Pimbley was pissed off. There we were with our legs dangling over the edge of Beeston Lock, staring directly beneath us. We were trying to watch his liitle orange float in the water twelve feet below, next to a moderate-sized clump of water weed. “If it happens again I'm packing in, “ he hissed.
Although I wasn't very good at physics, it seemed to me that Pimbley's problem was optical in nature. Because the float was at some distance and so directly beneath us, it was almost impossible to tell when a fish bit, dragging the float slightly but imperceptibly beneath the surface of the sluggish water, in exactly the same direction we were staring.
I was starting to get pissed of at Pimbley, although of course I wouldn't show it. After all, it was him that had dragged me here. On the bus back from some boring Scout trip, he and one or two others had been on at me to take up fishing. Apart from being tremendously exciting, it was clearly put forward as an independent, semi-adult thing to be doing.
This whole trip had been meticulously planned during a Chemistry lesson with the idea of converting me to angling. Worms had been dug up in quantities, the ideal location identified. Pimbley had personally cycled down to the lock every day for three days to ensure that it was pre-baited so that the “massive gret roach” he anticipated knew that a regular feed was to be had there. It was largely due to his fanatical devotion to the plan that I eventually decided to string along.
The trouble with Pimbley was that he was mardy. He enjoyed moaning. I thought I never saw the float flicker when, with a huge swish, the line slashed through the surface water, as Pimbley yanked the rod tip high and wide in another vain attempt to connect. “That's it, I'm finished, bugger it!” he complained springing to his feet as he threw down the rod on the towpath. I recalled that the float had in fact just dipped minutely a fraction of a second before Pimbley yanked it. To tell that it went beneath the surface I would have found impossible.
Pimbley was inconsolable. “Of course it went under, yer prat. I should have had the bastard!” No amount of suggestions or coaxing would persuade him. The rod was taken down and strapped back on to the bike, the worms chucked into the lock with the finality of burnt boats. Beginning to sense the waste of a perfectly good afternoon, I wondered what would happen next.
What happened next, since Pimbley was not inclined to go home, was a slow, aimless stroll up the Trent. “Christ, a walk along the riverbank!” I thought, “I might as well be with my parents.” I had the feeling that since he wasn't enjoying myself, he was determined I wouldn't either.
For now apparent reason, Pimbley turned off the main path, through a gap in bank of sand, which appeared to be some kind of flood barrier to stop the Trent overflowing. “Thought we'd take a look at the gravels, “ muttered Pimbley by way of explanation and with a vague hint of atonement, “ You can fish in there, 'n all.”
We had entered a maze of paths, which threaded sandily up and down through the pussy willow herb, then around the interconnected water pools, lozenges of varying size and shape that had been bitten out by the gravel diggers. The water had a greenish, mysterious hue, which seemed to deepen as the day gradually turned more cloudy.
At one point we came out of the bushes near an angler who sat attentively watching a float which he occasionally bombarded with small pieces of something. “Groundbaiting,“ Pimbley explained, breaking a long silence, adding a concise explanation about maggots, other baits and their uses. Sensing he might be getting interested again, I suggested watching the angler for a while, If he caught something, Pimbley might want to join in the sport. But he spotted it coming. “Naw, “ he reckoned, “ he'll catch sod all fishing like that. Twat doesn't know what he's on at.” I was to learn that this sort of comment was typical for Pimbley when he saw an adult fishing.
It seemed as the path would meander on forever like someone's intestine, until it abruptly ended at a point where we emerged on top of a large rise. Beneath us a steep bank of blackberry bushes plunged into a channel of water only about 15 yards wide. On the other side was a flat grass and mud bank, punctuated by occasional trees, which even to my novice eyes looked like an obvious fishing spot.
I was about to ask “What now?” when I noticed that Pimbley was glancing all around him in a darting, ferrety sort of way which was a complete break from the deadpan façade he'd been maintaining. “Christ, Col, “ he intoned with self-certain reverence, “ I do believe we've discovered the famed Bill Tutty Pike Channel!” “The what channel?” I gave out. “Bill Tutty,” said Pimbley, “It's just like he described. He's had fifteen pound pike out of here, has Bill, or so he says. 'Course the bugger hasn't told any sod where it is, except it's on the gravels somewhere.”
I gradually recalled that Bill Tutty was an older member of the scout pack, whom I suspected of being a potential bully, the sort of youth who was given to oafish, behind the bikesheds behaviour patterns, like smoking and interfering with girls. Meanwhile Pimbley was recounting Tutty's fishing triumphs and the notable similarities between his description and the place we had encountered. “Pity we couldn't wade across the other side and have a fish.” I ventured. “Fat chance,” censured Pimbley, “Water's twenty foot deep there. That's what makes it so good. Pike hole up there in the winter.”
There was nothing for it but to go all the way back. We trailed back along the river to the lock but instead of going home as I expected, we pushed our bikes over the bridge at the lock gates and followed round past the lock keeper's house. A powerful surging noise hits us round the corner as I saw for the first time the streaking, plunging white waters of Beeston Weir and the huge slick of detergent foam that, absurdly, trails for two hundred yards below it. It was the first time I'd seen the power of so much water, sparkling in the renewed evening sunshine. Down on the rocks where they jut out to end the main weirpool, a boy slightly younger than us was fishing. It turned out to be a kid called Frank Parr. As we approached, Pimbley whispered to me to say nothing of the Pike Channel as Frank is Bill Tutty's cousin.
“Looks like he's legering, “ explained Pimbley, if yer know what that is.” Unlike his cousin, Frank came over a really friendly, open boy who enjoyed telling us in detail what was going on. Yes he was legering, but because he didn't have any leger leads, he was tying a stone to the line instead. A demonstration followed, and Frank hurled the stone and maggot-baited hook out into the fast water, just short of the foam plume.
“Yer put the rod in a rest, “ explained Frank, doing so, “ but it don't stay still like in't gravels, it kinda bounces along bottom. The rod top moves about a bit but yer can still tell when yer've got a bite.” And, sure enough after the line had moved twenty or so yards downstream the vibration on the rod tip intensified and Frank retrieved what he described as a gudgeon from the surf. “Had a few here today, but nothing big. They mostly hook 'emselves,” he added, repeating the routine and this time a small fish identified as roach shortly emerged.
Pimbley was unable to resist any further. The rod came out of its bag and soon he too was legering and catching small fish. Then, as dusk finally threatened, Pimbley cast into the foam just under the weir sill where it bent round before the stones. There was another tug and a fish of about ten inches in length resulted. “Now that is a roach!” said Pimbley, pointing out to me the red fins and eye, the pale undersides and the blue-green coloured scales on its back. “What a beauty!”
The mental image of that first 12 oz. roach , its flanks glimmering in the fin-coloured evening sun has stayed with me, as I too took up angling, overcoming my natural antipathy towards complex, sedentary activities where things could easily go wrong. In eighteen months I got quite good at it. I learned how to float fish and how to leger, caught roach, gudgeon, dace, and bleak from the weirpool in freezing winter fogs, or from upriver stretches in the summer, where the float trolled lazily through the swim.
One local old codger taught me how to catch bigger roach from the weirpool
on cheese and I found a spot downstream where they liked a big lobworm. I even caught a few chub and struggled to recover my hook from their tough mouths. Then there were some gudgeon that were a bit large for gudgeon. Only in later life did I realise that they might have been the first recurrences of tiny Trent barbel after the bad days of rampant pollution.
In spite of all this success, which frankly exceeded my initial cautious expectations, I found my thoughts occasionally strayed to Pimbley's story of the Bill Tutty Pike Channel.
The Trent was notoriously difficult for us youngsters in the first few weeks of the season after it opened on 15th June. For some reason, they just wouldn't look at a maggot or any other wriggling bait. Our other tricks, like cheese and elderberry were for later in the season. After a few weeks you could catch them on a ball of streamer weed. Sometimes, the roach would have streamer weed coming out at both ends. In retrospect, the fish were probably pre-occupied with microscopic organisms in the weed rather than the weed itself, but, anyhow we couldn't get fish until the weed had grown copiously enough for us to reach it.
There was a kid called Peewee who didn't fish the Trent at the beginning of the season. Peewee preferred the gravels and rumour had it that he was using stewed wheat for bait. A quick check with Pimbley, who seemed to have all the theoretical gen, confirmed that stewed wheat was a known bait, where it could be purchased, and how it could be prepared overnight in a thermos flask full of boiling water.
I arranged to meet with Peewee one Saturday when there was no cricket game, having received directions to his favoured spot at the north end of the gravels near the Chilwell estate. This was a club water so he was basically poaching. When I arrived about 10 a.m., Peewee announced gleefully that he'd been there since 6.30 and showed me his keep net, which contained one very large roach. “Got half a dozen like that last week,” said Peewee.
It was apparent that his choice of bait was not all that was strange about Peewee's fishing methods. For a start, he was using an old centre-pin reel when all our group knew that the new fixed spool reels were technically vastly superior. “Meks less splash,” Peewee explained succinctly. He was using an extremely minute float, attached to absurdly thin line, which carried only two pieces of dust shot, one immediately below the float stem and one crazily near to a minute hook which just protruded through the grain of wheat. Apparently, the idea was that the bait should be “lying on” the bottom of the pond where it had been groundbaited.
“See them bubbles,” said Peewee, “That's roach reaching for t' groundbait.”, and indeed a neat shirt button row of bubbles could be seen breaking the surface of the water, suggesting that a fish was nosing its way along the bottom of the pond, twelve foot below. Some bigger, more profuse bubbles started to surface further out. “Bream, “ commented Peewee, “Bastards are there but I've never hooked one.”
Shortly but many bubbles afterwards, Peewee's float dipped fractionally and he had a small roach to join the larger one in his net. The next cast it dipped again and a major struggle ensues but ends when the monster gets off just in front of Peewee's landing net. “That's torn it!” said Peewee, “Bugger'll probably put rest of shoal off now. Might've been a bream 'n all.”
The only thing to do was to wait and see if it had put them off. To break the silence and without really knowing why, I ask quietly if Peewee knows of the Bill Tutty Pike Channel. Peewee doesn't know Bill Tutty because he shuns all youth organisations and didn't join the scouts. “There is channel, though,” he says, describing a line behind some trees the other side of the pit. “Go up behind them trees and yer'll get to it. Club waters both sides up there but channel is free fishing.”
Half an hour later he packed up, reckoning that the shoal had scattered and that the day was getting too bright for further fishing to be scientifically viable. Feeling I'd learned a lot already, I decided that I might as well take a look for the channel.
It was quite an effort to get there. I had to go all the way back to the end of the gravels before I found a spot where I could cut back up the far side. Clambering through a couple of bushes, I found I was in a fierce wetland area, where the muddy water got perilously close to the top of my juvenile wellies, which released obnoxious bubbles of hydrogen sulphide gas as they probed an uncertain way forward. I knew it was hydrogen sulphide because it was the same smell that came from Stanton Ironworks. At the end of this swamp, a more civilised muddy path started up by a hawthorn bush, and led past a couple of bays to what was clearly the Bill Tutty Pike Channel.
The next Sunday I was back there, equipped with very fine line, small hooks, slender float and a vacuum flask full of stewed wheat, looking to fish the “ideal” spot, a muddy plateau surrounded by two willow trees. The only problem was that someone was already fishing there, an adult, serious fisherman, who was using a bait that looked like stewed wheat but was completely black. Sensing my disappointment, he suggested I fish one of the bays just round from the main channel. “Plenty of fish there too, youth!” By the time I reached the end of the channel, he was playing a good roach.
For the next two hours I tried out the new tactic. Groundbait was put in around the hook, which lay just on the bottom. Fish bubbled around the float, which occasionally performed the odd wobble and dip, but refused to sink. I was just getting fed up when I heard the sound of the other fisherman taking down his gear. What luck! And what on earth can persuade fully-grown, successful fishermen to give up the quest at three o' clock in the afternoon? Hardly had he moved away than I was starting to move my gear into the “ideal” swim.
As predicted by Pimbley, the water was much deeper here and I couldn't get the bait to lay on. Suddenly disillusioned by stewed wheat, I reverted to using some leftover maggots – little realising that I was using a recognised matchfishing technique: maggot over hemp, for that was what the fellow's “black stewed wheat” must have been.
My preparations were disturbed by a swan, which instead of sailing by majestically, started to hiss at me and advance on me in a very aggressive way. One thing everyone knew was that you don't mess with swans. Realising that the “ideal swim” was also a swan's nesting site, I gave way and started to wonder whether the fishing was over and how I was going to remove my gear. Strangely, the swan moved off again, as if assured that its territory was in no danger.
I got a bite first cast, and second and third cast as a series of small roach found their way into my keepnet. Soon I must have had a dozen of them. They were all around the same size, considerably smaller than the one Peewee had caught, but who was to care? After a potentially blank day I was having fun and catching fish in still water for the very first time.
The bites stopped for about ten minutes until what I thought was another small roach took the bait. For a while nothing special happened and it came in like a slightly larger roach. Then when it got near the net, the fish shocked me with a series of deep, throbbing pulls to the left, which had the float jerking rhythmically towards the water, which boiled and eddied in a series of concave balls where the line entered the water The fish continued to kick before eventually surfacing with an enormous slapping and splashing as I struggled to get a net under it.
The fish I unhooked had the red fins of Peewee's roach, but was broader in the body and appeared to lack a dorsal fin as I slipped into the keepnet. It was far larger than anything else I had caught. A half an hour and a couple of small roach later, who should turn up but Peewee himself. “Ay up,” said he, “thought I might find you hereabouts. Any good?” I related the story of the day, building up to a nice climax on the roach that wasn't quite a roach. Peewee, of course, needed a look. “'T'aint no roach, Col, It's a whopping perch!” he said, pulling back the large spiny dorsal fin and letting the fish rest on the grass for a minute, upon which its pale body transformed into the characteristic green and black stripes you can see in any fishing guide. “It's 'cos it's been in deep water, “ explained Peewee, “It's camouflaged itssen!”
As I thought of the violent rod pulls, the mental picture of my jerking float, the image of the succumbed fish going green on the bank, I had the same sense of beauty as with the roach that Pimbley caught, but also with a weird awareness that it was as much the beauty of a woman as the beauty of a fish that I had glimpsed in those moments.
That night I had a strange dream. I was out fishing with what appeared to be an outsize salmon fly. Although I did not want them to, ludicrously small fish kept grabbing the bait, even though it was bigger than they were, and choking on it. This kept happening with increased rapidity until I woke up with a damp feeling in the area of my groin.
A couple of weeks later there was a major debate in the Chemistry class. Our scientific conclusions were that:
1. The Bill Tutty Pike Channel had clearly been discovered and offered immense fishing potential
2. Since it was, however, known for its pike, we should also fish it for pike even though catching pike is very difficult and no-one had done it yet
3. Pike fishing was a serious matter dependent on great stealth, so there would be no larking around
As a result a party was formed to undertake a serious attempt on the Channel, comprising Pimbley, Peewee and a youth known as “Bollock” because his family were Polish immigrants and that was as near as we could get to his surname. I covertly opposed Bollock's inclusion in the party because I didn't think he could keep his trap shut but Pimbley pointed out that he had a lot of pike gear we would need to borrow.
The plan was military. A morning's session of freelining, known locally as “pimping”, in the stretch well below the weir ensured that we had an adequate supply of bleak dace and roach for bait. These were housed in nets and buckets, since livebaiting was the thing in those days, and transported by bike to the gravels, then portered through the jungle conditions that separated the main waters from the Pike Channel.
The execution however proved faulty. We were all lined up on the Channel with me at one end next to Pimbley and Bollock at the opposite end, floats immediately in front of us, close to the bank. After only half an hour, Pimbley got excited, “ Christ, look at that, Col,” he said, struggling to keep his voice down, “ There's a bloody pike down here and it's got my bait right between its teeth!” I looked but could not see. “What do you mean you can't see it?” Pimbley was by now speaking in a kind of whispering shriek, “It's right underneath our bloody noses!” Taking this as an invitation, I stood up to get a better look, the pike bolted, the bait tried to bolt too and Pimbley went mardy, cursing my stupidity for allowing the pike to see me.
After that the whole thing deteriorated into a skylark. Arguments started, Bollock started prattling, people cast deliberately at each others' lines, stones were thrown and the physical attributes of various girls discussed. There was no chance of catching a pike, or anything else for that matter.
I had started reading the “Angling Times” and had been particularly struck by the articles of Dick Walker. Dick Walker was Peewee gone mad. He believed in fanatical planning, minute preparation, extreme stealth and night fishing. About the same time I learned, initially incredulous, that you could spin for perch.
Now I had known about spinning for pike and had seen huge silver lures that looked like the back of a dessert spoon lying in the tackle shop windows, usually mounted on a stout trace wire and with conspicuous red tassles down towards the hook. They cost an arm and a leg. At the gravels, I had occasionally seen Chilwell youths aiming one of these huge missiles into the centre of a pit, where it would land with an immense splash, only to be reeled in immediately at high speed. “Gormless twats!” Pimbley had commented, “Catch naff all like that!”
I can't remember who wrote the treatise on “Spinning for Perch”, which advocated a very contrasting approach. Small lures and thin lines were suggested, indeed the more the lure looked like a perch itself, the better.
That was a shock. Perch were obviously cannibals!
The lure did not need to be cast far. On the contrary, most likely spots would be close to the bank, such as overhanging trees and obstructions, underwater shelves and sudden drop offs. Crucially the retrieve should be slow, with occasional variations in pace and direction, occasionally stopping altogether and sinking momentarily, as the aim is to imitate the movements of a sick or injured fish.
Chilwell boys must have got it wrong, then.
The rod should be short and the tip held just above the water. The butt end may be supported on the upper leg if repeated casting is found tiring. Above all, the key to success was perseverance and stealth, keeping back out of sight of the fish, avoiding heavy footfalls, absolutely silent, avoid garish clothing. Move around all the likely spots, casting repeatedly to the same area, or nearly the same area.
Winter was around the corner. Moving into my newly-found, Dick Walker intensive planning mode, I started to think about a fresh attack on the “Bill Tutty Pike Channel”
It was obvious it would have to be alone. Of the gang, only Peewee could come anywhere near the exacting requirements of such an expedition but he was so likeable I would probably start chatting to him.
An investigation of local tackle shops identified that they could also provide, on request, minute spinners smaller than a coffee spoon. I purchased a couple of items that I judged to be particularly deadly, with conspicuous black and white stripes, the nearest I could find to a perch pattern. I already had some 6lb line, purchased by mistake, that would be strong enough for any perch. As perch do not have any teeth, there would be no need for a trace, or for gaff or disgorger.
Occasionally, I still had strange dreams. One was an exaggerated form of initiation ceremony, in which some elder boys caught hold of me and removed my trousers and pants. They attached two lengths of strong fishing line between the head of my willy, which had swelled enormously and connected them to my pelvis on either side. They then yanked the lines simultaneously, just a couple of times, forcing me to ejaculate and once again wake up with the damp feeling in my groin.
On the day allocated for the latest attack on the pike channel, there was a pea-souper and it was near freezing. Cycling was felt to be unsafe and my father had to give me a lift to the gravels, depositing me at a phone-box from where I was to phone the neighbours when I wanted to go home. Wee didn't of course have a phone.
As often on foggy days there was a death-like stillness everywhere. It was as if you were on your own little planet, wrapped in a parcel of fog. Way across the gravels, I could hear a couple of youths larking about as if they were just a few yards away. I trekked through the trees at a creep, so soft and silent that when I reached the wet bit, I almost stood on a duck, which immediately went into emergency take-off mode, skating and splashing and screeching through the reeds until it found the air and invisibility in the fog.
My intention was to work my way around the pools up to the Pike Channel, where there were numerous overhanging willows and submerged roots. I reckon I did everything right. I hid behind bushes and in front of trunks, clothed like a conscript, never heard my own footprints and kept casting into the likely spots, imitating a sick fish so thoroughly I started to feel like one.
On later attempts in these spots, I was to catch several perch on my stripey spinner, bronze flyspoons and a green and black spoon, which vibrated fiercely and really did look worryingly like a perch when it rotated in the water. But today it wasn't going to happen. I reckon it was probably a bit too cold for perch. I remembered that Dick Walker wrote that perch quickly become inactive in cold weather and could only be caught from huge, remote holes in winter, which was why he invented a new leger weight called the “Arlesey Bomb”.
So I had gradually edged my way round to the Pike Channel, slightly disappointed that I hadn't had a touch yet, but, with no accomplices to distract me, determined to persevere. As I edged the spinner through the swim where Pimbley had lost his pike, a huge splash came from the reeds at the other end of the Channel. I knew from previous exploration that this was an area of very shallow water, inches in depth and so put the splash down to a water rat. On investigating the spot, I could of course see nothing.
By now I was fishing next to the swan's nest swim, where I had taken the big perch. At the end of one retrieve, immediately after the spinner left the water, there was a minor commotion, as a long bright flash went through the water, just below the surface and the fog and disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. My heart jumped as I started onto one leg, almost overbalancing into the mud and swan dung. I remembered Pimbley saying, “That's the trouble with spinning. Pike 'll follow but they won't take.” At the same time I realised that such a long, bright streak could not have been a perch.
“Oh, well, that's probably as near as I'll get today!” I thought, At least I could tell the boys I'd had a follow, and they could believe it or not.
The last swim was the one next to the reed bed where the splash had come from. After that, it was a choice of packing up early, or re-fishing all the swims again. On instinct, I decided to cast as near the reeds as possible, but sighed inwardly as the spinner plooped into the edge of the channel barely six feet away.
Sticking to my ploy, I retrieved slowly. The spinner must have been virtually beneath my feet when it was stopped solid by what I knew was a pike. This time a surge of terror went through me as my arms tightened and the rod butt thumped into my stomach. It was as if there had been a loud “bang” or “thump”, but all around the gravels remained curtained in foggy silence. This wasn't like the playful tugging of the perch. The pike had hit me like a force as terrifying as it was immense, which I couldn't control, as strong as sex and life, as if it could pull me in and swallow my soul.
Of course I had considered what might happen if I got a pike on, but had dismissed the possibility as unlikely. I had no trace, so the line could be bitten through if I tried to play it. I had no gaff to get the fish in and the chances of beaching a large fish after a fight seemed unlikely. Before I had made any conscious decision, the silent “thump” became an immense, audible splash, as I hauled rod and pike onto the grass verge of the Pike Channel in one straight heave, almost as terrifying and virtually indistinguishable from the grab of the pike. Effectively, I had gambled on the fish being of lower weight than the breaking strain of the line, and that it wouldn't have time to bite it.
As it lay there, thrashing on the grass side, in its sheen of olive and white flecks, I once again experienced the surge of a feeling of beauty which goes right throughout nature, and in particular, the human female.
It was common to kill pike in those days. I didn't want to kill it, just as I hadn't wanted the strange dreams, but it would have to be killed. Firstly, I had no disgorger and could not remove the hook from the mouth of the angry, thrashing monster without risking a nasty bite. Secondly, no one would believe that I had caught it unless I could produce the evidence.
I thought of a book on trout fishing I had been absent-mindedly reading, which suggested the use of a pope, or failing that a nearby telegraph pole. Forlornly, I looked around and realised the nearest telegraph pole must be a mile away. The nearest thing I had to a pope was an iron bank stick, so in the end, inwardly sobbing, I did away with the poor thing with a few taps of the bank stick just behind the nose, in the manner the book suggested.
It was then that the feelings of fear and apprehension turned into a warm glow of triumph. I was too excited to fish on and, although it was early, I headed back to the telephone box to alert my father. Surprised by my early call, the neighbours said it would be a few minutes before he could get there.
I wasn't worried. I had plenty to think about and dote over as I waited nearby, the pike ostentatiously draped over an inverted oil drum for all to see. A girl from school called Diane Hatfield came by. According to the unwritten code between boys and girls who were not actually “going out” together, she pretended to ignore me, but | could see was impressed. A month or two later, I got an invite to her fourteenth birthday party, where “things” were bound to go on.
On the scales at home, the pike came in at just under four pounds, so I reckoned it must have been just on the 4 lb mark when I caught it. “Not big – but bigger than any of our lot's caught!” I thought as I set off for Pimbley's house.
And anyway, everyone knew Bill Tutty was a dreadful liar.
December 2005
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