A summary of early journeys

I mentioned in my ‘welcome’ post that I have already made a few tentative journeys, and some of these will doubtless appear in the final book. For now, the following is a brief summary of where rail and rod have taken me so far.

The Derbyshire Wye in May was magnificent, Blenheim Palace and the Thames in June equally so (but devoid, on my visits, of any notable fish). At the end of the day on the locks at Marlow and Hurley, my host took me to a famous old pub near Twyford where Charlie Cassey’s sixteen pound barbel sits in a case above the fireplace. It was a fish I’d learnt a great deal about during the writing of A Can of Worms, but it was the highlight of my day to finally put a face and fins to the old photographs. It was also some 15lbs heavier than any other fish, live or stuffed, that we’d seen that day.

The Royalty was testing, but two days in the Top Weir with my good friend Chris Quinn rewarded us with good roach, dace and chub, a handful of gudgeon and a lost barbel of unknown proportions. I will expand on this rain-sodden, sun-drenched adventure in a chapter of its own.

Lake Vyrnwy was as indulgent and exquisite as any well-heeled Victorian trout-fisher might reasonably expect. We caught rainbow trout, ate copiously, and discovered a little of the lake’s remarkable history through the archives kept at the hotel. Again, the story merits a full retelling in the eventual book.

I have just returned today from Looe, where Cornish Dave and I spent a long day in the company of Mally Toms, one of the local sharking skippers. Mally lives up to every imaginable shark skipper stereotype, and demonstrated an ability to mercilessly take the piss out of anyone whose queasiness at sea got the better of them.

I’m just glad I wasn’t the only one…

When Dave finally, at the death of the day, hooked his monster blue, I expected Mally to spit tobacco at the horizon and exclaim ‘we’re going to need a bigger boat’. He didn’t, but I bet he thought about it. I’ll write it up fully for this blog when my stomach lining settles down.

For now, I shall post a truncated sample of Chapter 1 – the Wye adventure – as a taste of things to come.