| As many of you may already know, I have been working assisting Graham on FishingMagic for some time now and when he offered to take me along to the River Idle Christmas Fish-in and John Ledger Memorial Match, I jumped at the chance, having never been fishing before!
So on Friday afternoon I caught the train to Stoke on Trent where Graham picked me up and we set off for Haxey. Little did I know that we would be relying on his car’s whiz-bang sat nav system which meant, in the end, that the journey from Stoke to Haxey took a total of five hours instead of the standard two. Whatever happened to good old fashioned map reading, I do wonder!
The next day we headed over the road to the Haxey Gate Inn for some breakfast where we were joined by several members of FM, a total of 18 had turned up to try their luck on the Idle and to remember John Ledger who was a popular figure on FM. It was John who organised last year’s Christmas fish-in on the Idle but sadly passed away earlier this year following a long but brave battle with cancer. The weather conditions weren’t the best; it was very cold and windy and had been raining quite heavily, meaning that the water level was higher than usual. But everyone was in good spirits and set off to get their gear and tackle up. As Graham was unpacking his things from the car I peered into a Tupperware box full of something squirming and he asked if I would ‘like to feel his maggots’. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to feel any maggots though, least of all Graham’s! Maggots weren’t the only thing he had brought along, out came a rather large case containing Graham’s new toy – a Nikon D300 camera. He entrusted this to me and asked me to take some photos with it. I’m not sure that asking someone as clumsy as myself to look after a very expensive piece of kit near a river was the best idea but I managed to hang on to it (and keep my job!).
Beecy organised the draw and then we all headed down to the river (Graham had drawn the peg furthest from the pub so I had to lug his net bag quite a way!). Everyone set up their gear and at 10am the usual “all in!” was shouted and the match began. The lovely Ron Clay had made a special trip to join us and sat out by the bank for a short while on his chair. He had brought along a rather fetching gripping claw, not sure what kind of fish you were hoping to catch with that Ron! Graham had a text message off Wendy who wasn’t well enough to make it, hoping we all had a good day.
After about 5 minutes Chavender caught the first fish of the competition, a little Gudgeon which he reeled in on a rod that once belonged to the late John Ledger. Further down the river Wendi, Claudia and Cat were trying their luck with some Pike. Cat managed to hook one but it got away at the last minute and Wendi later managed to land one. Claudia had brought along a flask of hot chocolate and kindly offered some to Cat, but as she clambered towards him under the bridge she managed to end up in the river. Feet stuck in the mud and unable to free herself Claudia shouted for Mike but he only came to her rescue when he realised that she was in trouble! Sadly I wasn’t present at this point, so I didn’t manage to get a shot of this, but I’m sure you can imagine what this must have looked like!
The weather got steadily worse and Ron, myself and Cat retired to the warmth of the pub. Ron got chatting about how to catch Pike and showed Cat how to make a stinger (a spinner bait with a stinger hook on it) – this, he was sure, would hook some nice Pike. So I accompanied Cat down to the other side of the river to see what we could catch. Sadly the weather was rather inclement and we couldn’t catch anything, but we had fun trying.
Quite a few, including Graham, had packed up early, but at 3pm the competition was over and I left the pub to get some snapshots of the fish. Only five FMers managed to catch anything worth weighing, and the weights are as follows:
So Granville scooped the trophy (and the £ 50 cash winnings), Beecy came second for £ 35, and we all headed back to the pub for some beverages. Graham (McWallet) tarnished his long standing reputation for being an old skinflint by pulling out his wallet (you should have seen those moths go) and treated the gang to a £ 35 round of drinks out of his winnings.
Later we got peckish and made for the dining area for some dinner. A few of us had a lovely turkey supper with all the trimmings (although I didn’t think that Yorkshire pudding went with turkey?). Sean ordered a T-bone steak and quickly adopted that as his new nickname whilst Steve opted for the 32oz steak, the largest on the menu. When it arrived it was the size of a small child (or thereabouts) and Steve feebly poked at it (having been on the beer) and managed to eat about 2oz of it. So much for proving your manliness there Steve! He later asked for the remainder to be wrapped in tin foil so that he could take it home for his dog. Perhaps Steve would be better off with the veggie menu next time round, or better still, the vegan one.
Despite these enormous main courses we did have room for dessert, although the waitress did seem a little confused as she took our orders 4 times and Neil had to wait about an hour for his Christmas pudding to arrive!
The camera wasn’t the only toy that Graham brought along to the fish-in, halfway through dessert there were some resounding parping sounds coming from what appeared to be the seat of Bryan’s chair. We later learnt that Graham had packed his trusty remote-controlled farting machine and was having a bit of a chuckle to himself in the corner. Feeling sorry for the other people in the dining area having to put up with our antics, we moved back into the pub area where the 2oz of steak that Steve had managed to eat took their toll. He was snoozing on Wendi’s shoulder and within minutes we had taken some great photos of him and his leftover steak.
More fart humour ensued and Mike, Jeff and Sean swapped their mobile phone ringtones, most of which are too rude to mention here! Granville retired to bed early and the rest of us followed shortly after. Although Ron had left earlier in the evening, we later learned that he had forgotten to let the staff at his residential home know that he would be out for the day. So when they knocked on his door at 7am on Saturday morning and found him gone they rang the police and reported him as a missing person! Upon his arrival home, poor Ron was greeted by a load of bobbies in his room – never mind Ron, it could have been worse – at least you didn’t try (and fail) to eat 2 pounds of steak!
A fun day was had by all, even if the fishing didn’t go as well as hoped – thanks to Beecy for organising it, to Graham for sorting out my accommodation amongst other things and to the lovely people at the Haxey Gate Inn for their hospitality and putting up with our fart jokes. It was great to meet you all and nice to prove that I am in fact real and not Granville in a wig! And Brummie, if you’re reading this, you missed out! Better luck next year… Note from Graham I don’t know how the others fished, except that quite a few abandoned the float and opted for a quivertip. I decided my best bet in that wind was a closed face reel, the trusty ABU 505, 2lb main line, 1.1lb hooklength to a 22’s hook. I fished a single red maggot down the middle on a stick float for most of the match, but fed casters down an inside line and tried that occasionally when the middle line went dead. The 1lb bream I had, and another that fell off, came to caster on the inside line. But the bulk of my meagre catch was roach on red maggot
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