Off track

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Poptop2, Apr 5, 2019.

  1. Louey

    Louey Moderator

    And we let this guy drive a HGV!!!!:eek: :lol:

    We call those slabs Corporation Slabs - yep damn bloomin' heavy.
     
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  2. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    It was only 16 slabs. They won’t make much difference. Wrong! :oops:
     
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  3. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    The fishing.

    To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t much of a fisherman. I could fish and I had a half decent tackle kit, but in this place ‘ fishing Mecca’ I was seriously lacking in fishing credentials. The place had been built by fishermen, maintained by fishermen and lived in by fishermen for nearly 100 years. People had fishing sheds for god sake, actual sheds with walls of rods and drawers full of floats and ledgers and work surfaces for mending rods. They had security systems on them and sensor lights. There were people who made fishing rods and people that made fishing TV shows came to visit them. No I was just a novice.

    However, I was accepted into their circle. I was made to feel at home in their sheds and welcomed to the angling club. In fact, just being in their company made me feel like a better fisherman.

    There was a chap called Pete who owned a place right on the riverbank and came down alone most weekends to fish. I did some work on his place and we got chatting

    His wife hated the place, his kids had no interest in it either, so I asked him why he kept it.

    “ This is the best barbel spot on the river” he said. “ just there” he pointed 20 ft out directly in front of him “ is a 20ft deep hole and in that hole are hundreds of barbel all year. I can fish this spot any time I want and have a good day’s fishing, why would I sell?”

    Barbel are regarded by river anglers as prized fish because of the tremendous fight they put up. Landing a barbel is a dream of many river anglers and some have never caught one.

    He went on to tell me how barbel are fussy, some days they bite on maggots, others corn and others hemp seed. The secret was to alternate the bait. He preferred maggots in a swim feeder. He told me how they always ran after bite downstream, and if they could they’d try getting behind a rock or reed to tangle you or snap your line. He suggested I always play them up stream to tire them when I got one on, and try never to let them run too much. He went on to tell me he preferred trotting for perch and dace these days as his favourite way of fishing as he’d barbel fished enough. I tended to agree.

    I took it in, but fishing still didn’t have my interest really.

    A couple of days later I watched Jason a very good local angler take nearly 180lb of barbel from that hole while fishing from a Canadian canoe. I was impressed.

    The local anglers had different ideas though. They’d seen me dangling me maggot from time to time and insisted I had a go in one of the weekly comps. I tried a couple of times, but didn’t really do well enough to take it seriously.

    The thing I did notice with them when talking, was their attitude to different pegs ( a set place on the river to fish) they would moan about the draw and which peg they’d drawn, or moan about a certain jammy devil always drawing peg so and so. “ I might as well have gone home when I drew that one’ they’d say, “ but I stopped and give it a go, no good though, that jammy bugger had peg nine and won again”

    This is the type of stuff I was hearing daily as I worked. They were fishing mad. They had fishing holidays together, fishing trips to lakes and even fishing boat trips to sea on a day out. Mad, the lot of them!

    Usually I would go fishing just to unwind a bit and take in the serenity of the place. I’d only go trotting down at the cattle drink peg, or our friends kim and Andy's place opposite my house. I had a few chub and usually a dace or two and a perch, but I never really took it seriously, and then one day I decided to get a few pints of maggots hook up the swim feeder and have a go at Pete’s barbel hole from 30 yards upstream of it at the cattle drink peg.

    The cattle drink peg was like a sandy beach area where the cows would get down to drink from the river. In the summer people would bathe there and at other times people would fish there. That evening I was fishing.

    It wasn’t easy to get at the barbel hole from there though, it was quite a way down stream and there were willow trees that got in the way. There was a near bank channel that fed straight down into it and you could trot a float down, but you usually got a snag or tangle if you used the length of hook from float you needed to get into the hole, so nobody bothered.

    I thought I could get out across the channel and stand on the shallow shelf just a few yards out and cast right into the hole. I guessed if I struck left and kept the barbel in the channel I’d get a couple, so I waded out and got onto the shelf. It was only a foot deep at the most once I’d waded through the waist deep channel. I could peg my net and sit my box and gear in it no bother. There was very little water on this night and after searching around a bit I found a very shallow spot of only a couple of inches, I looked a bit closer and saw the drop two foot away. There was a sheer drop of maybe 10 ft all along the river pretty much right where I was standing. If I was careful I could fish here comfortably and my net could hang over the ledge. Sorted.

    I began fishing on the feeder at 5pm, I had my first big barbel at 5.05 pm. He was a beauty, about 7lbs, I had him straight out as Pete had suggested, no time to run , struck hard and dragged him up stream without stopping. In the net!

    I was barbel bashing, as they say!

    They were biting all right. Tom heard I was fishing the hole and came down with Bill and brought a couple of cans with them for me. They chucked them over and asked how I was doing. I pulled up the keep net and showed them. I think they were impressed. By 9pm it was starting to tail off a bit and I had to pack in. Tom came back to help me get my net after I’d got my gear back to the bank. We had a job getting the net back across the channel though. When we weighed it I’d had over 45lb of barbel and chub in a few hours. Tom was impressed with how I’d fished the hole and said I’d actually taught him something. Although he admitted he would never have thought of that because he couldn’t swim.

    I did that a few more times over the years and had a few nets of over 100lb in a day, but I preferred to just trot the narrow swim. There’s something very therapeutic about watching the float gently float downstream and then bob down just before you strike!

    This is the actual view from the cattle drink peg. The shelf can be made out to the right and the hole is the area mid left behind the willow.

    8EC5B7FA-06A0-410E-A992-DA8E5D0D8A70.jpeg

    This picture was taken just before I started fishing that night

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2020
  4. Barry Haynes

    Barry Haynes I dance in leopard skin mankini’s

    reading that I can almost picture the swim,what great memories, I too have great fishing memories some from my childhood, I need to go fishing now
     
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  5. Faust

    Faust Supporter

    I have looked on my OS map of Kidderminster and Wyre forest Malc and am i wright in thinking the track you talk of along the severn with railway line in between the other side up from Bewdley . Was there a branch line with a bridge crossing the river Severn ...now demolished near you , that headed off to Tenbury Wells .
     
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  6. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    Yes. Dowles is the bridge that has no track now. We were another mile up the lane. That’s where the wooden house begin to show on the map.
     
  7. Faust

    Faust Supporter

    Did the track exit to any where or did you have to head back to Bewdley .
     
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  8. Razzyh

    Razzyh Supporter

    What happened to the video you added, did you remove it?
     
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  9. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    Yes. It was very misleading as it was just the opening sequence not the whole thing. That bit had places from all over the county in it, not many were of our place, just the very early bit up until he walked up the steps past Billy the fish and his wife Eileen stood by the stuffed pike.

    The whole show did a brilliant job and it a fell into place in the end. Maureen was even interviewed. Sadly I can’t find the whole episode.
     
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  10. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    If you had a very good off-road vehicle there was a very very rough track past the farm that came out on Trimpley top, otherwise no, you had to head back into Bewdley.
     
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  11. What was the presenter doing rattling peoples gates and peering through their windows anyway? Very odd! He would of got a sharp slap from me.

    The place looked great though :thumbsup:
     
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  12. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    Some of those places weren’t where we were. It amazes me how they do a programme about a certain place and then add film from elsewhere to make a point.
     
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  13. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    The full show is here if the Vimeo link works

     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
  14. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    Most of those scenes weren’t shot anywhere near our place, although all the interviews were of people that lived in our field bar one. The First Lady was my neighbour Pam, the second our friend Barbara, jakes owner and the third one was our Mo, Maureen. The fourth one is someone I didn’t know at all and was possibly from the top field. The derelict places and some of the crammed together ones weren’t from our place either. It’s quite confusing, but I got his point regarding folk architecture.
     
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  15. malc, my eyes are filled with rust and very tired, could you record this and send it to me please? now. :D
     
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  16. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    That’s what happens when you get old is it, your eyes go rusty? :confused:
     
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  17. definitely! great exfoliation but not so good for the eyes :oops:
     
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  18. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    And breathe!
     
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  19. Poptop2

    Poptop2 Administrator

    Just taking a breather for a while. Could probably do with a little feedback and suggestions as to what people would like to read about next. I’m considering rewriting this in a kindle book at some point, so I need to work on the structure. Obviously this is just a very early draft and definitely needs a proper edit/ I do realise this.

    Tips would be welcome, not too critical if that’s possible, but there are quite a few more twists and turns in the tale of our life down there. A clue is Neil our son. After 12 years of marriage Lou and I finally had a child on the way. What did we do next?

    We went up a floor!
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2019
  20. Razzyh

    Razzyh Supporter

    I think just tell it how you remember. In random form if required. You can always put it in order later.

    I’m enjoying reading this.
     

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