Turning the Clock Back on the CalderON THE CARDS of three clubs I joined predominately for the chub and barbel fishing on the Ribble, there are also a few stretches on the Calder. The Calder was the river I’d fished as a young lad way back in the late 50’s and early 60’s and I was minded to revisit it just for old time’s sake. However, because of other commitments and being preoccupied with the Ribble’s large chub (which seemed to be growing every year) and being put off by other angler’s tales of disappointment when revisiting childhood haunts, I never got around to making the tip. Not that I’d forgotten about it, almost every trip to the Ribble involves crossing the Calder just below Whalley, but the big chub just kept pulling me across the bridge and onto Ribchester. There was also the dilemma of how to fish the river. By this I mean, do I go the whole nostalgic hog and fish it as I did as a lad? Wandering along the banks with a tin of maggots a few worms and my rod, or as I now fish the Ribble, legering in one peg with two rods. In the early days I can’t even remember owning a landing net, not that you would have needed one for the fish the river held in the 50’s. Everything I owned then fit in an old gas mask bag.
Unlike many other childhood haunts there was no reason why the river should have changed; with the exception of a new by-pass road bridge, everything else should be the same. Not like an earlier, ‘turning the clock back’ experience, I’d had a few years ago, during the last foot and mouth epidemic. I’d decided to join a local club around Accrington, which had a few ponds and lodges open during the outbreak. I picked up my ticket in the local tackle shop and, as you do, I got talking to the owner about the local fishing now and how it use to be. I noticed that three of the lodges on the ticket were ones I’d fished as a young lad, but this guy warned me not to park my car ‘up there’ as there was a good chance it would be torched. His advice? “Best get a mate to drop you off and pick you up later. If the kids off the adjacent housing estate don’t see you arrive, you’ll probably be OK.” As you might guess that was one nostalgic trip that never got off the ground. Those Early days I don’t have a good chronological memory of my fishing trips on the Calder, they seem to pop up more like flash-backs triggered by something I see or something someone says, or even when handling a piece of tackle. Even the smell of a river with that slight industrial hint about it reminds me of my early days on the Calder. The part of the river I fished was that downstream of Whalley to the point where it runs into the Ribble. From Whalley down to the Ribble the Calder runs through pastureland with the odd coppice and views of the adjacent fells. It was the sort of place that people from the surrounding mill towns came at weekends for fresh air and picnics, but down by the river there was always that hint of industry. I can’t put an exact date to my trips to the Calder but I remember my little sister being born around this time, and getting the odd couple of bob for baby sitting which along with my paper round paid for my maggots and bus fares from Accrington to Whalley. This would put my sessions on the river between 1958 and 1963 (at which point I took up caving and spent most of my spare time up in the Yorkshire Dales).
Neither can I remember how I came to fishing. No one in our family fished, but like most young lads growing up in industrial Lancashire there were plenty of derelict mills with lodges and ponds to play in. At first it was frogs, newts and sticklebacks, and probably after seeing an older lad fishing with a proper rod I must have pestered my dad for one of those cheap fibre glass jobs that came with a monkey metal spinning reel from our local sports shop. There were no dedicated tackle shops; you got your rod and reel from the sports shop. Your bait came from what we would now call a pet/hardware shop where you could also get the odd bit of tackle along with hooks, line and lead shot, etc. My fibre glass rod was later replaced with a second-hand 11ft split cane leger rod and a Mitchell spinning reel from one of my dad’s workmates. Around this time I swapped my weekly comic for the Angling Times, the font of all my fishing knowledge along with that provided by Mr Crabtree in the Daily Mirror. I can’t remember my first trip to the Calder in the late 50’s, or any angling associations controlling the fishing or even seeing anyone else fishing. I knew someone must have been on the river, as from time to time I’d find a small pile of stones where someone had made a seat, or a forked twig left stuck in the river bank. In the early 60’s the Sports and Social Club of the English Electric Company, of the Lightening and TSRII jet fighter fame, took control of some of the fishing and my dad, who worked there, made me a member. As I said, my memories are mainly just the odd flashback, however, I do remember a few sessions.
Porcupine quills and Roach I remember catching a couple of roach well over 1lb from a spot called the ‘Pissing Billy’. This was a large concrete structure on the outside of a tight bend with a large pipe poking out, which constantly dribbled water into the river. The outside of this bend was a high wooded embankment with its base reinforced by wooden piles. The way to fish this bend was to trot a big porcupine quill float as close to the wooden piles as possible. However, there was a complication. Depending on the river level, you had to fish across a large eddy which meant constantly redressing your line to avoid great big loops forming. I used the same grease on my line the fly fishermen use to stop it from sinking. This was one of my favourite pegs on the river and at any time, other than really high water, it always provided a few good roach with a scattering of dace, small chub and the odd perch. Above this bend was a wooded area that was part of the Calderstone’s Lunatic Asylum, and the site of a terrifying experience for me and my mate. We were probably in our early teens and we’d decided that this wood would be just the place for a bit of bird’s nesting (I knew no better!). While we were scrambling about in some bushes adjacent to a path we heard the rattling of chains and human voices. We laid low in the bushes and watched while a long line of inmates, holding onto wooden bars attached to a long chain, ambled past along with their uniformed guards. The sight of the ‘inmates’ frightened the living daylights out of us and on re-telling the tale at school we were convinced by our classmates that if they had seen us they would have done us over, or worse! Needless to say we never went bird-nesting there again. Cycle capes and rivers in flood there was one spot on the river that was just how I imagined Mr Crabtree’s ideal flood swim would be. A small stream entered the Calder on the outside of a bend near Potter Ford House and I remember there were a few caravans in the adjacent field. The outside bank of the bend and the banks of the little stream were tree and scrub covered but there was just enough room to squeeze in where the little stream entered the river. During high water the little stream would backup and form a nice big eddy where it ran into the main river.
This was easy fishing; you just trotted a quill float down the crease of the eddy and most of the fish were picked up at the tail end of the eddy where it swung around making its way back up along the bankside. By this time I was the proud owner of a small keepnet, an even smaller collapsible steel seat and an ex-army oiled cape and sou’ ester hat. No more wet bum or rain running down the neck of my jacket. Usually, in flood conditions, this swim produced a mixed bag of 20 to 30 fish between 6″ and 10″ and if my luck was really in, maybe a 1lb plus chub. The biggest chub I remember catching was just over 2lb. I’d decided to leger a big worm while I sat back to eat my sandwiches. Now I’d never had much success legering on the Calder, 95% of my fishing was trotting various sizes of quill floats. So it came as a bit of a surprise when my rod set off down the bank towards the river. Gamekeepers and lead shot Just before the Calder runs into the Ribble there is a nice big bend with some relatively deep water. On the outside of this bend is Mitton Wood. This bend was always my last port of call and so generally fished in the late afternoon or into dusk. One late sunny afternoon I was again fishing the crease of a large eddy and I noticed, every now and again a pitter-patter of what looked like very small stones being thrown into the middle of my swim. This went on for about an hour and was quite baffling. I almost fell in the river when a very beep voice at my back said, “anything doing lad?” The voice was that of the gamekeeper and never having been approached by anyone in authority before I wasn’t sure just how much trouble I was in! I got away with a few very stern words about not wandering down on to the Ribble to fish and to keep well out of the woods where a local shoot was in progress. The source of the pitter-pattering in my swim was lead shot. Turned out he didn’t mind me fishing where I was and we got chatting about the foxes I’d seen on several occasions during very early morning fishing sessions. Phew! This peg also fished well in the right conditions and I can’t remember not catching anything. Even in these semi industrial days on the Calder there was always something to be had downstream of Whalley. Will it produce the goods almost fifty years later? Find out in Part 2 soon |
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