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.

 

FISHING WITH FRIENDS

Not alone on the River Wye. Chris Yates was just upstream and Martin Bowler took this beaut. picture of me barbel fishing

If you happen to read this blog because you are an angler then you might think I’ve given fishing up because I haven’t written a fishy story for ages. The reason is simple, I haven’t been fishing!

I still love the idea of being out in the countryside with a rod but our big garden has taken up all our time as we create a flower filled gravel garden for butterflies and bees. We haven’t finished it yet but to see the squadrons of buzzers already feeding there is a joy.

a silver-washed fritillary on a hebe

No fishing might mean no stories but I have many happy memories of fishing with friends, so this will be a celebration of those special days when we shared our catches and time together.

                    Fishing with Friends

Fishing alone can be an intense and rewarding experience and might even lead to catching bigger fish but for maximum enjoyment you can’t beat sharing those moments of triumph and disaster when you both cheer when one of you catches a big one and cry when the big one gets away ... or maybe you laugh when your mate loses the big one!
 
Here’s a selection of some of our catches during the good old days when we had the good sense to ignore all the horrible things going on in our world and made time to breath fresh air. These pics are  just a random ramble through the archives to celebrate the joys of angling together with friends.

First up are some happy gatherings during glorious summer days of crucian fishing at an intimate Wessex lake. We almost always caught a few, even over three pounds but we were sensible enough to simply enjoy the company and take time out for more important matters, like my wife Sue's famous cake.

close friends Chris Wild, Avon Roach Project Trev and Mr Yates getting their priorities right - tea and cake!

happy days of sunshine and golden nuggets

Please read on - there's more friends and the fish grow bigger

SO MUCH TO DO - SO LITTLE TIME!

                 

dawn ... and a whole new day to explore the world

I’m coming to realise that I have too many hobbies, passions if you like and the dawning reality that I haven’t enough time to indulge in half of them or satisfy the need to do so is leading to a growing frustration. My life is slipping away and like many of you no doubt, the need to prioritise is ever more pressing. So why waste my time writing a blog?! I’ll try to answer that question by looking into the past.

what a magical place to walk, fish and bird watch

at 18lbs my largest schoolboy pike

As a child, the wide open spaces quickly became a passion because I grew up in the Fens at Ely and found the land of skies and it’s wildlife inspiring. Few people think that fish are wildlife but they are as valuable to our ecosystems as any mammal or bird … and fish are just as interesting and beautiful as any other if you care to look. Living in the water filled Fens I did look, so fishing became a major interest during childhood too.

a brace of 2lb rudd - more valuable than gold nuggets

what a spectacular building and place for my childhood inspiration

what an innocent little boy - not!

Having won a choral scholarship to Ely Cathedral choir, music was not only my first love, it was my first job and singing for my supper from the age of eight and a half in such a glorious building was not only a privilege but inspiring too.

I started playing the French Horn at school and was going to do so professionally until I saw the great Eric Ashby on the BBC’s early ‘Look’ programmes with Peter Scott, stalking wildlife in the New Forest.

with my hero Eric Ashby and one of his favourite wild foxes 

He became my hero and I decided in that instant that making wildlife films was the job for me. I was lucky and got the job of my dreams, travelling the world in search of the most charismatic animals I could find in the wildest and remotest corners of our planet.

polar bear on midnight ice

Travelling with a French Horn wasn’t practical and it’s so difficult to play without practising for an hour or two each day that I bought a flute. Then my computer guru Chris gave me a clarinet and I also try to strum on the piano and guitar. However, I don’t seem to have time to play any of these much now, neither do I go birding or fishing enough, so as they say in India ‘what to do’? To repeat the question at the start of this bleat, ‘why waste my life writing a blog?’

barbel ace Pete Reading as featured in 'the book of the series'

This blog will be the 55^th I’ve written and as of today, 99,591 views have been accumulated since I wrote the first one in January 2013. It described the making of the Barbel Society’s Handling Code Film with Pete Reading and the third blog is about catching barbel, again with Pete, filmed for the Ch4 series with Martin Bowler, “Catching the Impossible”. 

That series is still going strong, so I guess it vindicates the four years Martin and I spent trying to get it right. The size of the ‘impossibles’ that Martin so skilfully caught is still eye-watering to this day, proving that nothing is impossible, a principle for life if you ask me.

Martin Bowler's unbelievable 5lbs 4ozs of stunning perch for our series "Catching the Impossible".

 in the wilds of the Andes © Laurie Campbell

The second blog I ever wrote briefly described one of the most rewarding films I ever made, the story of my quest to film mountain lions in the far flung Andean Mountains in Patagonia. I managed to win the trust of a completely wild puma and was able to walk around the mountains with her when hunting and raising her cubs, even at night. Being surrounded by three full grown big cats alone in the dark was one of the moments that was ‘interesting’ as it raised the hairs on the back of my neck ... but I love ‘living on the edge’. How close to the edge I didn’t realise until a few weeks after I’d finished filming when a fisherman was caught and eaten by a puma. If I’d known that at the time I wouldn’t have been walking around the mountains alone at night! One day I’ll tell the story of the making of this film … but where’s the time?

I often wondered what she was thinking when looking deep into my eyes ... and hoped it wasn't 'dinner' © Laurie Campbell

I love story telling … and making films was a very rewarding way of doing so, combining four of my passions … wildlife, photography, writing and music. Writing blogs is story telling and that’s why it’s rewarding ... but what it lacks is that essential ingredient that helps to create the best movies, team work. 

Hebrides in the rain with Sue and Penny and ace film makers John Aitchison and Michael Richards ... happy days

However, creating blogs is a lot quicker and cheaper than making films and as I've had both hips replaced as a result of damage caused by chasing various pussy-cats in the worlds mountains, I've had to stop these hardcore adventures.

up at 17,000ft with one of the world's most charismatic cats ... hip-replacement country

I don’t wish to become a cripple again so creating blogs will have to do … and it’s rewarding to receive your kind comments about the contents that I conjure up. Self indulgent it might be but writing blogs fulfils a creative urge. It also allows me to share my adventures with those who aren't as fortunate or lucky to have met so many great people in the world's wildest places, along with the animals that live there. So I guess my blogs are a kind of celebration that allows me to pay back the privileges ... and hopefully it encourages all of us to try to enjoy life more often, me included. 

Dorset's beautiful Golden Cap but when are the government going to get serious about marine reserves?

Blogging also gives me a chance to highlight the many challenges that wildlife faces around the world, though many are also on our own doorstep. Some environmental issues are so depressing, like the governments total disregard for our children's future by allowing development to run riot at the expense of wild places that I sometimes try to hide away from reality and just go and enjoy what we have left.

the Hampshire Avon at it's best in early September - there were hunting hobbies above and barbel below

Nearly 100,000 readers of my blogs all over the world seems a lot and I feel suitably humbled that so many folk should take time out to read my ramblings but in the days of my film-making we would think nothing of reaching an audience of up to ten million. 

still much enjoyed even after twenty five years

Our fishing series for BBC 2, ‘A Passion for Angling’ achieved the dizzy heights of an audience of 6.3 million so the blog could be described as ‘small beer’. However, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to ramble on about my hobbies and to bang on about conservation issues … and there are plenty to get stuck into when it comes to our world of water.

lack of water is just one of many threats to our rivers

However, I do miss the camaraderie of film-making and the whole creative process so blog creation fills the void until I can make the time to finish writing a book about my adventures. At least I don’t have to spend up to 270 days abroad, something I did routinely every year, so there’s more time now for my wife Sue and our two children, Katie and Peter.  It would usually take two years or more to make a major wildlife film and creating a total of over sixty meant spending a lot of time away from home, out in the wilds.

angling friends Trev, Budgie and Robin

I missed family and friends of course but the commitment was something I had to do to succeed. You buy into a life-style and have to put up with the sacrifices, [not that I'm complaining.] Now that I’ve largely stopped travelling our beautiful garden receives a lot more attention than it used to. At two acres it’s about two acres too big … but I’d miss dredging ponds for days on end …and they’re right about mud, mud, glorious mud ... the digging certainly keeps Sue and I fit.

the wild flower meadow is a joy and provides a haven for up to 160 heads of orchid, all naturally colonised 

Still, it takes me more than a day to write each blog and assemble the pictures, so that’s 55+ days I could have gone fishing or birding or been able to make the time to paint water- colours or read all those books I have bought or friends have given me. Like I said at the start, I have too many hobbies but hey, life would be awfully dull if we didn’t have enough to do, wouldn’t it … and I did enjoy rambling on in this ditty … and contrary to my whinging, I do go fishing occasionally. 

what stunning fish barbel are ... and this one weighed 13lbs.11ozs - I was quite happy!

How about this beautiful barbel from the Hampshire Avon, caught a couple of weeks ago. What stunning creatures they are. I’ll have to write about them next time I don’t have enough to do! But until then, catch one for me and go see one of those ospreys that are heading south for Africa down the immemorial skyways to the sun.

 strike action - visiting a lake near you right now