PERCHING WITH CHRIS YATES

                        

It’s always a pleasure going fishing with my pal Chris because, despite what the conditions tell us, we are forever optimistic of a result … yes I know, ‘a worm on one end and a fool on the other’ … but last weekend we just had to get out. I’d been indoors editing some film and Chris locked in, writing his book for Collins on winter. We were both suffering from ‘cabin fever’ and needed to come up for air. Perch are now Chris’s favourite winter species and I find them easier to catch than big roach, so perch were our chosen quarry.

An afternoons fishing would take place on Dorset’s River Stour near our homes and the conditions were ‘challenging’, a rising river full of snow melt and salt washed off the roads. Water temp. was forty two degrees – not bad – but a full moon and bright sun didn’t help. At least we had a good selection of excuses ; we sometimes need lots of those!

Our two previous visits to the river had indeed ended in blanks, despite near perfect conditions. I had fished for both roach and perch on both sides of the river and never had a bite, though remarkably, fish rolling roach like in my swim turned out to be jack pike, cleaning their gills I suspect after feeding on the liquidised bread I was throwing in. No, they weren’t feeding on minnows, there were non there.

Chris did get one chance on each day, hooking a large perch, the first of which broke him on a snag, the second slipped the hook after a spirited fight, though just to prove he does occasionally catch perch, here’s ‘one he prepared earlier’, a two pounder but from a lake. The highlight of these attempts was an otter swimming downstream at dusk, so close to Chris that he could have tapped it on the head with his rod.

River Stour Otter - c. Stewart Canham

In the same spot last weekend, while brewing a refreshing  cup of Kelly Kettle tea I was asking Chris how to spell the Latin for ‘there’s always a chance’ … ‘casus ubique valet’ … and we fervently believed there was a chance, if only during the last hour of daylight. I had already tried two classic swims before Chris arrived, dangling an enticing lobworm below a Cralusso flat float with my pole, deep under the tangled branches of overhanging bushes.

Martin bowler and I had used the same technique during the filming of  “Catching the Impossible”, the result - perch of 4/6 and 5/4. We were told by Angling Times that, at the time the ‘impossible’ five was the largest ever taken from a river … since beaten of course, but when the monster swirled and gave us our first glimpse we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. So the technique is deadly, though not last Saturday, not even a hint of a bite. I did get a new species though, a wren perching on the pole, adding to previous ‘perchers’, robin, grey wagtail and several kingfishers, one of which fell off!

I moved down to join Chris among some ancient, overhanging willows and tried the worm dangling trick again but still no bites, not even an enquiry.

However, while trying to photograph Chris’s float I failed because it had been pulled under by … a well timed strike and nothing. Hook gone. His favourite float sank again during the magic hour. Surely this time it was a perch but again the hook was bitten off. Obviously a hungry jack pike. We caught nothing – nada – zilch.

When dusk had rendered our floats invisible the highlight of the day ghosted into view, a barn owl hunting over rough pasture on the opposite side of the river. Unremarkable perhaps, though it was the first time we had ever seen a barn owl along this stretch of river in over thirty years of fishing. It made our day.

Barn Owl - c. Stewart Canham

Desperate to even see a bite, I headed off to Sway Lakes early next day and promptly caught a 2/3 roach on my second cast, taken on a paternostered tail of a lob. It was all perch after that, twenty or so up to 1/12, mostly on float-fished maggot. My desire to see a bite was more than satisfied and catching a beautiful big roach like that on a cold day was such a pleasant surprise that it sums up the appeal of angling. It proves that there is always a chance.

That OMG moment

Two pounds three ounces of January silver

A good old days brace - c. Chris Yates

In the good old days you could catch a brace like this, my biggest roach from the stretch in Wimborne of 2/9 and a perch of 2/3, a picture taken by Chris on one of our  perching sessions. [It’s horrible quality because a mag. lost the original and this is taken off the pages of the article by Chris.] It’s really sad that so many of the fish have ‘disappeared’, our local fishery destroyed and the local tackle shop gone.

Why the fishing has been so bad on our local rivers recently is a complex issue which I’ll enlarge on in a future post. The stretch that Chris and I had blanked on was once one of the most famous fisheries for big roach in the country, perch too, but  in the last twenty years we’ve suffered the raids of thousands of cormorants from the continent and more recently, other ‘colonists’ from Europe who choose to eat their catch! When with Chris last Saturday, I found the freshly constructed anchor for fixed lines hidden in one of our favourite perch holes.

A best of 3/10 caught a long while back

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of these dramatic declines in our fish stocks but one thing you can do is join the Angling Trust. They are really getting to grips with the issues of the day and becoming a political force in the corridors of power, so please join. It costs very little - just a couple of bags of boillies – and the Trust is already achieving a lot and could do so much more if every angler supported it. So just join – you know it makes sense!

http://www.anglingtrust.net/    - and read what they’ve achieved already.

IN THE THEATRE OF DREAMS

                           

Gerry with a dawn scrapper

Generosity is seldom a dominant trait in folk these days but friend Gerry Higham has it in spades. I first fished with him when on the Cauvery River in India, indulging in a marvellous overdose of ‘mahseer magic’. Sharing the sunrise with him while enjoying bite a chuck action and missing most of them is as good as life gets – lots of laughter in the best possible company.

Perfect Spanish roach

We shared a river bank again in December when roaching on the Ebro in Spain and got talking about football – as you do. Gerry has been an ardent supporter of Man U. since childhood and my local team is Southampton so he kindly invited me to watch the contest at Old Trafford on Wednesday evening. He also challenged me to a return fishing contest, for I had beaten him in Spain and he wanted revenge. [A full description of that match and witness statements etc. will follow in a future post].

The greatest football club in the world?

Gerry had kindly arranged for a tour of Old Trafford, so on Tuesday evening there I was at arguably the most famous football club in the world, standing by the hallowed turf in the ‘Theatre of Dreams’. 

Just a few of the stars

In the 'theatre of dreams'

They've won a few

Sir Alex didn't even put me on the bench

As I didn’t expect our football team to beat Man U. and keen to keep up the honour of us ‘southern softies’, I had secretly prepared a deadly cheese paste to ensure I beat him in the fishing match, not a nice way to show gratitude but it had to be done!

Gerry had already done a pitch inspection on the River Dane to ensure the match could go ahead. No doubt he had also sussed out the best swim for himself too! He had even bought a box of extra strong Kleenex, expecting my tears to flow twice during the day … dream on Gerry.

Coloured but fishable

Otters had been fishing here first

Despite arriving at the river earlyish, we immediately realised that we weren’t the first to fish the stretch that day, a family of otters having walked and swum upstream only an hour or so before our arrival. It sure is an indication of how well otters have recovered in England when they are breeding successfully within half an hours drive of Manchester.

Should be chub here don't you think?

Gerry's not smiling as he nets my first chub - funny that!

The match rules hadn’t been set, just so either of us could change them to ensure victory. Being the away team, Gerry gave me first choice of swim – I told you he was generous – which he immediately regretted because almost first cast my secret cheese paste that came with a government health warning had snared a modest chub from the heavily coloured flood water. 1: 0 to Southampton. I wondered if the score would be prophetic. [I doubted it as I had predicted a hat trick for Rooney].

A spectacular kitchen

No more scores by half-time when Gerry brewed a life-saving cup of tea and tasty bacon roll. I had hoped to fish a couple of chub swims to die for but the wind was so strong and the crack willows so tall that I didn’t intend to do so literally, even if it was a match to the death.

The 2 : 0 chub

The contest remained tense until I landed a second chub – nearly four pounds this one – and the Gods must have been smiling on us southerners as Gerry lost both of his chub … cracking under the pressure I reckon. Instead of chub he landed a giant minnow but felt he had a chance of winning when a text from friend Pete Reading suggested to Gerry that chub shouldn’t count – how disloyal is that! No last minute rule changes were allowed so the result remained 2:1 to the southerners. Would this be the score at Southampton v. Man U? Gerry was worried.

It was a big minnow

Sir Bobby Charlton in his youth

Anticipation builds as you walk to Old Trafford for the match, thousands converging from all over the world. And when greeted with friendly warmth and fed a great dinner in the executive lounge you realise that you’ve come to a very special place.

Just before kick off

On entering the stadium, the sight of this massive ground filled to the roof – 75,600 to be precise is impressive and when United equalised the noise of celebration was breathtaking. Southampton had scored first … to stunned silence from the home fans but much jubilation from the Saints supporters.

 Home fans nervous already

Man U on top in first half

I imagined keen fan Chris Yates at home, cheering as he listened on his radio. When Rooney scored again before half-time, with United creating some wonderful flowing moves, my prediction of a hat trick for Wayne looked promising.

Rooney scores his first

The Saints battered them in the second half

However, the second half was all Southampton, silencing the home fans as the Saints battered against United’s famous defence, nearly equalising but for a fine De Gea save from Lambert’s free kick. The Saints fans were in full voice and I thought I might have to offer the Kleenex back to Gerry as he was apoplectic with exasperation.

The Reds fans weren't happy

Despite Southampton's dominance, 2:1 it remained, reversing the result of the fishing match. So honours were even, especially as Sir Alex said that it was the best any opponent had played against them at home all season. I felt proud just to have watched them.

Van Persie free kick

It was an honour to be there

What an experience it had been, the spectacle, the colour, the noise, the friendship and the brilliant football ; sharing all this was one of life’s great privileges. Thank you Gerry, it was really kind of you, though it might be wise not to expect too much generosity from me when we next hold a fishing match!

"LIQUID GOLD" - THE RIVER ALLEN

In the wilds of Patagonia with a not so wild Chilean fox

I have been passionate about wildlife and it’s conservation since childhood and have been privileged to spend most of my life travelling the world making more than sixty wildlife films for all the major broadcasters – BBC, ITV, Nat. Geo. and Discovery.

Most of these films stressed the need to protect our planet’s natural resources and I have produced films about oceans, jungles, savannas, lakes and mountains. Film stories have included an extraordinary expedition to the New Guinea Highlands with Sir David Attenborough looking for natives that had never seen white men, polar bears in the Arctic, penguins in Antarctica, fish and whales in Alaska, tigers in India, leopards in Africa, mountain lions in South America and snow leopards in Ladakh – I like cats!

Closer to home, there are subjects that are just as important. Our freshwater world is threatened by lack of water [not recently!] and the UK has already suffered dramatic declines in fish and other aquatic wildlife.

The source of the gem-like River Allen

Chalk streams in particular have been ruthlessly exploited and damaged. There are only 160 chalk streams in the world and 85% of them are in England … so we have an international responsibility to protect them … and we don’t.

Chalk streams support some of the richest diversity of wildlife anywhere in Europe but we abstract the life blood out of them and kill the animals by the bucket load. Pollution is widespread, silt off farmland a nightmare for fish and invertebrates. Some streams have already dried up. Everything is Dead.

So as a life-long film-maker, my passion for the natural world and determination to try to make a difference is un-diminished. Over many years I have become increasingly aware of how almost all TV, the media and conservation organisations ignore our threatened freshwater world, notably the fish and other aquatic wildlife that lives below the surface.

Brown trout

Atlantic salmon

‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a cliché but in the case of our fish life it is alarmingly true. We can’t see them, know little about them and as a result, don’t care. However, fish are a vital part of healthy ecosystems and without them, fish eating birds might suffer and even our otters will go hungry. So education is long overdue and showing adults and children is the key. Entering the water disturbs the wildlife but an under-water camera works a treat and within a mile of our home is the ideal location.

The crystal clear, chalk stream waters of the River Allen and the unique wildlife it supports makes it one of the most important rivers in Europe and for years it’s been my ambition to bring it’s fish and other watery wildlife into the consciousness of the local community.

'Liquid Gold' - the upper reaches of the River Allen

The river is only thirteen miles long but it is a little jewel flowing through the Dorset countryside. It provides a haven for species such as wild brown trout, the endangered white clawed crayfish and the fastest declining mammal in Britain, the water vole, this is just one of only a few rivers in England that achieve ‘good ecological status’. More than two thirds of our rivers fail and for starters, if we want to save them, we have to save water.

No doubt catching more than me

Freshwater is a vital element in all life, not least to us humans and if the river’s wildlife is to survive in the long term we need to ensure the community realise how important clean freshwater is.

My dream is to have permanent underwater cameras set in the River Allen, with viewing facilities for the public and school children in the Allendale Centre and Waitrose in Wimborne. These will provide live images to a  TV screen surrounded by educational material, along with a DVD player to show films and pre-recorded images that will be played when nothing is visible on the cameras in the river.

Some of them enjoyed the fish best!

Luckily, the Dorset Wildlife Trust, [who we’ve supported for thirty or more years], has a ‘Wild Rivers Project’, led in East Dorset by Amanda Broom. We needed £5,000 to put the screen and u/w camera in the river and DWT successfully raised the funding to do so. Bravo to them. The first stage is complete, with the screen and several school parties already taking advantage of this educational facility in the Allendale Community Centre alongside the river. The enthusiasm of the children is wonderful and with several talks and film shows with Amanda already completed, we have done a little to raise the profile of our precious fish and other wildlife.

grayling

roach and chub

There is a lot more to do and the u/w cameras will be installed in the autumn. In the meantime, we hope you too enjoy this little celebration of chalk streams and the wildlife they support.

One of the children watching the pike catching a perch exclaimed “ Cor Miss, that’s well ‘arsh”!

One of many school parties watching the film