Amusing fishing stories from the south coast
As a boy I took to fishing a Lorna Doone stream called the Loman using a brass Devon minnow as bait. I progressed then in Norfolk using my father’s old steel fly rod to catch dace in the River Waveney. These tiny fish were like a bundle of needles in cotton wool to actually eat so I went on to coarse fishing in the Waveney using ledger and bread paste bait. These roach and perch were returned to the river. I had become enthused by my father’s book Salar the Salmon which will remain forever the finest book about a fish ever written.
I trolled many other books for their stories including those of BB and his exquisite descriptions of carp fishing in calm mid-summer lakes. In my library there are also the books of the most famous of all chalk stream fishermen, those of Plunkett-greene. There is also the compilation of fishing stories by actor Michael Hordern. All of these have sustained me on and off through this present pandemic and winter lockdown.
But the most amusing has been the fishing stories set along the south coast in 1870 by Lewis Clement, known by his pseudonym ‘Wildfowler’. This colourful character was born in 1844 of wealthy parents and spent his time travelling the continent. He was reporter-in-chief to The Field. One winter’s day he came to Bognor to fish bringing with him his cigars and sherry bottle and enquired on the front of a local fisherman whether he could be taken out to the Bognor rocks to try his luck.
I can only quote the ensuing conversation: ‘I entered into a bargaining match with a surly fisherman who was going out to lay crab and lobster pots. He thought at first I was chaffing him when I asked him about going with him, hence his surliness. “Fish!” he exclaimed in answer to my enquiry. “Yes, there be plenty of fish where I be going and I daresay you will catch as many as you like if so it be that you really mean coming.” ‘Of course I do.’ I returned, and stepped into his roomy boat. ‘What made you think I was only having a bit of fun with you.’ ‘Oh’, he said, ‘that be easily explained. Whenever there be any promenaders on the pier they be always bothering us fishermen with questions as to fish, where to go, how many they would catch; what we would charge them for an hour, two hours, or three hours and could they have it a little cheaper if they went the whole afternoon, or maybe the whole day? And then, when they have kept us waiting, and talking, and giving them all the information we can, and offering to take them at the most reasonable of terms, they say they will think about it, and we never see them again. So I thought you were one of that stamp, and I was not going to be humbugged again.’
‘Well, now, there is some proof in that accusation against visitors to the seaside. Some fellows dress like awful swells, and talk tall to suit their clothes, but they never spend a farthing beyond their cheap lodging and meals and are always making a grand fuss with the boatmen and fishermen of the place just as if these people were inferior beings, who ought to feel highly complimented and immensely gratified at the condescension of His Highness the city clerk, who lowers himself so far as to bring himself on a level with them. But the time is past when a fisherman was a poor devil.’
Clements went on to fish that day, catching a grand creel full of whiting, codling, flounders, conger, pouting, gurnard, brill and skate – getting back to London on the five o’clock train.
My own fishing ended spectacularly in recent years when using my father’s split-cane rod I was given a day on the Test and caught a splendid 3lb trout. I still have all father’s flies, spinners, and fishing tackle which often bring back the days that inspired his classic work.