with my dad at weekends. 

Father and i joined a fly fishing club that had access to a weekly stocked reservoir. I fished this for many years with him, he fished it on the day he died.. Great way to go. 

I was, also becoming a, fairly passable flydresser, something that has served me well all my life and i still enjoy immensely today.. Whether it be massive pike flies or tiny olives or nymphs. 

When i went trout fishing initially it was all about catching fish.. As, many as, i could. When i was a boy i was often apt to bend the rules to make up for my lack of skill, as, i grew older this, changed. 

As i matured the penny finally dropped that any old fool can catch fish on a good day or by bending the rules..this a good angler does not make. It became much more important to me to catch the fish under the correct circumstances than catch any fish at all. The blank days that followed taught me more in a year than i had learned in the last ten. I am glad to say this transition made me the angler i am today.. I’m much happier as a fisherman knowing that i have bested the fish under the most stringent circumstances possible. 

Now i always try for the most sporting option, im not saying this to be holier than thou.. Far from it.. But wish to convey that catching a fish against the odds, is worth much more than hundreds of easy fish to me now plus the fact that pulling fish out one after another doesnt teach you anything. Many of my most memorable fish have not necessarily been the biggest or strongest, but the ones i really had to work to catch. 

I fell in love with my local river again, this time flyfishing it. I spent four years on this water before i felt i had got the best of it.. I caught some super trout and made a lot of fabulous memories. I also, hung up my seven weight rods for good, i have never used them since, preffering to use three, four and five weights now for everything. Even large reservoir work. 

Sometimes fish just want small flies.. If you tie a size eighteen spider on to an eight pound leader attached to a seven weight rod the hook will straighten on the strike.. If you go lower on the leader you will snap off.. With a four weight i can strike into a fish confidently knowing my tackle is well balanced and presented gently.Even using tiny flies

What about fishing lures you ask.. Never felt the need to use them i reply.. 

This, may sound snobby.. Its not meant to, just the way i have elected to fish.. My dad was a first and foremost lure fisherman and caught tons of fish and enjoyed everyone of them.I have nothing against using a  lure if i thought that was what the fish wanted.

Enough on fishing ethics.. In my early twenties, my brother and i were fortunate to secure a date with a pair of young ladies and decided to take them fishing. Rebecca and Claire they were, but went under the handles of :whacky baccy buck back beccy and pubic Claire. 

I know.. The mind boggles. While my brother was, sampling the whacky baccy part of buck back Beccy in the van, i sidled up to Claire and asked her how, she got her nickname. She said her real name, was, Claire Public but once missed the L off her surname at school and the teacher asked for Claire Pubic.. Since then she had been pubic Claire..... That and the fact she had the hairiest bush in year nine. She also had massive tits.

We did not catch many fish that day. Jon my brother was too stoned and i had my hands full.. If you know what mean. 

Beccy and Claire never went back out with us, which in my mind just goes to show that you can’t  be good with women and be a great angler..

I was lucky enough to have a few girlfriends and tried to introduce them to fishing, with limited success I’ll add.. A two centre holiday to florida in rhe 80s consisted of one week of pestering the worlds most famous mouse, the other waist deep on st petersberg beach with a Styrofoam cup of prawns stuffed down my shorts whilst the girlfriend was still in the land of nod. 

I had some good results right in front of the hotel and even managed not to get attacked by any sharks.. Catching several species, some big sea catfish and my favorite  the ladyfish... This is classed as an American trash fish but i found them excellent sport often tearing off on runs and leaping out of the water and generally testing my ten dollar fishing rod from Walmart to the limit. 

Just about every holiday to the west country has included a charter trip and im sorry to say the majority of my lady friends and i include my current wife here,have given me a good pasting, catching more and bigger fish than me. 

.. There is no justice. Unless you count seas sickness.. My wife will drink 2 bottles of wine the night before a boat trip(this is a reduction from the four she usually has) eat a big smelly breakfast and then brave any sea.. Whilst i wake up half dead, start getting queasy 6 miles from the seaside and then spend the next 4 hours with my head over the side.. Wishing i was dead.. 

I put my delicate stomach down to my good breeding, that and being the runt of the litter.

She then proceeds to haul up fish after quality fish, whilst i haul up over the side. 

On an early trip to Newquay, my girlfriend and I were camping and brought a nice cod back to the tent, caught by Judith I'll add, and not having cooking facilities made a gift of it to our neighbours in a caravan. 

I asked them later on how it was and they politely inquired about my sunburn saying that they had been hearing moans and groans from the tent for the last few nights and presumed i was suffering. 

At round about this time i developed the other great interest in my life.. Surfing.. This possesed me for the next ten to twenty years and is a book all in it's self, however this is about fishing and although surfing was important to me.. Fishing is and always will be at the core. 

 This is a great time to take a break for whilst travelling the world looking for waves.. I soon started to think about fishing further afield.........