The Adventures Of Donald Effingham-Mudde & Damien

Nineteen year old Damien is a mad-keen, cool-dude, ‘up for it’ angler, who won’t miss any opportunity to go fishing. He has an aged uncle, an angler of some renown and a staunch traditionalist, Donald Effingham-Mudde, who spent his earlier years in service to the Viceroy of India. His family jokingly refer to him as WIMDOC, which is an acronym for the phase he uses to start just about every conversation (“Well, in my day, of course….”).

The old boy has come to stay with Damien’s parents for an extended visit, giving the pair the opportunity to go fishing together. Donald’s fishing references are impeccable as, according to him, he taught the Taylor Brothers all they know. However, both participants view the opportunity from slightly differing perspectives. Damien really doesn’t want to be landed with babysitting some doddering old fart, whilst Donald sees this as a perfect opportunity to show this young pup how to do things properly. They are bound to get on famously – aren’t they?

On the day of the Carbelling adventure, the pair arrived at the river just as dawn was breaking, Damien quickly started to load up the carp barrow with enough gear for the session, which was a pile he could just about see over.

“Room for me couple of bits on top?” asked Donald, as he stood with his battered wicker creel, dilapidated rod bag, and a pair of two gallon buckets with lids on.

“No problem, just load me up like a pack horse, and you make sure you stay well in front and give me directions, ‘cos I can’t see a bloody thing!” said Damien.

“You youngsters are always moaning. If it’s too much trouble, your poor old uncle will carry his own tackle, can’t say I’ll make it all the way to the proper swims, mind, but I don’t want to be a burden to you anyw……'”

“All right, all right, strap it on top and I’ll struggle for the pair of us,” replied a now irritated Damien.”

“Good show, laddie, now I’ve got both hands free I can fire up me pipe, a bowl full of Dark Shag always seems to help me concentrate when I’m out looking for the best swims,” enthused Donald.

“Let’s get one thing straight, you fish where I put you, and you walk behind me if you intend smoking that pipe, I don’t want to get to a swim only to find my gear has been kippered by walking through those toxic fumes.” Damien was quite insistent.

Donald seemed a little surprised by Damien’s tone. “Right oh, laddie, as you would say,’what ever’, but mind how you go, shouldn’t think you can see much with the way you’ve loaded that pram.”

“It’s not a f****** pram you silly old sod, it’s a carp barrow!” Damien was fuming now.

“No need to take that tone you young scamp, be better if it had a hood to keep everything dry anyway.”

Damien just glared over his shoulder as he heaved up the handles of the carp barrow and staggered off.

After a walk that felt to Damien like five miles of ramming unseen trees and tripping over roots, but actually only took twenty minutes, the pair arrived at what was apparently Donald’s allotted swim. Damien whipped the old boy’s gear off the barrow but his parting speech was interrupted before he could start.

“I know, I know, laddie, let me guess, don’t fall in, don’t smoke me pipe, don’t fart if the wind is blowing your way, don’t wander off, and most importantly, don’t catch anything bigger than you, is that about it?” Now it was Donald’s turn to snigger.

Damien muttered something through gritted teeth that ended with ‘off’, and then struggled his way to an adjoining, and surprisingly far more inviting looking swim. If it looked familiar, that was probably because he had been baiting it up every day for the past week. As he stopped to catch his breath a smile spread across his face, the old git could conjure up the ghosts of Izaak Walton, Dick walker, and ask the Taylor brothers to come and help him, no way was he going to get the better of him today.

Damien carefully and quietly unpacked all his gear and started setting up. Sitting a little way back from the river bank there was still enough cover from the bankside bushes to keep him concealed from his quarry even though autumn had taken its toll on the leaves. Unlike Donald, who he had last seen perched on his wicker basket right on top of the bank doing a passable impression of a garden gnome.

He carefully carried on his preparations; a deep glide in front of him meant he could perfectly position his rods to cover the lovingly prepared carpet of bait. Two identical rigs baited with halibut pellets were gently lobbed out into a crease in the water and Damien settled back to wait for the first action of the day.

That action wasn’t too long in coming, as a huge SPLASH! from downstream had Damien out of his chair and running down the bank, perhaps the old git had gone in head-first he wondered, even hoped. He skidded to a halt when he found a smiling Donald sat on his old wicker basket, pipe clenched in his teeth, as he appeared to be making mud pies the size of grapefruit.

“What the f*** are you doing, and just what is all that racket, I thought you might have at least done the decent thing and fallen in to have made that noise!”

“I told you I would look it up in me old books,” replied Donald, shoving a huge mass of mud and worms under Damien’s nose. “Clayballing, I told you those old timers would know a trick or two when it comes to fishing for barbel. You wander off back to your swim and I’ll bring you a couple of balls over in a minute, then you can get started.”

“You stupid old git, I said f***ing Carbelling, not f***ing Clayballing, the noise you’re making will mean we will be doing Buggerallbarbelling now!” With that, Damien stormed off.

Donald stared at Damien’s back as he marched off, the old boy looked a forlorn sight, perched on his basket, unlit pipe in the down-turned corner of his mouth, unwanted clay ball in each hand, and just over his shoulder, the tip of his trusty Wallis Wizard was nodding violently…….