ARTHUR’S ARCHIVES

Keith Arthur looks back to weigh up the contributions made to the sport by Benny Ashurst, one of angling’s true greats

Benny Ashurst

“Perhaps his most famous gift to angling was the stick float”

ANY mention of angling legends has to include Benny Ashurst. He and son Big Kevin, the 1982 World Champion, were both truly brilliant anglers.

Benny is pictured above fishing the stick float, which he designed to cast across the Leigh Canal with just one No4 shot down the line. That allowed the caster hookbait (which he ‘discovered’ too) to sink slowly and catch rudd and roach well over to the far bank.

Benny made this branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal nationally known. Plank Lane, Pennington Flash and Common Lane all featured prominently in match reports, and Benny’s name would be there too.

Benny’s stick floats travelled well too. The combination of a heavy tropical wood base and light balsa top created a semi-self-cocking float that cast superbly, although I’m sure I recall Benny telling me the originals had porcupine quill bases. When Benny and his pals took them to the Trent and fished casters ‘on the drop’ they took the river apart.

That style survived the coming of the waggler and bronze maggots when the roach population declined and chub became the main quarry.

There’s a wonderful story of Benny, who also ran a maggot farm, accidentally tipping a 56lb drum of maggot dye over himself, acquiring a proper Love Island tan for a few weeks.

Benny loved fishing in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where his legendary status owes as much to his playing of the spoons to accompany son Kevin’s fine singing voice as it does to his fishing skills...albeit after a couple of sips of the Black Stuff.

Wherever he fished, crowds would gather, and you can see his innovative mind in action in the photo. Notice the basket legs sticking out? Benny is sitting on the back of it so the shape eliminates the sloping bank, and he’s sitting comfortably. That’s genius at work right there.