I grew up with a Dad and brother who fished, mostly with worms and maggots for roach, perch, chub... anything that would take their bait. I still have a bit of a horror of maggots. The first fish I ever caught was in a drainage ditch, apparently, messing about with their landing net. Fishing seemed like a boring, muddy business and I couldn’t see the point. I was much more into ponies. It stayed that way until I married an angler who was interested in carp fishing. I’ve always been a reader and one day I picked up his copy of Rod Hutchinson’s ‘The Carp Strikes Back’, read it and was hooked. The passion, the humour (‘guesting’ on a swimming pool!), the beauty of the carp, the pursuit of the big one… wow! (I later met Rod and will admit that, for probably the only time in my life, I was struck dumb…a BAD case of hero worship!).
Within a year or so, life being what it is, I’d got divorced and about 6 months later went along to a NASA fund-raiser with my brother (who was a Regional Organiser for the PAC by this time) to sell the raffle tickets. Whilst there I met the guest speaker – Bruno Broughton – whose passion for angling was obvious. “I hope I’m fishing the day I die” was one statement I remember. To cut a long story short I spent the next 13 years with him, one way or another!
I think he was fairly surprised when I begged him to take me carp angling but he was keen to encourage me and took me along to a Nottingham lake where I caught 11 carp up to about 13 pounds on my first trip. The guys in the swims next to me were smashing, really encouraging, although eventually I could hear them groaning: ‘Oh God, she’s got another’ …and worse! ‘Ace’, thought I, ‘this is easy AND I can beat the guys at their own game’. Unbeknown to me, of course, Bruno had carefully chosen the water for its large head of carp and had been pre-baiting the swim for the previous fortnight!
That really illustrates what I was saying about feeling vaguely fraudulent because I had a leg-up into angling, I didn’t come up through the ranks of tiddler bashing, catching small perch and serving what is often called an apprenticeship. Being female was a huge advantage, really, as there was never the resentment that you sometimes find amongst blokes. I’ve met some lovely people who have never made me feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, and they’ve always been happy to share their knowledge with me because I was never seen as a competitor.
Because Bruno was heavily involved in NASA, the PAC, various other angling groups, angling politics and science, being with him got me onto some great waters and helped me meet some of the best known anglers of the time… Neville Fickling, Gord Burton, Rod, Des Taylor, Barry Rickards, Tim Paisley, Kev Clifford, Stef Horak… I had wonderful advice, fantastic times at PAC conferences, great craic with the Eel Anglers Club, travelled abroad fishing to the US, Hungary, Belgium, France… and was welcomed onto some super (and exclusive) syndicate and private waters.You can balance that, though, with hard work manning tombolas at the NEC Angling Exhibitions and at Hyde Park, raising money for the ACA and the NASA fighting fund, helping produce thousands of packs for ‘Take a Friend Fishing’, and so on. There was the birthday I remember having a really early start, racing up Llandegfedd in a boat and then spending all day dying for a pee, freezing cold, whilst blanking and sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels with the guys in other boats. I also recall the day when some of the biggest names in pike fishing took the very friendly p**s out of me as I quickly lost every one of Bruno’s lures on Blithfield. You have to learn the right speed of retrieval somehow! We all blanked and ended up having a competition to see who could catch the biggest lump of wood. I did catch sometimes!
Being a female specimen hunter made me ‘different’ and I often featured in the angling press if I caught a half-decent fish. The fish I really remember, though, are barbel in Belgium, ‘tail walking’ pike, my British PB carp of 28.10lb, because I’d had a hunch and worked on it (I was fishing alone when I caught her), the 14lb pike that took a Heddon Meadow Mouse surface plug right under my rod tip… I’d seen it following the lure in, could retrieve no more so I worked a figure of eight with the tip (a trick someone had shared with me sometime), and WHAM! Oh, and the turtle I caught – accidentally - over in the States.
Fishing had become part of me... the cold early mornings, the LONG walks hung around with bed chairs, ruckbags, rods and cool boxes of sarnies (there are some compensations for fishing with a woman, lads, and the food has to be one of them!!) sitting in the rain waiting for something to happen, the days blanking but not caring 'cause you’d had a good day out in a lovely spot with good company, watching birds, and the fish… beautiful barbel, carp, tench and pike.Bruno and I eventually went our different ways, though I’m pleased to say we’re still good friends, and I had a break from angling for about 8 years. I’ve taken it up again recently with a new ‘other half’ and am really enjoying getting back into it. Things have changed, though - camo gear; lakes with toilets and showers; kids catching doubles and putting them back, disappointed, without photographs, because they’re not twenties; bait boats; huge guides and reels for long distance casting; UK lakes containing fish stolen from abroad; lakes that are now almost ‘put and take’ carp fisheries; SVC & KHV; remote alarms for bite indicators….angling having become such big business that people have photos taken with fish they haven’t caught!
I’m sure these things were around before, but just not so prevalent.