Why do we fish? I always thought most anglers come to be anglers through the guiding hands of their parents. The enduring image of the father teaching his son the way of the angle side by side on the water's edge is almost a stereotype, but it's true, and long may it continue.
However, it's not always this way - indeed, I'm one of those anglers who took up the sport initially without any parental influence. This is not to say I didn't get any encouragement once I got started, I got bags of it and as a direct result my father became one of those parents who take up the rod to accompany their offspring, something I know he never regretted.
The primary question is still unanswered: what makes someone an angler? What was it within this small boy that fired a passion that will stay with me until my soul leaves this body. And even then I think I'll take it with me. Perhaps this is it, maybe I had no choice in the matter and it's an inherited thing, but as far as I know, no one in my family has ever been a fisherman. There has been quite a bit of work done on my dad's side of the family tree by his sister, and this did throw up a rat catcher from the 18th century, a well respected job in those days I'm told, but it's not really the same thing.
MFI flat-pack brings on a nervous breakdown
Another theory I've come across is that the urge to fish is an inherited species memory from our primeval past. Are our characters formed from the life skills of the past; hunter, builder, and farmer? This would mean as an angler I've inherited the blood of the hunter, the rat catcher perhaps? Who knows, but it does sound a tad simplistic. I've never had the urge to shoot a duck, or run down a fox. If true it would also mean I've inherited skills that are totally redundant in our modern pre-packed society, for there is no real need these days to go out and club a Woolly Mammoth. On the other hand, seeing as I've not inherited the skills of a builder may be the reason why the mere thought of a MFI flat pack kitchen unit will almost bring on a nervous breakdown. This theory has been put to my dear wife, with little result.
I wouldn't dismiss out of hand that the angler is playing out some pre-historic need, and I do like to think my infatuation with fishing is special, but I'm sure some people feel the same about stamp collecting, train spotting, or - God forbid - even golf, all of which are not so easy to link to our distant past. So maybe we should look towards nurture rather than nature; could it have been that as a tiny baby when my eye was able to focus further than my mother's face they fell upon the goldfish bowl? Was it hours of watching old Goldie and Spotty swimming round and round that started my fishy fascination?
Old Jack could have a lot to answer for
A much more likely candidate that springs up in slightly later life would have to be Jack Hargreaves. Jack, apart from being the quirky old bloke on 'How' was also in a program called 'Out of town', and in between dry stone walling and walking stick whittling old jack would put on his floppy hat and go fishing. I don't know how old I was at the time, but I do know I loved it, and if one week he didn't wet a line I can remember feeling pretty nicked off.
It will have been a direct result of watching Mr Hargreaves that every time I walked through Woolworth's I would stand in awe in their fishing department (yes, they had one then). When you're knee high to a grasshopper those rods that almost touched the ceiling looked immense, and magical. “Dad, why can't we go fishing?” was the cry whenever we passed, but with a mumble he'd shuffle off, me in tow, and the fishing rods would be forgotten until our next visit, or until the next episode of “Out Of Town”.
Castle Howard - crap castle, good lake
My first actual rod was indeed a product of Woolies; well to be honest it wasn't a real rod. I was staying at my Aunt Ada's house along with my grandparents in Welburn, a village near the famous Castle Howard in North Yorkshire. I was always a bit disappointed with the castle; I mean it's not a proper castle with towers, battlements, keep, and dungeons. But one thing it does have is a big lake and on our way to my Aunts down the long straight road that runs by the lake I can remember seeing rows of anglers lining the bank.
Perhaps this wetted my appetite once more, because on a visit from Welburn to York I blew all the money I'd been given for the week on a fishing rod. My Granny, bless her, tried to talk me out of it, and maybe it would have been better if she had, because what I'd bought was nothing more than a toy. Made of thick wire, no more than three feet long and mounted on a card. It had a plastic handle and reel, a hook, a short length of line and a plastic float. All the protests that it was rubbish fell on deaf ears. I didn't care, it was a fishing rod and it was mine. What's more, it had wonderful pictures of fish on the card, so to my mind this meant you could catch real fish with it, just like Jack Hargreaves.
Quest for a PB tadpole!
Back at my Aunt's house I wanted to run straight over to the lake and use it, however, my enthusiasm was not shared, so I bided my time. On the last day of my visit when my mum and dad came to pick me up I was still harping on about using my rod, and that's when dear old Aunt Ada foolishly said “I think there's tadpoles in the beck”.
Well, that was it, with the non-too-willing help of my mother and a slice of bread we arrived at a little stone bridge over a gurgling stream no more than two inches deep and two foot wide to catch tadpoles! In my fervour it didn't bother me that tadpoles aren't fish. I didn't know if they ate bread, and how the tiny creatures were going to get on such a large hook never entered the equation. The fact that it was late in the summer holidays and any self-respecting tadpole had grown legs, shed its tail and hopped off into the undergrowth was overlooked as well.
How embarrassed my poor mother must have been as she smiled politely at passers-by looking sideways at her son dangling his line over the parapet. The bread I was using may have been Mothers Pride, but at the time I doubt I was.
Of course this folly was doomed to failure, but I can remember being disappointed when we had to leave. Still, it was my first trip, and my first blank.
I can't recall what happened to that 'rod', but I do know it never saw the light of day again. Perhaps my angling ambitions had been binned with it, or things were about to change, permanently.
More next month
Les Clark
