David With A Splendid Pike
‘The bus screeched to a halt, the driver hearing all the commotion came back to see what was happening, I managed to grab the pike and was retreating backward out from under a seat, clutching a writhing snapping pike’
I must have been about 11 or 12 years old, and I was “fishing nuts.” I had just started secondary school, the woodwork teacher had asked us all to think of a project, mine was a fishing box. I designed it myself, and over a few weeks it grew and developed and eventually I was the proud owner of a large black painted wooden box that had a strap, and a hinged lid with two latches on the front . It weighed far too much , but I was a real angler now, well, almost , I fished mostly in a local reservoir about 8 miles from home, my father would drive me there early in the morning every weekend and I would catch the bus home again, in the evening. Each visit to the reservoir, I would be spending long days by the waterside catching little roach and perch, sometimes even a bream.
One weekend visit father could not drive me to the reservoir, so determined not to miss my fishing I caught the earliest bus, at about 6.45 am, which dropped me off in the village, there was now a long downhill walk to the keepers house, where I would usually open the gate on the right and start the long walk around the reservoir bank to a favoured swim. On this particular day, I had a flash of inspiration, the strap of the box was cutting into my shoulder, it weighed far too much and I thought I could save myself some time and exhaustion ,decided to take a short cut, there were allotments to the right hand side of the road to the reservoir, it occurred to me that if I climbed the wall I could probably cut off a big part of the walk by cutting through the allotments and climbing the wall on the other side , which would put me almost behind my favourite swim. This would also mean that I would not have to lug the shiny new black fishing box from hell all the way around the reservoir bank.
The wall was about six feet high, I struggled up it, placed the box on the top, then climbed back down, collected my home made holdall and climbed back up, laid it in the top, looking down I could see I was above a square allotment with strong wire fencing all around it, it was a bit muddy, but I could see a gate on the far side, and to the left some allotment sheds . I figured out that if I got out of the allotment gate there was a track I could see that led off roughly toward where I wanted to be. It was all quiet, nobody around, so I turned to face the wall and started to climb down.
Suddenly there was a grunting and howling like a banshee, something grabbed my left foot and started to shake me like a bit of washing on a line in a stiff breeze . I could feel my wellington boot being pulled off my foot , but also I was being tossed around like a pea on a drumskin. There was the biggest pig I had ever seen in my life trying to eat my foot. It was obviously not friendly in the slightest, and I was actually pooping myself with fright thinking I was going to die, and be a statistic in the annals of unfortunate allotment accidents. I kicked at the pigs huge head with my right foot, and managed to pull myself back up the wall, but that had resulted in my leaving my left wellington boot in the pigs mouth, it was tossing it around and squeeling and grunting fit to bust . My wellington boot was tattered and torn, certainly never to be a boot again. I sat on the top of the wall shivering with fright, and imagining what would have happened if my boot had not come off. Looking down the pig was busy killing my mangled boot , luckily without my foot in it.
I climbed back down the wall taking my box and holdall with me, I sat on a bit of grass banking wondering how I was going to explain this one away to my mother who had bought me my wellies specially for fishing.
As a postscript, I should add that I wrapped my fishing towel around my foot , tied it there with a bit of line and carried on the day as though nothing had happened . When my dad picked me up that evening he just shook his head when I told him the story, even knowing I could have ended up a pigs dinner.
The next part of this misadventure would these days be frowned upon, but back in the early 60’s it was quite usual and in no way thought of as unacceptable.
My box was still sparkly new on this particular Sunday, I had been driven to the reservoir , dropped off , and made my way around the waters edge to a spot I knew would produce the usual suspects for me. I had realised soon after making the box that it was very heavy and a real sod to lug around.
But it was my box and I was not going to give in easily. On reaching my chosen spot there was another angler already there, a man with all the gear, he was catching fish every cast , I asked him if it was OK to “set up “ and fish in the next swim , he seemed like a nice chap and agreed.
As the day progressed we caught a few fish, little roach and perch, then suddenly there was a big swirl right in front of me, and the fishing suddenly went dead. The man had seen the swirl and said, Thats done it, its a Pike. I had never ever seen a pike except in Mr Crabtree books, so was quite excited. The man said “Do you want to try and catch it?” I sad yes but I did not have any of the proper tackle and did not know what to do anyway, the man said he had everything and in no time had set up a pike rod and reel, with a big “Pike Bung” float and a wire trace, he reached into his keep net and selected a small roach and attached it to the treble hooks, he handed me the rod and told me to gently cast the bait into the water , which I did, the rod was placed into a rest, and we both sat watching with bated breath , right on cue the pike bung began to race across the surface, then popped under and out of sight. “Strike” the man shouted, I grabbed the rod and struck into the biggest fish I had ever had on rod and line so far.
Eventually the pike was landed and the man gave it a smart blow to the back of its head, it was a club rule that all pike should be culled, the man asked if I wanted it seeing as how I had actually hung onto the rod and eventually landed it. I could not believe it, I had a huge pike to take home and show my parents!
The pike was laid on the bank, as it was getting toward time to go home, I packed up, and more or less jammed the pike into the top of my box, thanked the man for his help that day and started away along the bank, the box now was even heavier than when I had arrived. The Pike had weighed 6lbs 10 oz ( a weight that has stuck in my mind all these years ) I was struggling up the hill to the bus stop, but determined to take the huge fish home to show my parents. eventually I arrived at the bus stop, and joined the que, in front of me were about 6 little old ladies, all dressed in black, wearing black bonnets and carrying black bags and umbrellas,they looked formidable and would probably have frozen water with a single stare.
They did not bother me though, I had a Pike.
The single decker bus arrived, we all climbed on, I went and sat behind the little old ladies, putting the box on the seat beside me and propping my rod next to the box. I sat there as the bus rattled its way down the road, thinking what a day I had had, when suddenly ….
There was a thump and a crash, the front if my marvellous fishing box flew off as if a bomb had exploded, all my tackle fell out onto the bus floor, followed by a rather angry jack pike that had woken up, it writhed and wriggled around on the floor, the bus was going down hill, and the pike made its way forward, snapping like an angry Crocodile. I leaned forward to try and catch it, but it had managed to get forward of me and was now amidst 6 sets of old ladies legs, clad in thick black stockings, there was a lot of screaming and general panic, the old ladies climbed onto their seats holding their coats and skirts tight around their legs and were thrashing at the pike with their bags and umbrellas, I tried to catch this beast from hell, but it had managed to get under a seat and I could not reach it, plus I was getting a bit of a battering from the small army of black clad Women, who were doing a fair impression of Boudica repelling a Roman horde.
The bus screeched to a halt, the driver hearing all the commotion came back to see what was happening, I managed to grab the pike and was retreating backward out from under a seat, clutching a writhing snapping pike. I got to my feet and returned to my seat, the little old ladies were giving me a good shouting at, other passengers were rolling around laughing. The bus driver saw the funny side of it straight away , he made sure I had the pike “under control” and returned to his driving seat, the bus continued on its way, the little old ladies had moved well away from me to the front of the bus, and when we reached the village church got off after all giving me fearful glances.
I had shoved the pike head first into my home made holdall , so it was at least secured. I gathered all my bits and pieces together and managed to cobble my box sort of together . When I reached my stop, the driver said “That was the funniest thing I have seen for years“ as I got off.
I marched off down Beechwood Road clutching my holdall and now bashed up fishing box. It didnt seem so heavy any more . I knew I had a good story for my mother and father , and there was one other thing, I now was determined to save up and get a fishing basket, the box would soon be consigned to the back of the shed.
Roll forward many years, I am now a father myself, my eldest son, Matthew is about 13 years old , and he likes to occasionally go fishing with dad . I had decided that as it was a nice sunny afternoon we would go down to a stretch of a local river , we would spend a few hours trying to maybe catch a few little chub, there were also a lot of small trout, which would no doubt put in an appearance.
We set up on the bank, somebody had dug out a swim about 2 feet above the water level, but set back a bit as the bank was very steep and sloping , there was a tree to the right of the swim, apart from it being on a sloping bank the swim was quite comfortable. We started, feeding bread mash and using bread, hoped to tempt a chub or two, as it happened we started to attract small trout to the bread baits, they became a bit of a nuisance, so I decide to have a look around to see if I could spot any of the resident chub, leaving Matthew sat with his rod, I saw that the tree to the right was actually rather like a ladder with plenty of handy branches to use as rungs to climb up, so I decided to have a look around and see if any chub were in the area.
I climbed up about 15 feet or so, and was busy looking around, suddenly there was a loud crack, and the branch I was stood on snapped, I went down like a falling rock, entered the water vertically and plunged in up to my neck, my feet hit the riverbed rocks, which were littering the river bed , they were all sizes, and jumbled around with small and large gaps between them, the water went over my head, I struggled ,trying to stand, I realised that something was wrong, I managed to grab a handfull of bankside weeds on the steeply sloping bank, and struggled to pull myself to the bank. The water was about 5 feet deep, and running quite fast.
I could stand on my left leg, but if I put any weight upon my right leg it just buckled It was strange, there was no pain at all, just a foot that refused to function. Looking up at Matthew, I saw he was laughing fit to bust. I said. Matthew, I think I have broken my ankle , he just said “Yeh Yeh, come on climb out“ No Matthew, I really think its broken, I cannot stand on it to which he replied… You have joked with us for years, so come on, climb out . With that he went back to fishing and to add insult to injury he actually caught a small trout whilst I was up to my neck in the river at his feet.
Eventually I managed to convince him that I was injured, the big problem was that the area we were fishing was between the river and a Canal, I knew I needed assistance to get out, which would probably mean at least a rope, the only way to get a rope here would to be to run around to the canal bridge, some 100 yards away, cross the canal and go to see my friend Jack who ran the local Marina . Matthew quickly vanished, I hoped he would not be too long as I was getting very cold, I could not climb the steep bank without assistance.
After what seemed like an age Matthew and Jack appeared ,Jack had rang for an ambulance , and had managed to get one of his narrowboats and jam it across the canal to use as a bridge, he appeared with a mooring rope, he threw the end of the rope to me, I somehow managed to get it around under my arms , and Jack and Matthew started to try to pull me from the river I heard the sound of an ambulance siren from across the Canal, and very quickly two ambulance men also attended, together they all pulled me up the steep bank and only then did I get a look at my right leg, it was fine until you saw my right foot was actually at 90 degrees from where it should have been, pointing out to my right.
I was taken to the Hospital where I had an operation, there were six bones in my right ankle shattered. The worst thing about the whole incident was what I was wearing. During the day I had been wearing a new pair of wellingtons the casualty staff cut the wellington from my right foot where it had been supporting the ankle. It seems I am destined never to own a matching pair of wellingtons and from the grand old age of eleven to boot. The above is just the merest taste of the mishaps I have been lucky enough to survive over the years. I will surely bring a few more to the eyes of the Piscatorial Raconteurs in the coming months.
Writing David Craine – Spring 2023
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