David Roome – Walking In The Footsteps Of B.B.

I discovered the writings of B.B. in the somewhat unlikely spot of Kennington in south London, near the Oval cricket ground; it was that here I spent my youth in the ‘50s & ‘60s. My dad and grand-dad were keen fishermen; our favourite venues were various spots on the Thames combined with holidays spent in Kent and Sussex, fishing the Rother, the Royal Military Canal and small ponds. In the case of the Thames, as we had no car, we would take the train from Waterloo and get off at various places along the river; my favourite spot was Penton Hook, near Staines, which had a reputation for barbel although we only caught mainly small roach. The weir-pool here always held the promise of a barbel where the experts would ledger a large coffin-lead baited with lob worms. 

But back to B.B….my dad was an avid reader of everything by Dick Walker who wrote in the Angling Times and the exploits of the Carp Catchers Club, of which B.B and Dick were formative members, caught his imagination. This was helped by the excellent local library service which had some of B.B’s books. Whilst south-east London was miles away from Wood Pool and similar waters, my dad could dream of the waters featured in Confessions of a Carp Fisher and The Fisherman’s Bedside Book; for city dwellers like him, one could imagine when reading B.B. that you were there, a long way from the hustle and bustle of central London.

By the early ‘70s I had moved up to Leicester which was then famous in angling circles for Ivan Marks and the Likely Lads match-fishing successes, although my love was for watching the float lift and slide away as a hopefully fat tench or carp took my bait on the type of secluded waters loved by B.B.. I was avidly reading B.B.’s non-fishing books as well, as well as his column in Shooting Times: I was beginning to feel a strong affinity for the East Midland countryside he described.

I read over and over again Wild Lone (about a Pytchley fox) and Lepus the Hare and was able to feel a connection with the hunting country portrayed being not far away from B.B’s birthplace at Lamport Rectory in Northamptonshire. 

As for my favourite fishing books….Confessions of a Carp Fisher, A Summer on the Nene and Fishermans Folly I have a few words; we had booked a cottage on the Border Esk which came with some fishing. This was a coincidence that I had told my wife….I had read the chapter where B.B had had encounters on the Black Esk with salmon. On the second evening there, leaving my wife and our terrier, I looked at the map of beats the estate had supplied and, taking a trout rod, went to have a look at a beat above Billholm bridge. This beat seemed very similar to the one in Fisherman’s Folly… it was the same place exactly as B. B had described.

There was the large ash tree by a deep pool where B.B. had twice been broken by good fish, but the river was ‘on its bones’ and in the pool he mentioned there was not a sign of any fish, be it parr, sea trout, let alone a salmon! Nevertheless I thoroughly loved the sense of place, knowing that I’d at least walked and cast into the same piece of water as B.B. had. As anglers do, I had a few half-hearted casts, even though you know it’s hopeless; as dusk fell I walked back up the hill to the car and back to the cottage for supper and more than several wee drams.

On B.B.s favourite fish, this carp was caught a few years ago on a small farm pool near to me in Rutland; the old greenheart rod and centre pin would have been similar to what B.B. would have used some 70 years ago, a far cry from the high tech tackle used by most anglers nowadays. I’m afraid the bait was a large lump of luncheon meat (!) and not the par-boiled potato, floating or balanced crust, paste or lobworm which were the favoured baits of the Carp Catchers Club when B.B and Dick Walker and friends were starting to prove big carp could be caught regularly.

Writing & Images David Roome, First Published in The ‘BB’ Society Magazine.