It’s no secret to my friends that I loathe the digital age. I’d turn back the clock to typewriters, letters in the post, four TV channels and black and white film in a good old SLR camera if I could with absolutely not a millisecond of hesitation.
Regarding photography, I went digital around 2006/7 because the magazines I worked for commanded it, but I hung onto film as long as I could. At least, I thought, you don’t lose transparencies and contact strips like you do images in something called a 'cloud'. I felt I was proved correct when a few years back a great swathe of images disappeared from my desktop computer and I felt like an era of my angling life had been cancelled, wiped out by an invisible hand.
So, imagine my surprise, relief and excitement when my computer ace recently resuscitated something called my 'hard drive' and found a good proportion of my missing photo library. February, 2009 was a month of images that had been lost to me and whilst I remembered the events in a haphazard sort of way, it was immensely good to have corroboration. Little details flooded back and my memory of the month took solid shape again, based on fact rather than fantasy.
February 6: Photos of a pike fishing jaunt re-emerged from said 'cloud' and my recollection was correct, it was frigidly cold. Shots of a session with thick snow jogged my memory and the latter ones did indeed show that the ice was forming around our floats by the time dusk fell. We left the lake heartily glad that we’d had enough of a day that had given us little but frostbite. According to my rediscovered library, there was no more fishing for any of us the following week but better days were around the corner.
The carcass of a big carp... (Image: John Bailey)
February 13-14: I was back waterside, this time on the Wensum at Lenwade Mill and next day up at Kingfisher lake in Lyng. The results of the freeze were all around. At Lenwade, both barbel and chub remains were lying in the snow, otter tracks everywhere. At the lake, the carcass of a very large carp was marooned on the river bank, ribs picked clean, for all the world looking like a washed-up galleon of old. Several big tench, killed and half devoured, didn’t do anything to improve my mood. It would seem from the photos following these two days, I was back in India fleetingly but back in Norfolk for the last weeks of the season.
February 27: Lenwade Mill once more and, judging by my clothing, or lack of, the weather had improved significantly. So had the fishing and the images of that day are staggering, beyond the belief of anyone who knows the river now. I’d always described the fishing I experienced as perhaps the best I’d ever known anywhere and it seems I was right. Between 10am and 5pm, I hardly had a cast without the float dipping and the maggots being sucked in. Every trot, a coconut! I counted over 30 prime chub, actually averaging 5lb and little more. Several good perch were scattered in amongst, the best a shade under 3lb, along with four bream to double figures and two barbel, one of them, once again, a double. Dace were common as confetti, but the stars of this stellar day were the roach, a score of them, the best scaling 2lb 1oz and 2lb 7oz.
March 1: It seems I needed a couple of days to recover before heading off the the Mill again, but when I did, the weather remained mild and the river was still that perfect tinge of weak coffee. I simply picked up where I left off with endless crackers of all species, capped by roach of 2lb 5oz and a scale perfect fish of 2lb 12oz. That was enough for me and I pulled stumps, but I did return at the end of the season to chat with Mr Wilson, who had booked the last day. I stayed with John for half an hour, during which time he had four casts, trotting with centre pin and mashed bread. After watching him net a 6lb chub, a 2lb roach, a big bream and lose a barbel, I left him in peace to enjoy the final hours.
Is there a point to an old man’s ramblings, other than nostalgia? I believe so, if only to highlight how extraordinary the Wensum was, even this century. Of course, John and I were uniquely fortunate in our access to one of the great locations, but just 14 years ago, the river could palpably hold huge numbers of colossal fish. How on earth have we allowed this catastrophe, its fall from amazing grace, to happen in so short a time?
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