Spooky Experiences

[Guest Scott.Ashworth]

David,

I wouldn't dream of calling the boating lake small,but i wasn't on there. If you go up to the telecommunications tower(or whatever it is) you'll see a gate there that all the horse riders use . Go through the gate into a large field then follow the muddy path round to the right towards a load of trees and the pond is in the middle of the trees. If you look at any of the maps in the park it's marked on there as a fishpond. Also the golf ponds are well worth a go, my dad had loads of tench on there this summer, as he only lives round the corner near the St Margarets pub on Bury Old Road,

 

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Ashy

[Guest Alan Pearce]

So is anyone going fishing tonight? With the storms of late the scene looks set for a SPOOKY session.

[Guest Gordon Scott]

Well, I'm just off for a afternoon/evening's barbel session on the Thames close to home. The river's high and coloured, and I really think I'm in with a good chance. I like to catch one or two Thames barbel each season ('cos I live there) and I think today gives me my best chance.

I don't have the slightest concern about spooky goings-on, I haven't got a superstitious bone in my body. Which isn't to say I'm at all brave, it's just that I regard all this ghosts and ghouls stuff as total nonsense. The only slight fear I ever have when fishing at night in areas like this is of flesh-and blood lagered-up yobs making a bloody nuisance of themselves.

So, I won't be taking a crucifix, and the only garlic I'll be carrying will be flavouring my bait. I might just have a sturdy bankstick close to hand though...

Gordon

[Guest coxie]

Back in the late seventies I used to fish the back lake at Longfield, Wraysbury, the Leisure Sport venue famed for its big carp. These were far too difficult for me however so I fished for the big tench, bream and perch, and had many a late evening/ early morning session there.Most often I would walk round to the furthest corner and it was there that I had my scary moment. It was just after midnight one late summer night and I was alone on the lake when I heard shuffling footsteps coming round the bank towards me. As the footsteps got louder and closer I shone my torch along the path expecting to see a fisherman from the other lakes, but there was no-one there. My already fast beating heart went into overdrive and I stood up, ready to confront whatever hideous ghoul was approaching. As I rose to my feet there shuffled into view a hedgehog with his head stuck in an empty yoghurt carton. The blinded animal was lurching from side to side, bumping into every obstacle in its path, and sounding very much like Swampthing. I carefully removed the yoghurt carton and booted the hedgehog into the lake, punishment for scaring the carp out of me (not really).

 

As a slight aside, in those days I used to fish close in with isotopes glued to the top of wagglers. The trick was not to look directly at the weird light or it would do funny things to your eyes. The light from the isotope was reflected on the surface of the water. A conventional bite would show as the strip of creamy light getting smaller before disappearing and the occasional lift bite would look like the strip of light had divided in two and separated. Quite often I would fish till about 2 am then find myself five hours later sitting on a District Line underground train heading for work in London. Many was the time that I would fall asleep on said train, dream of seeing my isotope float disappear and wake up with a start as I struck into an imaginary fish, very embarrasing.

 

Coxie.

[Guest coxie]

Sorry I posted that message twice. You will see from my profile that I work in IT, now that's scary!

[Guest chevin]

I decided to spend a night at The Temple Pool which, as those of you have read Drop me a Line by Richard Walker and Maurice Ingham, will know was the home of Pickle Barrel. Now although Pickle Barrel wasn't a big carp by todays standards, it was a most desirable fish in the 50's and 60's. Up til that time it hadn't been put on the bank and I wanted to be the first to do it.

 

I had no transport at the time so I got to the village by bus and walked down to the lake. There was pleanty of daylight left and I got settled into my swim.

 

After a few minutes, I heard a child screaming and I thought it was in trouble, I went and told a guy who lived near the lake what I had heard and we went through the woods looking for whoever was responsible. We found nothing but eventually came to another house in the garden of which was a woman. I explained to her what had happened and she told us that her husband had been chasing their daughter around the garden and she had been screaming as he did so.

 

I went back to my swim, but I was obviously a bit unsettled and nervous, as darkness began to fall, I felt increasingly unsettled and nervous. The Temple Pool is so sheltered a breeze rarely disturbs the surface of the water and it was so that night. I have never been anywhere where it was so still and quiet at night. The only sounds were some out breaks of eerie gruntings that I later discovered were mountjacks. However it wasn't them that unnerved me, but something was definitely wrong and I was feeling worse and worse. A quick look at my watch told me that I could catch the last bus to town if I packed up an ran - something I had no problems in doing. A few weeks later I told Alan Brown, the Hitchin tackle dealer that I had gone to the Temple Pool on my own to fish it all night, and before I had said anything else he said, "I bet you never stayed"!

 

That was scary in a spooky kind of way, but the biggest fright I ever got while night fishing was when I was fishing the Shannon at Roosky on my own one night. I had been dozing and had not heard a cow come up behind me. I was blissfully unaware of it until there was a cough right behind my head and a blast of hot moist air on my neck! I didn't just walk on water, I left a rooster tail behind me!

 

Sea fishing has it's moments too, I remember one night on Walton Pier when I was fishing into a stong wind. I had a lamp shining up my rods and my whole world was those rod tips. Suddenly, I saw this monster with a million arms and legs come hurtling out of the sky and land on my chest. My chair went flying and my scream would have been heard in Frinton. As other anglers came rushing over to see what had happened I was sheepishly picking up a bundle of bladderwrack that had blown up my line and over the rod tip!:-)

[Guest Gordon Scott]

Originally posted by chevin:

...The only sounds were some out breaks of eerie gruntings that I later discovered were mountjacks. However it wasn't them that unnerved me,...

They might not have unnerved you Chevin, but I bet they worried Jack ...

Gordon

[Guest chevin]

You know, if we are lucky, we might get Wordbender to tell us the story of how he scared a guy at Lake Rice (I think) in Canada. That is an hilarious story!

 

Just as a bit of humour, I will mention something WOT that happened to me. I was on Jury service and the case was over a guy biting the ear off another bloke. Anyway, the injured party was in the witness box, and he had just told us how the accused had bitten off his ear. The prosecution lawyer asked him what the accused did next, and the injured party said, "He gave an eerie laugh!" How any of us never laughed I will never know, but we were just about rolling on the floor in the jury room later!

[Guest chesters]

getting slightly of the spooky fishing bit ,i do a spot of metal detecting "on the side" in the winter it has to be done "in the dark" one evening i was happily trying to locate an elusive coin when "remembering that your eyesight is poor and wearing headphones stops you hearing external noises" out of the corner of my eye i spotted a white blob aproaching at great speed, the thoughts ghost and then attack sheep went through my head .i reacted as nature intended by screaming like a girl and throwing myself violently backwards to escape this viscouse and unprovoked attack only to see a large white fertilizer bag happily floating past .frightened i almost pooped myself!

[Guest Elton]

Originally posted by chevin:

You know, if we are lucky, we might get Wordbender to tell us the story of how he scared a guy at Lake Rice (I think) in Canada. That is an hilarious story!

 

Chevin,

 

The article's on this site:

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/authors/terry01.htm

 

All the best,

 

Elton

 

 

 

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Elton Murphy

Anglers' Net

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk