|
When I was young I would
read my father’s Mr Crabtree book by Bernard Venerbles.
These were a series of cartoons about fishing and charmingly
British. Recently, I found this book again and looked
through it, I still loved it but as I read the book
about my beloved Avon and Stour, I thought are all these
species still on these rivers? Now we fishermen search
only for Barbel and Chub, have the smaller species disappeared?
Barbel demand large carpets
of food to be laid down on the riverbed, others have
benefited such as Grayling that now stretch from Salisbury
Plain to Christchurch.
I asked several other fishermen and they told me of
great captures in their younger days, but all admitted
they knew not if all was well so, I set off with a centre
pin and light tackle to find out …..
It was a wonderful winter’s
morning and a marvelous sunrise. I marched to the riverbank
and started to watch my float gently drift down the
river with great anticipation. This was real Crabtree
tactics, soon the float disappeared beneath the surface
and a beautiful perch was soon being dragged across
the water surface, then another and another, I was having
a wonderful time.
I reluctantly moved further
down the bank, but seemed to find fish in abundance.
The fish have not gone away! I found even small Loaches
and English Crayfish in the margins of the Stour. It
is just a fact that we fishermen dream of 10lb Barbel
and 5lb Chub, so we cast out massive chunks of luncheon
meat and halibut pellets, our smaller species find these
baits just too big so feed elsewhere.
I was glad that I had tried
this experiment and hope others will follow in my footsteps
as it was really what boyhood dreams were made of!
|
