HAPPY DAYS WITH FRIENDS

                         

Christmas - a time to celebrate our days of joy with family and friends during these past years and to look forward to many more wildlife and fishing adventures during this next year.

Yes, we’re well aware that a virus is running riot so for now, all of us will keep ourselves isolated from our nearest and dearest and try to stay alive … and if Sue and I don’t succeed, this could serve as a goodbye!

But before we leave … and contrary to most people’s attitude to writing Christmas cards, I really enjoy the process because it means our friends are instantly on my mind and the more I write in each card, the longer I’m with them in spirit, regardless of not having seen them for years. This enables us to pass on our news and love and every card is rewarding because for a moment, they’ve been right there with us.

Sue and I are blessed to have so many to write to and I for one know it’s a privilege to share the fun of fishing with all my worm dangling friends. So I hope you enjoy sharing this selection of catches they’ve made during these past few years. And I'll start with those I fish with most, my computer guru and good pal Chris Wild, with whom I shared the excitement of stalking this beautiful 22lb common carp in the shallows of a local lake.

Next up is Steve Derby for he allows me the privilege of sharing his rig for mullet fishing in Christchurch Harbour and we had a splendid year of success, catching quite a few up to six and a bit pounds, along with some lovely roach. I know I’ve banged on about how hard mullet fight but if you’ve ever tried to land one, you’ll know that they never give up and in shallow water, the battles can be seriously exciting.

Also a fan of mullet madness is Steve’s long time friend, Brian Naylor, an ace angler who delights in making me jealous by telling stories of battles with giant sea trout in South America. We’ve shared a few scares together too as the feisty mullet try to break our line among the anchor chains.

Another fish that pulls a bit is the Indian Mahseer and I enjoyed some wonderful holidays there in winter sunshine, having been invited to join Steve, Brian and not least that ace barbel angler who helped us with our TV series ‘Catching the Impossible’, Pete Reading. 

He caught us a twelve pound barbel to order and had lots of big mahseer during our adventures and it’s such a shame that those holidays together are no longer possible because the great wildlife and birding we enjoyed was only matched by our laughter.

Another friend sharing our Indian trips was Gerry Higham. He got lucky and caught a fifty pounder that for half an hour, dragged him all over the river in his coracle. He's an all rounder so is just as keen on catching delicate crucian carp in one of our local lakes.

Gerry is a lifelong follower of Manchester United and he kindly invited close friend Chris Yates and I to enjoy a match with the club we support, Southampton. Being in ‘The Theatre of Dreams’ was dramatic, with 70,000 fans cheering their teams and it must be very odd for the players today to compete in front of empty stands.

Chris and I love our crucian fishing and have shared many memorable days trying to spot their sneaky bites ... and sometimes succeeding.

Chris also loves his perching but on this occasion he’d forgotten his rod so, shock horror, he had to fish with one of my carbon ones and I promised not to tell anyone that he’d broken his tradition never to use such a modern monstrosity.

Though I do enjoy crucian fishing, especially with Chris, my first love is roaching and I particularly like this pic of Stuart Wilson, the legendary keeper at the LAA’s Britford fishery with a sparkler. 

I have many friends who love their roaching, including Malcolm Swinfen and luckily we've shared several two pounders. We also exchange fishing stories by email and with Malcolm being a good writer, they make enjoyable reading.

Many of our friends love catching big roach - of course they do, they are the best fish - and one who has done more than most for us anglers this last year by enabling us to start fishing again after lockdown is pal and Angling Trust guru Martin Salter. I was pleased to be alongside him when he caught this great big roach from the River Test. It wasn't quite a two pounder but it looks it!

I can't mention roach without acknowledging the lifetimes work of Trevor Harrop and Budgie Price and it's partly due to them that we can now trot the Hampshire Avon for roach again and stand a reasonable chance of catching one. Here they are landing a big chub! Sorry about that but I couldn't find the one of Budgie landing a roach of nearly two pounds.

I have friends who sometimes prefer bigger fish than roach and I was so lucky to be invited to join those ace angling archivists, Keith and Sandy Armishaw for a holiday sturgeon fishing in Canada. What's more, we had such a good time I was invited again and boy, did we catch a lot of big fish. 

This monster of Keith's took him 1hr 28mins to land and I caught one close to that size. We got very wet when it flapped and being  stuck in the mud, we had an early bath - cue laughter.

We also visited Vancouver Island, fishing not far from where Prince Harry and Megan lived for a while, and the salmon fishing was a bit special, Keith landing this monster King Salmon on trotted salmon eggs and I caught several beautiful fresh run silver bars on a fly.

Luckily I'd been taught to cast by John Slader, an Orvis guide on the Test and stalwart of the Salmon and Trout Conservation Trust, so I was extremely fortunate to catch fish instead of trees. We had shared a grand bone fishing holiday out west and now we share roach fishing on our poles alongside the Avon and enjoy that just as much.

I have other pals that love fly fishing too, non more so than Jim Wreglesworth. He catches some gorgeous big brownies from our local rivers on the fly, loves roach fishing and shares a love of tench, catching lots of fiesty smallish ones with me one evening. He was quite happy!

I have another great friend who I've fished with for many years and he's an inspiration because he makes such a commitment to achieve success and nearly always does, Mark Woodage. Only two years ago he caught a roach of 3lb14ozs from an 'impossible' water and helped me to catch one of 3lb10ozs so we were both rather happy chappies. He loves his tenching too and we've shared many happy days in the summer sun along with blanking on frosty mornings.

One angler I always look forward to joining for our trips down memory lane is Martin Bowler. We spent four years together creating our Ch4 series 'Catching the Impossible' and amazingly, after all that pressure to catch big 'uns, we remain the best of friends. 

I helped him out with a bit of filming for one of his productions a few years back and we will never forget the day when he caught giant perch of 4lb5ozs, followed soon after by a true monster of 5lb4ozs. He is arguably the finest all round angler in the UK and a lovely bloke too so I count myself lucky to call him and his wife Jo friends.

I haven't been fishing much this last year due to a need to hide away and I've missed our journeys into the wild, not least to the Hebridian Island of Islay where nearly thirty thousand barnacle geese spend the winter, the scenery is stunning and the malt whisky from the islands' eight distillaries is delicious ... but dangerous.

Here we are with our close friends, ace wildlife cameramen Michael and Penny Richards and the legendary John Aitchison who was trying to film golden eagles catching geese! They do you know.

We go to Islay together as often as possible, along with other birding holidays but our annual New Year celebrations with Michael and Penny and Rick and Jen is cancelled this year for obvious reasons. It's sad as we've never missed the get together for the last thirty nine years. This pic of us on the West Somerset Railway makes me think of that exclamation in panto "it's behind you"!

We'll just have to be patient and wait for 'together time' when the worst of the virus is over. Finger's crossed it won't be too long, but in the meantime, Sue and I are lucky to have a lovely big garden to look after and keep us fit. Our wildflower meadow is butterfly heaven.

Our daughter Katie and partner Simon love their gardening too and are joining us for Christmas lunch from just up the road but very sensibly, our Pete decided it was too risky to come from Plymouth as he didn't want to kill the old folk!

 

We'll hopefully be seeing him in the Spring when everything is smelling of roses and our world slowly returning to normal. ... and it won't be long before summer glows with life and we're picnicking on the top of Dorset's Golden Cap. Until then, have a great Christmas and stay safe always ... and thank you to all my fishing pals for their great company and all the laughs. 

With our love and best wishes, Hugh and Sue.

 

GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN

the etherial Ely Cathedral, floating above the Fens

Inspiring places of worship remind us of the passing of precious friends and it's not possible to forget those legendary anglers who have left so many happy memories behind them. Christmas for Sue and I is a time for family and friends, living for the now, hoping for a happy future and reflecting on the past,  so it's an approriate time to mention some of our friends who have left us for those perfect swims in the sky.

                

Every fisherman will have treasured John Wilson's TV films and books and Martin Bowler, Bernard Cribbins, Jacko and I have many happy memories of fishing with him, especially for our Ch 4 series  "Catching the Impossible".

On one memorable occasion John not only caught us a big pike to order, he caught us the biggest fish in Oulton Broad and in this happy moment all Martin could think to say was "you jammy bar-steward". But John was a brilliant fisherman and wonderful man and there wasn't all that much luck in what he achieved, just hard work ... and to lose him last November was a shock to us all.

More recently, we lost the legendary Bob Church. He was such an able angler and you'll never meet a keener fisherman, so energetic when filming with Martin and I that it made me wonder how he kept up so much enthusiasm for life. Here he is with just one of many pike he caught for us and he was a master of many skills so it was sad to see you go Bob.

I love fishing for tench, never more so than when sat sharing a lake side with Mike, and though many won't of heard of him, he was a lovely man and I was delighted to share this 9lb+ tench with him. Sadly, he too left us last year and I'll always miss his friendly banter and warm smile.

Roach fishing is my first love and I was fortunate to have shared many happy days with one of the finest roach anglers in the country, Mike Townsend. He was so keen he even eclipsed Bob Church for enthusiasm but he too suddenly left us this Spring and the angling press missed the moment to celebrate a very fine angler. I'll miss his warmest of company and sharing many a fine roach with him, including this two and a half pound plus beauty.

So lets all celebrate these finest of guys as we reflect on this moving tribute, found by that most famous angler and writer 'BB' on a churchyard gravestone ... 

"The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power,
the shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades,
these I saw. Look ye also while life lasts."

Chris Yates with a splendid Stour perch of 2lb 8ozs.

I think most anglers live in the  spirit of that tribute and we are fortunate to have shared happy days with many like minded friends, admiring all the wildlife while dreaming of catching big fish. Luckily, many of them are still with us so please read on in my next blog about our worm dangling.

Martin Bowler with Bernard Cribbins and his twenty plus pike,  both still going strong and dreaming of an even bigger one

CATCHING THE IMPOSSIBLE

 

at 5lb4ozs a simply awesome perch from the Great Ouse - almost impossible

There is nothing that is ‘impossible’ of course, not when it comes to freshwater fishing … and Martin Bowler and friends proved this when we made our series of nine films for Ch 4.

a tench fishers double delight

an estate lake tench for Bernard as described in our book

Everything is a long time ago when you’re my age and when we started filming this series with Bernard Cribbins on July 22^nd 2004, little did we know that like 'A Passion for Angling’, our series would still be going strong more than fourteen years later.

Our name ‘Catching the Impossible’ was part catchy title and part a challenge to see if we could catch huge fish to order, preferably with under-water images to match … but the idea of a three-pound river roach was our most wildly optimistic target.

the incomparable Terry Lampard with our 3lb5oz River Stour roach

The fact that our close friend Terry Lampard actually achieved that impossible task on film is testament to his skill and determination, for it equalled his PB and at the time was probably the only three-pound roach in the River Stour. It was an amazing day and will always remind us of our sadly departed friend.

yet another 7+ chub for Terry and our cameras

Martin Bowler probably matches Terry in his angling skills and perseverance as well as proving to be the best possible company in our long quest for the targets. He started well, landing our fifteen-pound barbel on the upper Ouse within a few hours of our cameras rolling.

our first days filming beside the Gt.Ouse - what a golden start ... but it wasn't always as easy!

The fact that it would surely be impossible to catch such a fish from Adams Mill or Kickles Farm now is a sad reflection on the demise of many small river barbel. Likewise the marvellous big perch fishing that Martin enjoyed in the Bedfordshire Ouse before and during the making of the films. He’d caught more than twenty perch over four pounds but we never imagined that this monster of 5lb 4ozs would slide into the landing net as we looked on in disbelief. The Angling Times suggested at the time that it was the biggest river perch ever caught in the UK.

this is a mere three pluser withYates hoping for a four

44lbs 4ozs of classic common carp, stalked in the margins with a float

another catch from our book with film clip details

We’d set our hearts on a forty plus carp and felt lucky that we caught a beautiful common that matched Dick Walker’s famous Redmire record. We caught it stalking in the margins too.

The size of carp has increased so much since then that I guess we would have set our ‘impossible’ target at fifty pounds but one fish that would always be a challenge is a thirty-pound pike, not from a trout reservoir but an ancient estate lake.

job done and at 32lb 6ozs an 'impossible' pike that graced our series

When we finally landed that monster we knew that our four years of filming was complete … and in spite of all the difficult challenges of big fish and poor weather we hardly had a cross word and remain the best of friends.

happy days with Chris Yates plus roach and perch

It was a remarkable and unrepeatable adventure and one that lives on to this day in the three DVD’s that Martin is selling in his on-line shop. There are three one-hour films on each DVD and all are narrated by the incomparable Bernard Cribbins.

Bernard's 22lb plus of hard fighting pike

He appears in many scenes and never let us down when we needed him to catch. We’d have included him in every scene as he and Martin got on like a house on fire but sadly, Bernard was busy filming Dr.Who at the time, [I think he got his priorities wrong!] along with TV and theatre work, so wasn’t available.

the boxed set of great fishing and wildlife which ... so we're told, won't dissapoint!

If you want to share our triumphs and disappointments, the three DVD’s are available individually … and when we have made some more copies of disc 2 [it sold out] we will sell the series as a boxed set with a slip case.

https://martinbowler.co.uk/shop/dvds/

friend, relation and jammy bar-steward John Wilson with Oulton Broad's biggest pike

DVD’s        = £14 each + p&p

DVD’s X 3 = £42 for the set + p&p

Martin also has copies of ‘A Passion for Angling' for sale.