‘My Christmas fishing trip was to the river Beult in Kent. The day before, I had packed my basket and most of my small items of fishing tackle were in OXO tins. In one tin, I had my tackle winders with a made-up cast, hook, shot and float’
For this Christmas edition of Raconteurs, I’m taking you back to a past Christmas day fishing trip. I can still remember that day as if it were yesterday, it was so special. This is some seventy odd years ago. For me Christmas and Boxing days were for fishing and shooting. When I was twelve years old I was given a single barrel twenty-bore for my birthday. My previous guns were a Webley air pistol and an air rifle (as a ten-year-old), the 410 was known as a garden gun, good for rats and the occasional rabbit, if I was lucky.
I wasn’t interested in staying indoors whatever the weather. I just wanted to be out at the waterside, on the marshes or in the woods. My prized possessions were my fishing tackle, my Labrador dog, shot gun, and Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing, the book I was awarded as winner of the school book prize.
My Christmas fishing trip was to the river Beult in Kent. The day before, I had packed my basket and most of my small items of fishing tackle were in OXO tins. In one tin, I had my tackle winders with a made-up cast, hook, shot and float. My bait boxes were of aluminium, not made from today’s plastic rubbish. In my two panier bags (one each side of the rear wheel of my Raleighbike, complete with Sturmey-Archer gears, I had a small primus stove, billycan, army mess tin and a bottle of water. Along the cross-bar of my bike was my rod.
It was dark when I left home and the weather was very cold. There was snow in some places but the long hard cycle ride was keeping me warm. When I got to the top of Blue Bell hill, I could then free-wheel fast downwards. Keeping a lookout for icy patches in places, soon I was going past The Royal West Kent barracks where my Uncle Len was based when he was in the UK. I also soon passed through Maidstone where I had two choices of making my way to Hunton. I could continue on the main road through Barming, Teston, Waterbury, Nettlestead, then Yalding. Instead, I chose to turn off at Teston, then across the river Medway. After a short break on the bridge, I set off up the hill for the last leg of my ride. It was a lot of hard pedalling but I was soon freewheeling down Hunton hill to my destination of Hunton bridge. After passing the Bull Inn and the red telephone box I’d arrived at the river Beult, the river I so loved and still do.
Leaning my bike alongside the five-bar gate, it was a relief to get my basket off my back. I then walked a short distance to the bridge and, leaning over, I could see the river was looking good and flowing slowly, with some colour in the water. On the other side of the river were several hop-picking huts where my mates and I often stopped for a weekend through the friendship of the farmer. With basket and keepnet on my back I collected my bikeonce more. I started to shiver in the cold but was soon getting warm as I walked upstream alongside the river. There were lots of water lilies and on the far bank were some willow trees. What I always like about the river Beult is the large number of bull-rushes with their onion-like, green stems, an area so loved by the perch and chub. These rushes must not be mistaken for reed mace, which many people call a ‘bulrush’, with its tall stems, sausage-like, brown flower-heads and green, flat leaves usually growing in the mud at the water’s edge. There were many patches of lily-pads where I expected roach, perch and, if I was lucky a bream, but with the cold weather, I didn’t think I would catch a bream.
Passing the four big oak trees, my thoughts went back to the summer time when we would camp under those trees for three or four weeks. A bit further on there was a small copse, then a side-stream known as ‘Humphrey’s Hole’, a well-known perch swim which if you were lucky to draw in a competition you were usually the winner.
I chose a swim where a large hawthorn bush was leaning over the water and where there were a lot of bulrushes extending downriver for about fifteen feet and two feet out into the river. On the opposite side of the river were other lilies, well within casting range. I would be targeting these two areas.
Now it was time for something to eat. Before doing so, I opened my basket to take out the bait boxes, shiny aluminium ones, and also my groundbait bag. I put in two balls of bread and bran,holding chopped worms, in front of the lilies, then walked downstream a few feet, throwing chopped worms in front of thebulrushes.
Setting up the primus stove with some water in the billy-can, this was placed on the stove. As I waited for the water to boil, I grabbed a brown paper bag holding my ‘doorsteps’, i.e. very thick slices of bread, often an inch thick. The water was now boilingand, putting some tea leaves in my mug, I soon had a strong brew. I then put my mess-tin on the stove with a chunk of dripping and a minute or so later this melted, allowing me to drop a rasher of bacon into the pan. Soon it was crisping up so it was time for the egg. As usual, the yoke was then broken and I soon had a complete bacon and egg sandwich.
Breakfast over, I unstrapped my rod from the cross-bar. This was a fifteen-foot cane rod with the first two joints made from Tonkin cane and a built-cane top joint, made by Mr Clarkson. I had an Allcock’s ‘Aerial’ centre-pin reel given by my grandfather, loadedwith some Luron 2 line. Up until this line came available, I had used a silk line which had to be treated very carefully; on returning home from fishing I would have to put the line on a line-winder to dry, then treat it with Mucilin (this is still available today).
I chose to use a goose quill float that took six lead shot, the only available weights in those days. I used a size ten ‘Model Perfect’ hook on a 4x cast, using a loop-to-loop method for joining hook-link to the line. In those days there were only a few bait-droppers available but I was lucky to have both my grandfathers as very keen anglers, often traveling to Scotland to fish for salmon. I filled my bait-dropper with chopped worm, dropping it in front of the lilies at the upstream end, then repeated the same process in front of the bulrushes. I then plumbed the depth and found about eight feet of water, both in front of the lilies and also in front of the bulrushes, and set the float at around ten feet, as my grand-dad had often taught me.
I was now ready to start fishing despite the chilly cold breeze. Sitting on my basket, full of hope, I made a cast so the float would be at an angle, in front of the Iilies. After a long wait, I got a good bite and soon had a bream about two pounds. This was a big surprise but was followed by two more bream about the same size. After some time with no more bites, I switched to fishing in the area of the rushes and soon had a ‘goer’ sized perch. This was because it needed to be nine inches at least and in those days we all had a measuring stick, as no undersize fish were allowed in the keepnet. I then missed two bites but got five more goer perch.
I then switched to fishing a bread cube in front of the lilies but for a long time didn’t get a bite. Then the float slowly moved out intothe river, submerging as it did so. I soon landed a good roach of eleven inches and this was followed by a few small roach. Then,after a quiet spell, I had six more goer roach, all between ten and twelve inches. I then spent some time putting in ground bait and chopped worms. Afterwards, I went for a walk downstream to see if there was a better spot but nothing interested me so it was back to my first swim.
This time I chose to use a big lobworm, rather than small piece of worm. Once cast, I had the float lying fairly tight in front of the lilies. After a long wait, the float moved out into the flow and, on striking, I felt something heavy. Line was being taken from my reel and so I tried to stop the fish by putting my thumb on the rim of the reel, as I had been shown. This did slow the fish down a bitand I started to get line back on the reel, but again it was taken back until slowly I started to get more line on the reel. I was beginning to think I had hooked a pike, which we often did when fishing lobs. Suddenly there was a swirl in the water and I said to myself, ‘That’s a big fish. I’ve got one of the big bream!’ Suddenly the fish rolled on the surface and realised that it was a big tench. I then switched to being a bit more gentle with it and soon it was close to the bank, in the virtually stillwater before sliding over my landing net. Suddenly, it was mine. On my brass Salter spring balance, it weighed three pounds six ounces and was put carefully into my keepnet.
I don’t know how long it was before I caught my second tench but this one weighed three pounds twelve ounces and was again put in the keepnet. I felt like a king; I’d never caught tench from the river before. I had heard of anglers catching tench and Mr Clarkson, the rod-builder, would take a roll of brown paper and explaining how he had caught a tench, proceed to draw an outline of the fish.
I thought I would have another brew but then decided to fish on. Baiting with another big lobworm, I threw in some broken lobs, hoping it would attract another tench and cast to the same spot in front of the lilies. After a long wait I got another good bite and again it was a long time before I was able to get the fish in. This time I was lucky to get it in my landing net; it twice slipped outbut in the end I got the tench onto the bank. This one weighed four pounds four ounces and I sat there for a long time, just imagining that I might even win the Winget’s AC big fish cup. I then went off to the Bull Inn where the landlord kept the Club’s scales and weighing-in book.
I was out of breath by the time knocked on the door. As the door was opened by the landlord, he asked: “Has your grand-dad driven you down to the river?” I replied: “No. I have come on my bike. Can you bring the scales down to the river and weigh my tench for me?” He turned to his wife who was just taking out a big joint of pork from the oven, saying, “I’m just going down to weigh some big fish for Martin. While I’m away can you make him a sandwich, doorstep style, with piccalilli on the pork?”
After weighing my tench, the landlord recorded the weights in the book and the biggest tench corrected to four pounds six ounces. He said: “I reckon you will win the cup with that tench. Well done, young Martin!” He then said: “Come back with me. My wife has made you a sandwich for your dinner.” When I was eventually back in my fishing spot, I made a brew and sat thinking, ‘What a great Christmas Day present I have had!’
I fished on until it started getting dark, catching a few more goer roach and perch. Afterwards I still had the long, hard, cycle ride back home and could only walk up Hunton Hill as it was too steep for me to cycle. I finally got home about eight p.m. and my grandma put my dinner on top of a saucepan of boiling water with a plate on top. All I could talk about to my Grandad was my big tench and even to this day I can still see the edge of the cabbage sticking out from under the plate getting all burnt and crinkled. But I didn’t care. After my dinner, there was my favourite apple pie and custard.
Happy Christmas everyone, and yes I did win the Winget’s AC cup for my big tench…
Writing & Images – Martin James MBE, Winter 2025
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