Coarse fishing in WW2

[Steve Burke]

Steve, I don't know if size limits varied from time-to-time, but my 1969 copy of Nicholson's Guide to Thames Fishing gives the following:

 

Barbel 16 in Gudgeon 5 in

Bleak 4 in Perch 9 in

Bream 12 in Pike 24 in

Carp 12 in Roach 7 in

Chub 12 in Rudd 8 in

Dace 7 in Tench 10 in

Flounder 7 in Trout 14 in

 

I remember that fish over the size limit were always referred to as "goers".

 

Thanks, Davy. I memory is also getting old!

[poledark]

"I doubt much beach fishing went on then"

 

Yes ,many southern and Eastern beaches were mined or out of bounds until after the war, I remember being taken on holiday to Ramsgate just after the war, probably 1946, and we weren't allowed on to the beach.

 

Probably ok if you lived in another part of the country where no invasion was likely.

 

Den

[Peter Waller]

I remember that fish over the size limit were always referred to as "goers".

Bit like bits of stuff when they reached their size limit, 16 years of age

[SpenBeck]

Hi all,

 

Old guy informed me this year that 'When he came home from the war, there were no fish in the River Calder (W. Yorks) and that it was rainbow coloured from all the dye houses emptying in to it. If you fell in, you would have been poisened before you drowned!'

 

Now days you can catch, trout, grayling, barbel, the lot! Only eels have not come back yet.

 

Regards, SpenBeck

Edited December 21, 2007 by SpenBeck

[Vagabond]

I'm sitting typing this at my bro-in-law's house on the banks of the Tamar estuary.

 

We had a bag of flatties the other day, (and a 2 lb mackerel) just off the end of his garden, fried 'em up brown with chips and noshed 'em. Had the mackerel for breakfast the next morning. Got a nice suntan too.

 

BTW that's Tamar as in North Tasmania, the mackerel was an Australian Blue Mackerel, and the flatties were the Southern Sand Flathead (they are like outsize dragonets and very spiky - top nosh tho')

 

As someone who experienced the realities of fishing during WW2 I can tell you plenty of fish were eaten. I used to sell mine to selected neighbours, although most of fingerling roach I got from the local farm pond were consumed by their cats.

 

I was in Sussex during the early part of the war, but then went to stay with grandparents in Norfolk - and spent a lot of time catching dabs off Cromer beach. We had to crawl under barbed wire to get to one beach. Mines? The local lads said they were just a scare story to keep the beaches deserted - anyway, none of us got blown up.

 

My grandfather equipped me with three handlines - cuttyhunk with three boom brass paternosters and three No 4 dab hooks to twisted three-ply gut on each rig. These produced a never-ending supply of dabs. Bait up the first three hooks, bung it out, then the next three on line two, bung that out, then the third - by that time the first rig would have three dabs on! - quite a routine, but the worst part was digging the lugworms - hard work for a ten-year old.

 

Interestingly, my companions rarely got three-shots, and looking back I think it was because they fished one handline each and of course pulled it in as soon as they felt a fish. My rigs stayed out longer (by circumstance rather than design), and hence got fish on the other hooks.

 

Weekends I spent on my uncle's farm inland - did a lot of fishing there. Archie, his tractor driver loved baked pike with turnips, so most of the pike I caught were eaten by Archie.

 

I remember eating some rudd, fried by my aunt and consumed with bread and butter and a lot of brown sauce - only tried that once, and once a tench was served up with mashed potato, swede and parsley. After one helping (muddy!!!) it was sent down the road to Archie, as a change from pike.

 

We ate plenty of trout and perch though - both are delicious. Gudgeon also.

 

There was no shortage of fish - the simple fact was that only a few people were able to catch them, so it was a sustainable resource.

 

That probably still applies on many rivers, despite the xenophobic scare stories of foreigners munching our fish stocks.

Edited December 22, 2007 by Vagabond

[Vagabond]

What I always wonder about is how people constantly carp (!) on abut how much better the fishing was and how many more fish there were 50 years ago when at this time people were habitually removing and eating them.

 

Good point, and there are no shortages of fish in most countries where freshwater fish are commonly eaten. Countries in that category I have experience of include countries as diverse as France, Romania, Canada, Gambia, Thailand, USA and Brazil. India I found the only exception, but most of their problems come from habitat loss, plus a huge human population and hence a lot of pressure on the few rivers still supporting fish.

 

Britain has always been a long way from India's situation.

[Leon Roskilly]

Good point, and there are no shortages of fish in most countries where freshwater fish are commonly eaten. Countries in that category I have experience of include countries as diverse as France, Romania, Canada, Gambia, Thailand, USA and Brazil. India I found the only exception, but most of their problems come from habitat loss, plus a huge human population and hence a lot of pressure on the few rivers still supporting fish.

 

Britain has always been a long way from India's situation.

 

In commercial fishing there is a realisation that removal of a certain amount of fish actually stimulates production.

 

ie Often a good year class for some species will mean several following bad year classes, as the larger year class consumes both the food of the following year classes and the smaller individuals from the year classes coming through.

 

And old 'unproductive' fish just consume and eat younger fish (though generally older fish carry more spawn and their fry tend to be more viable).

 

By 'creaming off' the excess, more of the following year classes thrive and survive to reach marketable size.

 

(Of course there are problems in that the infrastructure needs a constant supply of fish, whatever the state of the stocks, so tends not to stop fishing when fishing should stop).

 

It does illustrate though, that in some circumstances, removal of some fish could actually lead to an increased stock, even though the concept seems counter-intuitive.

[Waveney One]

I can apreciate the difference between "retained" and "kept" in this case Den but still dont understand why it was thought tht undersize fish shouldnt be "retained" in a keep net? Surely the catching of them (and so the handling/unhooking) would have been more detrimental but to a certain degree unavoidable?

 

 

Those earlier matches on the Thames and Lea were mostly rovers. The reason that size limits were applied was that all fish to be weighed in were killed. They often took a train journey from the place of capture to the weigh-in point that was fixed before the match commenced. They were deemed to be big enough to 'go' to the weigh in, hence 'goer'. Nets were used to keep the fish fresh then the fish killed or in later times put into a bucket to be transported to the weigh in. It was some years before pegged down matches and the scales travelling along the pegs was brought in.

 

Freshwater fish were regularly eaten in the UK well into the fifties. Rationing was still in existence until the early fifties and whilst people of my generation (late 50's) look back on those times with rose tinted glasses, they were in fact very hard. There was rarely much food around and what there was expensive. Any free protein like fish was looked upon as a bonus by many of us. I can remember meals of specimen roach and even bream and tench. Pike and perch were a delicacy and as good to eat as many sea fish. The last pike I ate was in the ROI in the mid 70's where the owner of the guest house asked that we bring one back for her to cook and make into fish cakes. Very tasty they were too.

[The Flying Tench]

There was no shortage of fish - the simple fact was that only a few people were able to catch them, so it was a sustainable resource.

 

This must be the key fact in explaining my original question. But why were only a few people able to catch them? I can see that most of the younger men were away at the war. But is your point that not many people were anglers? My impression round Newbury nowadays is that, even if most people aren't anglers today, the males have usually had a crack at it some time and have an old rod in the loft. Still, I think I can see the point. Maybe they had no hooks, for example. And everyone was working hard - women on the land and in factories etc.

 

Fascinating write-up incidently, Vagabond - thank you - even if you have 'gone native' ('top nosh' etc)!

[Steve Burke]

Those earlier matches on the Thames and Lea were mostly rovers. The reason that size limits were applied was that all fish to be weighed in were killed. They often took a train journey from the place of capture to the weigh-in point that was fixed before the match commenced. They were deemed to be big enough to 'go' to the weigh in, hence 'goer'. Nets were used to keep the fish fresh then the fish killed or in later times put into a bucket to be transported to the weigh in. It was some years before pegged down matches and the scales travelling along the pegs was brought in.

 

Very interesting! Amazing what you can learn on AN.