16th June: tragedy

[RoyO]

In 2004 I moved back from Londonistan to the Sussex coast. I joined a local angling club which had (and still has, but that's another tale of woe) some stretches of local river - a mix of tidal and slow-flowing non-tidal. Walking the various stretches before the opening day I came across a beautiful section on a farm, about a mile from the nearest parking. It was a narrow, gentle bend with overhanging trees and bushes but an open section apart from some reeds and collapsed bank where cattle had been drinking - and therein lies another tale. It looked like everything I always imagined whilst still living the the centre of a huge, noxious, city and practically shouted "Tench!" I could hardly wait the weeks before the season started. In fact I couldn't get there until a couple of days after the season began.

On the appointed day I arrived shortly after dawn and trudged along until I got to the swim in question. Of course the farmer had chosen that spot to dump silage for a herd of brainless bullocks so it was fairly chewed up. I also registered that there was a small triangular fenced off area protecting nothing more than a signpost. Oddly, I hadn't noticed it when I first visited in the closed season. A sign was attached - and here I'm going to substitute some details to avoid the easy identification of this location - it has already suffered enough - and some details that I can't recall precisely, like the date.

Danger. Deep Water. This sign is dedicated to the memory of Fred Whatsit (aged dd), of the 'Old Chums Angling Club' who drowned here on 16th June (date forgotten by myself).

That was a bit of a shock, I can tell you. It was - and is - so easy to recall the feeling of the 16th June back in the days when all coarse fishing was under closed season regulations and, even more to the point, I was a boy or a young man. I fished this swim numerous times and took some nice fish, including a Tench a little short of 7lb. Every time I fished there I had an image of this young guy and how he was feeling on that day. The swim was over 6 ft deep at the centre but with so much overhanging vegetation it was hard to imagine how he couldn't have got himself out.

The club I was a member of at that time and the stretches of river it leased are still there. I rejoined last year after a lapse of about 5 years due to a steep decline in the "performance" of the river overall. That circumstance had a number of known causes as well as many undoubtedly mysterious ones. But one of them was completely idiotic activity by the Environment Agency. Anyway I fished my favourite stretch ONCE. That was enough to confirm - indeed amplify - my original decision to give up on that club. There's a lot more that can be said about both of the criteria involved.

Roy