Fishing with brother Alan and Great Nephew Charlie

At my birthday party on Saturday my brother and I arranged to take young Charlie fishing. Both my brother and I had travelled and worked abroad for the last 15-20 years and seldom seen each other so we jumped at the chance to fish together. We both used to cycle all over the place to wet our lines.

Even on holiday when we were very young we used to notice that if you sat in the two stern seats of the mackerel fishing boats you would get a hand line to fish so we used to ignore each other and head towards these seats and hope we would secure one of the hand lines such was our passion for fishing. Because you only had one hand line for each family.

Anyhow today we were off fishing together after 45 years and life was good.

Normally Charlie and Brove fish the lakes for carp etc and this was Charlie’s first session on the river.

We started using floating crust and caught a good couple of chub. The largest chub for Charlie was 3lbs he did a great job landing them.

3lbs and a pb.

We moved down the river and caught a few more and scared a few more.

Concentration !

Later we moved upstream and at one point had a barbel feeding on the pellets only for it to disappear.

We did much walking and fishing. Charlie lost a few (not his fault) and we had loads of fun. Alan would wander off and catch a couple on floating crust. It got to such a stage that Charlie and I almost had to confiscate the catapult from Big Brove because he loved to use it to fire out the crusts and was having great fun.

Later Charlie caught a larger chub of 3lbs 12oz which was a beauty.

Largest chub 3lbs 12oz

We moved a few more times and eventually ended up at the weir pool where we came across a couple of most unpleasant older guys who wanted to swim. I suggested it was private property and they should not swim. It was quite obvious they were high on something and looking for an argument. “who is going to stop us” “what business of yours” “come on stop us”.

Best to say nothing and walk away.

If I hadn’t had my torn calf muscle I would have waited until they got in the river and then nicked their clothes and ran off…….Oh I’m small minded and stooping to their level. It would have been fun though.