ARTHUR’S ARCHIVES
Inside fishing history
“I believe the precious redfin stocks of the Wensum are returning”
DURING lockdown, and before football came back, I had plenty of time to watch the telly. One of the shows I revisited was Go Fishing with John Wilson, especially the glorious Weirpool Magic episode.
This 30-minute show saw John finding some decent fish in a raging flood, then revisiting the area a week later when the river had fined down to record some of the most magical on-screen angling ever. Two roach for best part of 5lb, for the cameras? Now you’re talking!
To be fair this was at the very end of the big roach years on the trilogy of famous Norfolk chalk rivers. I worked out it was filmed in 1990, but the previous 20-plus years had witnessed wonderful catches of big roach on the Wensum – where Weirpool Magic took place – the Yare and the Waveney. Multiple catches of two-pounders were made by those in the know and, mostly, what they knew they kept to themselves.
Once the planners and builders moved in and abstraction reared its ugly head, aided and abetted by cormorants and barbel stockings, roach stocks declined in the upper, non-tidal reaches.
With no Avon Roach Project to help, recovery has been slower but I believe the precious redfin stocks are returning. We may never see the bulging nets of huge roach that Wilson enjoyed, but there are enough fish to at least make it worthwhile breaking out the trotting rod again. Sadly, the old healthy flow rates the river used to enjoy will remain a thing of the past.
It was interesting to see what difference 30 years has made to our sport. Watching that episode again, it struck me how irate the modern-day fish welfare police would have been to watch John lay his brace of fish out on the concrete side of the weir, albeit in a wet landing net. He also had the temerity to catch a pike on a spinner in August and, perhaps the most cardinal of sins, paddle down the river in a kayak!
Oh for a return to those heady times when anglers who knew what they were doing were simply left to get on with it.