Treading water could leave you floundering
IN my efforts to bring you the best stories, I often need to enter a public house, honest and the latest in a long line did not disappoint – and this on top of a morning tramping the mudflats of the Solway Firth.
(I’ll come back to the tramping bit)
You see the tide draws a long way out in these parts, I’m talking miles and at this time of year the estuarine delights attract hundreds of thousands of geese.
As I approached Red Haven, kind of my private beach, just over a small rocky bluff I could hear them and what a racket.
As I peeked over the skyline, always a mistake as they lifted en-masse, what a sight and sound, pure magic. At a rough estimate five thousand pink-footed geese, with a few thousand barnacle and a handful of brent. The black and white barnacle geese found on the Solway Firth are the entire population of geese from an island group in the Arctic called Svalbard, the old Spitzbergen.
These geese fly thousands of miles every autumn to spend the winter on the saltmarshes of the Solway, the main areas being Caerlaverock and Mersehead, both bird reserves, on the Scottish side and Rockcliffe Marsh and Newton Marsh on the Cumbrian coast.
They also drop onto my marsh area as well, a perfect brackish lagoon where the fresh water from nearby burns (stream) meet the saltwater to create a lovely food rich soup.
My companion Luna, a year old Springer and mad as a box of frogs, kept drinking the stuff and couldn’t make her mind up. Five minutes later her body made the decision for her from both ends.
Curlews, oystercatchers, buzzards and a red kite overhead; a sparrowhawk scooting through the woods as if trees did not exist and the pesky otter avoided me again, although Luna spent the first five minutes on the shore sniffing where the fish eating beauty had dined, maybe minutes earlier.
‘Next time!’ I thought, ‘I’ll get you’ and likewise for what can only be described as a badger metropolis with interlocking pathways through the fields akin to Denton Roundabout and we all know how busy that can get. I found myself imagining the scene of two badgers meeting at a crossroads, ‘After you old boy.’ To bring you back now to the pub and my favourite story of the day in the tiny harbour village of Palnakie.
The Glenisle Inn, with a giant flounder, a flat fish, painted on one gable, has a wonderful tale to tell.
Unfortunately the fish has now been pressure washed to oblivion for the wall to be rendered but once inside you get the idea and it’s back to my mention of ‘tramping’ earlier.
In 1972 someone came up with the bright idea of a Flounder Tramping Contest. Apparently as the tide recedes many of the founders stay put in the shallows, partly hidden in the mud and just covered by water. The trick is to walk over the mud-flats in your bare feet and when you feel the fish move, you are able to catch them.
I asked Bob the landlord was the three-pronged fork mounted on the wall a specialist instrument for the task and indeed it was called a ‘leister,’ a trident, now banned on health and safety grounds, presumably for the fish.
So thankfully this bit of kit is staying on the wall.
This method of fishing was used in the coastal waters and river estuaries of South West Scotland, particularly at Palnakie, for centuries.
A similar technique is still used in Cumbria, particularly in the Duddon Estuary and Morecambe Bay, where it is called treading.
Treaders wade along channels at low water until they tread on a flounder; the fisher will then lift the fish by inserting a finger into the gill opening of the fish. I was delighted to read that on the first Saturday of August Palnackie hosts the World Flounder Tramping Championships.
Several hundred competitors walk out onto the mud flats of the Urr Water estuary, south of the village, at low tide.
The competition is held to raise funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution...loud cheers... but wait, in July 2010 Dumfries and Galloway Council announced its intention to ban the flounder tramping championships on ‘Health and Safety’ grounds. Boo, came the cry. There’s more to this story than at first meets the eye, so watch out for an update and a hint of ‘founder-gate,’ oh the intrigue.
And a quick mention for the random Ariel Colt 1954 perched behind the bar.
‘I’ll have one of them please Bob,’ I said.