The disgraceful pollution of our waterways continues with full permission of the authorities and one company at least is now so  blatant it actually published its polluting incidents.

Apparently wild swimmers on Christmas Day were thwarted from their weird activities by notification from the water company concerned that they were going to pollute the river Windrush that very day and advised them not to do so for four days until it cleared.  One wonders what sort of third world country we are living in.  See below;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-59801299

Even though wild swimmers onthe Wye know only too well the state of our river yet still they continue and even pay for instruction to do so.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With not much news this time of year I had an idea to put on this blog some of the incidents which I have experienced in over 70 years of fishing.  Some memorable, some silly, some unrepeatable, but most fondly remembered.  There will not be tales of Tiger fish from the Zambesi, or huge catfish from France or Spain but mostly those that happened in the UK in the everyday type of fishing. of all types which I did.

If its of no interest tell me so!!------------------------------------------------

The first is below   Fond memories of a childhood spent fish my local canal and where I spent most of my schooldays.  This is how I remember it back then, late 40s  early fifties

#####################################################################

Dawn.  16^th June. The morning coarse fishermen eagerly anticipate.

The sky was beginning to brighten in the east as the mist curled over the water already being dispersed  as the first rays of sunlight got to work lighting up the heavy dew drenched grasses of the meadow and the smoky  gossamer cobwebs clinging  in the taller strands of vegetation and hedgerows.

The young boy, concealed amongst the rushes made his first tentative cast, poorly equipped though he was with just an old bamboo rod and small metal reel and somewhat suspect nylon line.  His cast was good and he watched as the red tip of his porcupine quill float lifted and settled into the waters oily surface. He speculated as to how long he might have to wait for his first bite though he knew the early hours would give the best chance of a fish until once more the sun left the water later that evening.  Roach were his quarry and his bait was cheese paste as he knew the roach in this canal had a liking for it and it kept the other fish such as gudgeon, bream and perch at bay as seemingly they had no taste for it at all.

He was alone, barely 8 years old but he had no fear of that and in any event home was just a short walk across a meadow or two.   Life deep in the Worcestershire countryside was quiet and peacefull, secure , and though some friends might join him later not everyone was as keen on a dawn start as he was. His mother too was not enamoured with his early start, insisting as she did on getting up at the ungodly hour and providing breakfast before he left.   She never knew how long he would be gone but often sent a youngster from the nearby houses just to check he was ok which irritated him no end.  He was fishing in the farmer’s field, on the opposite side of the canal to the towing path used by the horses drawing the barges that took their cargoes of coal and raw chocolate to the factories in the midlands.  The bargees were on the whole friendly people, sunbrowned wrinkled and tough. A breed apart it seemed but whose sometime scruffy looking exterior of themselves  and their barges often belied the often spotless magical interiors full of copper kettles and brass ornaments and decorative porcelain.  The men, short and wiry with walnut lined faces, a felt hat or cap and heavy boots. Their wives, hair in a bun, equally tanned wearing a dress and apron and headscarf, often taking a turn at the tiller.

The barge horses were to a young boy, huge majestic creatures.  Probably with Shire or Cart horse  genes in their lineage,  perhaps a mixture of both. They kept a placid steady pace, head in their nosebag as they plodded along seemingly oblivious to anything but the odd tug on their rope or shouted instruction from the bargee. They were so much more in keeping with the quiet countryside than the motor driven vessels that were gradually taking over the transportation of goods..  The passage of the horse drawn barge left nothing in it’s wake save a few ripples whereas the motor driven type stirred up the bottom mud with its powerful  screw propeller, lifting the silt and discolouring the water for an hour or so afterwards and dispersing the fish.

The barges mostly carried coal or what we called ‘crumb’.  This was in fact raw cocoa going to the Cadbury factory at Bourneville  to be turned into chocolate. Even if we were not fishing we could often hear the clatter of the release of the locks screw mechanism which signalled a barge was negotiating the lock.  We often ran down to see them and often disappointed if it was carrying coal.  Crumb on the other hand was another matter and a polite request to the bargee would often result in a small supply of the raw cocoa handed over . It was brown and lumpy and I can remember the taste of it still, sweet and sticky and best sucked rather that to try to bite and chew it and we really looked forward to it then in those post war years..

The dawn chorus was now in full swing and the dainty fragile blue and green damsel flies, so much more delicate than their Dragonfly relatives began their day. The lovers of the warmth and sunlight emerged from their overnight hideaways and the harbingers of the night retired to theirs. Suddenly the tip of the porcupine quill lifted and swayed, something below was sampling the bait. The float lifted further and lay on its side quivering before lifting again and steadily and purposefully submerging. The boy was alert now, hand on the rod butt and as the float disappeared from sight and a gentle lift of the rod tip made contact  with his quarry below.   A short struggle ensued before a bright silver roach succumbed and was drawn to the bamboo shafted landing net.

In the morning sun  lay a beautiful silvery roach, its bright red fins contrasting with the silvery scales and white belly set off by it’s olive back and bright orange eyes..  Carefully he removed the hook and at that moment as he gazed upon it he thought it must be one of nature’s most beautiful things.   Though not big in size, probably only half a pound or so, nevertheless to a young boy it was big enough to satisfy his early morning efforts and was returned from whence it came with due reverence

  A few more roach followed before the sun rose higher and the roach lost interest and ghosted away to deeper water.   It was now time to try for the other common fish in the canal, the Perch.  A bold, dashing little predator that, although with no liking for cheese paste nevertheless found it difficult to resist the charms of a tasty worm or two.   Impaling a wriggling pair of red worms on the hook, snaffled from the garden compost heap the night before the new bait soon drew interest. This time the bite was much quicker. A couple of quick bobs of the float which was then quickly dragged under and away without ceremony.  A quick strike found its mark and few short vigourous dashes later a spluttering pugnacious perch, about the same size as the roach, came protesting indignantly to the net.

This was a different fish altogether to the roach. Short and stocky its humped back  armed  with a long spiny dorsal fin with needle sharp points along its top edge  as were the back edge of its gill covers and both could inflict a painfull stab if not handled carefully.  It’s mouth was large as in most predators, no sharp teeth however just a rough gripping surface  which was the last thing many a small fish or minnows were ever to see.  It too had orange flushed fins but a yellowish eye and a red tinged rounded tail with a light belly shading through grades of olive to a darker almost black back, Most distinctive of all however were the five narrow black bars of colour evenly spread down and along the back and body fading out and narrowing  as they reached down towards the pale belly. It could not be mistaken for anything else but a Perch and looked every inch the playground bully it surely was.

After a few more perch they too seemed to lose interest and the quill float sat listlessly for some time under a sun now high in the sky with the grasshoppers  in the vegitation  sounding off everywhere around and skylarks overhead   remember them?. Almost inevitably a worm bait lying on the bottom long enough would draw the attention of another predator which the young boy didn’t really wish to tangle with and as the float at last stirred once more, fiddled and danced a while before sliding away, the resulting strike this time met more formidable resistance from another underwater assassin, a big eel.  More often nocturnal  but not adverse to a daytime feed, it was strong and purposeful with a backward side to side swaying fight which was unmistakable to anyone who had caught one before and the thought of dealing with it was not a particularly pleasant one.  A good sized one, two feet or more long had been known to make small boys who gazed upon it on the end of their line drop the rod and run at the very prospect of tackling it but in truth one that size almost always proved too much for the delicate roach and perch tackle to handle and a broken line and a lost hook was usually the end result  Sometimes one had to admit defeat accompanied by a sigh of relief.  Smaller specimen’s   termed   ‘bootlace’s’ were not much better and landing one often resulted in a slimy tangled mess of ruined tackle.  Holding it and retrieving the hook was almost impossible and a slime covered shirt or trousers was often the end result if one tried, together with another inevitable lost hook.   Hardly worth the trouble to keep  a penknife blade to the back of the skull was the only means of killing one or you just cut the line and let it go.. For some people however the rich flesh of a sizeable eel was good eating and one taken home was often appreciated by a grateful neighbour. Skinning one was an art in itself albeit a rather messy one and as ‘slippery as an eel’ was never a more appropriate saying, not only when it was alive but the skinning of a dead one too.

 He knew a little of the life cycle of the eel and how they migrated when adult to the Sargasso sea and the resulting offspring making a huge journey back to British waters .  The young returned every spring, just two or three inches long and almost transparent -glass eels they were named,.  Every year he would see them wriggling up the skim of water which escaped from the canal down the steep overflow tunnel from one pound down to the next which was quite a feat in itself but the desire to complete their journey could not be quenched. Looking back this overflow it  was a real danger to anyone who might fall into it as the  water  ran steeply down a tunnel at the side of the lock gates perhaps 15 feet or so into the pound below .Pretty much certain death.  Luckily it never hapened to me or anyone Iknew.