JOBSWORTHS AND DODGERS
The Jobsworths
If there is going to be a problem at the water’s edge with a bailiff, official, committee member, you can bet it will happen on the hottest and sunniest of days. The kind of day when perspiration trickles down your back and into your eyes, when niggling little things go wrong with your tackle and when your normal high level of tolerance for human kind is in danger of dropping off the chart. Then, along he comes…….
I was fishing on a well-known club trout water a few weeks ago and down the bank from me, about thirty yards away, was another angler who I knew reasonably well. He is good, straight-forward, sensible and experienced fisherman in his mid-thirties. I became aware that he was into a playful fish that was taking line off his reel at some speed. He concentrated hard and played the fish beautifully, countering all its wiles and tricks.
As he guided the fish to the net he placed half of one wellied foot in the water to steady himself. At the very instant he dipped his foot into the water, a loud voice bellowed from the opposite bank “Dust tha’ know there’s no wading allowed at this water!”
My colleague all but fell completely into the water but, fortunately, recovered his poise and netted the fish. I walked down the bank to congratulate him and found myself restraining him from dashing round the lake and thumping the loud-mouthed jobsworth who all but ruined a fine catch.
Rules are designed for the good of the fish, the good of the angler and the greater good of the environment and I would not encourage anyone to break club rules. If you join a club you undertake to adhere to the rules; otherwise you get out or you can have no argument when you get put out. But surely there is a way of doing things and a time for reproving an errant angler. It is certainly not when he’s playing a potential fish of a lifetime and from fifty yards away in an overloud voice.
I once had a minor run-in with an officious committee man at a club water in Derbyshire. I will admit that I was in the wrong. I had driven for two hours down the A6 to a stretch on the Derwent just below Chatsworth House at Darley Dale. You know how it is; the anticipation builds up and the adrenalin pumps. You just cannot wait to start fishing. I signed in and tackled up quickly and had just cast to a rising fish when up struts this country gent from behind some hedge or other. “I say,” he trilled, “rules of the Club state all fishing to be done with barbless hooks.”
I was half wondering, firstly, where did he spring from, secondly, how did he know I had a barbed hook and, thirdly, did I even know what hook I had tied on? I was about to apologise when he continued, “So see to it, chappie!”
“Chappie!” This really got right up my nose, his whole patronisingly officious attitude and tone of voice. I was younger in those days and more impetuous. I took two steps towards him and informed him that unless he apologised I would thread the end of my rod up his nostril and keep pushing until it came out of his arse! (actual words). He looked at me for a second then turned and fled the field. I got a letter a few days afterwards that accused me of abusing and insulting the office of a committee member of the club and summoned me to appear at the next committee meeting to explain myself.
I did not bother to attend. I knew that I was in the wrong and any explanation in mitigation would have sounded a bit limp. Thus ended my association with a very fine and very large angling club but, really, you don’t want to belong to a club with such committee members, do you?
The Dodgers
Committee members and, indeed, bailiffs and fishery owners are there to keep an eye on the fishery and how the anglers conduct themselves. Anglers occasionally are at fault, too. Bernard Clements, the bailiff at Raygill Fishery in West Yorkshire, described a very nasty trick that one angler got up to at the fishery. Raygill operates a flexible and reasonable range of charges that includes catch and release and is one of the friendliest of fisheries in the land. The popular way of paying for your sport is to pay £ 2.00 per hour fished and pay £ 1.75 per pound of rainbow retained and killed.
This particular angler caught and killed a big rainbow. Later, on reflection, he then decided he did not want to pay for a big seven pounder at £ 1.75 per pound: a total of £ 12.25. So the fish ends up rotting in the bushes and yer man catches and kills a two pound fish to declare and take home for the freezer. This was awfully criminal waste of a specimen fish and a financial blow to the fishery. I used to wonder about the binoculars on the office desk at the fishery………..
An example of good practice
I have only been requested to show my EA licence on one occasion in recent years. The official concerned arrived at the fishery and stood unobtrusively watching the fisherman for about twenty minutes. He wanted to familiarise himself with the fishery, the anglers and how they were fishing. He went into the fishing lodge and inspected the log book. He then made a quiet tour of the fishery and politely requested that the anglers produce their licences. No problems, no fuss, no shouting matches. He found that three anglers did not have their licences and he made mutually satisfactory arrangements with each one for them to produce their licences at an appointed time and place. Then off he went, a model of quiet efficiency and polite professionalism. I wish that I had requested his name to pass on the compliment to the EA.
Tight Lines!
Eddie Caldwell
