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Brian Clarke


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Angling is about having a go with anything you have at your disposal, isn't it?

 

I like this sentence! So many look down on the angler who has budget equipment claiming he will not catch the fish the angler with the ''Top of the line'' gear will... To me its not just about expensive equipment... Its about making it happen and in fishing I believe that is what puts fish on the bank... Getting out there at the right time, in the right place, with the right baits.... You can have the most expensive equipment in the world but if the fish are not feeding, are not in the area, or do not want your bait you have no chance!

 

My partner once caught a Tench fishing 3'' deep on a £6.99 float rod purchased from a local pet shop..... I however sat next to her with 2 ''complicated'' feeder rods, delicate lines... The ''Ultimate'' Tench baits...... And I didn't catch a Tench until 2 months after my partner, and even then it was smaller! :schmoll:

Species Caught 2011: Mirror Carp, Barbel, Ide, Rudd, Roach, Bleak, Perch, Bream,

 

Species Caught 2010: Perch, Pike, Roach, Rudd, Bleak, Bream, Gudgeon, Ruffe, Ide, Tench, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Barbel, Chub, F1, Crusian Carp, Goldfish

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In one chapter he writes about a poor boy and a rich kid, and slags off the poor boy for not catching anything because he didn't have the expensive equipment of the rich kid!!

That story was supposed to be humorous though. He wasn't actually criticising the poor kid for not having fancy gear. To be fair, as humorous pieces go, it wasn't actually terribly funny, and was a bit laboured in the telling, but I don't for one minute think that he was expecting anyone to think he was saying that you need expensive gear to catch fish.

 

And yes, philocalist, I think this is the book you're thinking of. I can't remember where exactly, but I know he's from somewhere round Teesside and the Tees and other local rivers feature in the book a lot.

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Thing is he critisizes Angling Times in his book, and seems to hold ordinary anglers in contempt. In one chapter he writes about a poor boy and a rich kid, and slags off the poor boy for not catching anything because he didn't have the expensive equipment of the rich kid!! He also had a go at the more sturdier angler. I wouldn't mind but he also seemed to have a go at the Angling Times for it's sexual references, and then proceeds to devote a whole chapter on sexual activities on the river bank using the sort of public schoolboy humour and derogartory terminology suggestive of his own perceptions of what people want to read. Incidentally, I stopped reading his book after the chapter ridiculing the financially challenged youngster, it just put the tin hat on the man's inability to reach the reader, let alone the angler. Let's face it, how much did the average angler pay out for their first piece of fishing equipment? At the age of 10 I had a net to catch sticklebacks, and borrowed my friends cane rod with a hook and a piece of cork with a maggot on the end of it to try catch a fish, all those years ago, and the guy on the bank opposite clapped with great pleasure when my friend eventually brought in a large pike!!

 

Angling is about having a go with anything you have at your disposal, isn't it?

 

I’m afraid you’ve entirely missed the point of that story.

It’s titled Morality Tale and it sets up the rich kid who is a braggart with all the gear (and no idea?) against the poor kid with cheap gear.

A tale of good against bad with the rich kid set up as bad and the poor kid set up as good.

 

Brian Clarke sets the story up ‘like a thousand Hollywood westerns’. Everybody is rooting for the poor kid in the battle where the two fisherman ‘play out their own High Noon’...

 

Then Clarke cleverly turns the story on its head.

The rich kid puts his cast out and it plops a foot in front of his feet.

The poor kid sends his cast soaring out to the far bank.

 

Who would now win the duel? Who would catch all the fish?

 

‘The demolition began. Three barbel, seven good chub, two cracking roach, a big grayling, a big trout and dace beyond number’.

 

Well actually the rich kid won. But not because he could brag, bully and had the best gear...

But because he had read the swim properly. A lesson I’m sure we all could learn from! :)

Edited by tiddlertamer

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days without taking a fish. (Hemingway - The old man and the sea)

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That story was supposed to be humorous though. He wasn't actually criticising the poor kid for not having fancy gear. To be fair, as humorous pieces go, it wasn't actually terribly funny, and was a bit laboured in the telling, but I don't for one minute think that he was expecting anyone to think he was saying that you need expensive gear to catch fish.

 

And yes, philocalist, I think this is the book you're thinking of. I can't remember where exactly, but I know he's from somewhere round Teesside and the Tees and other local rivers feature in the book a lot.

 

Oops, says he, embarrassed B) ... it's the same book that I'm thinking about ... sat here on the bookshelf, but with a different cover :D

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