mikench
Well-known member
Ones memory plays tricks sometimes and there are many events linked to childhood that I cannot remember. One memory which has returned again and again , even through the 50 odd years when I didn't coarse fish at all, is of a large perch caught on a worm and using the only float I had, a bobber.
I had a bamboo rod bought for my 9th or 10th birthday and I used my saved pocket money to buy an Intrepid Black Prince reel. A friend of my father located the rod( he being a very keen angler) and gave me some line, hooks, an aluminium maggot tin and a solitary perch bobber. To me it was a float and I received no guidance on how to use it. Maggots meant a trip to a Tackle shop so I used Worms dug out of the compost heap and put in the maggot tin with some damp soil.
The local canal was the obvious place to fish and it was around a mile away . The towpath I used to use looked across to a factory called Whipp& Bourne which I think now produced, amongst other things, tricast rods. I had no idea at the time. The outflow from the factory was warm water and the canal at that point was reputed to have large cichlids and other tropical fish although I neither saw nor caught any.
I have no memory of catching roach or any fish other than perch and one in particular. It looked big to me and far bigger that any I had caught before or since. Probably a small perch would look big to the eyes and in the hand of a 9 year old. I was fascinated in its size and whilst my school boy pal Craggy was similarly impressed nobody else was. I don't remember the strike or the struggle but do remember the float moving across the water surface. I have no idea what it weighed but to me it was a world record and I have never forgotten it. I must get out more.
I had a bamboo rod bought for my 9th or 10th birthday and I used my saved pocket money to buy an Intrepid Black Prince reel. A friend of my father located the rod( he being a very keen angler) and gave me some line, hooks, an aluminium maggot tin and a solitary perch bobber. To me it was a float and I received no guidance on how to use it. Maggots meant a trip to a Tackle shop so I used Worms dug out of the compost heap and put in the maggot tin with some damp soil.
The local canal was the obvious place to fish and it was around a mile away . The towpath I used to use looked across to a factory called Whipp& Bourne which I think now produced, amongst other things, tricast rods. I had no idea at the time. The outflow from the factory was warm water and the canal at that point was reputed to have large cichlids and other tropical fish although I neither saw nor caught any.
I have no memory of catching roach or any fish other than perch and one in particular. It looked big to me and far bigger that any I had caught before or since. Probably a small perch would look big to the eyes and in the hand of a 9 year old. I was fascinated in its size and whilst my school boy pal Craggy was similarly impressed nobody else was. I don't remember the strike or the struggle but do remember the float moving across the water surface. I have no idea what it weighed but to me it was a world record and I have never forgotten it. I must get out more.