Gone Fishin'

I suppose it started with Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall, the floppy-haired and engaging cook and food enthusiast of TV’s River Cottage series. Week after week Hugh grows, hunts and finds ingredients for an always wonderful meal which he whips up on the beach, in a field, or on a boat in what always seems to be perfect weather with a bunch of really good mates.

In the recent series, Hugh was catching fish. He made it seem entrancing.  And the idea is, O Idle Viewer, that we couch potatoes can also pop down to Jersey for a bit of Sea Bream or up to Skye for a chance at the mackerel etc, etc.  (The episode where he ate a bit of jellyfish is not one I’m going to copy.)  But, jellyfish aside, it all looked wonderful.

And, d’you know, I’ve got a fishing rod.  To be honest, I’m not sure why.  I’ve spent various seaside holidays where we’ve succumbed to the lure of fishing trips, and then I've  been lumbered with doing something (like cleaning, scaling, gutting and cooking) to a mixed batch of finny denizens.  And, what with one thing and another, I’ve been led to reflect that seaside fish is better deep-fried and wrapped in newspaper with plenty of vinegar and a portion of chips.  But Hugh F-W made it look sooooo much fun.   “Can we,” said Helen, swivelling round from the couch where she’d potatoed, “go fishing?”

Now, there’s certain obstacles to be overcome; even the most passionate Mancunian will agree that Manchester is not lapped by the ocean waves. Or traversed by swiftly-flowing rivers (not that you’d want to eat out of, at any rate) or, indeed, the willow-fringed, grassy-banked, sparkling trout streams of my imagination.  So when I went to the local angling shop, and asked where I could go fishing, I wasn’t very surprised when the bloke behind the counter shrugged and said, “The canal.”

Oh, and I needed a rod-licence, too. And a landing-net. And bait?

Nothing, I said firmly, as he reached for the maggots, that’s minging.

Maggots are undeniably minging.

Plastic maggots, then?

Plastic maggots?

So, yeah, okay, I know it’s odd, but I spent £1.99 on a packet of plastic maggots.  They smell of pineapple which fish apparently find irresistible.  They like sweetcorn too, apparently. Where on earth do the fish get these advanced tastes from?  I can understand a fish in the Huddersfield Canal being switched on by the scent of old shopping trolleys and take-away cartons, but sweetcorn and pineapples?  Maybe they migrate…

So armed with niffy plastic maggots, sweetcorn, a rod licence, a net and a bit of hope, I stationed myself by the canal, baited the rod and waited.  Helen sat on the picnic rug and, sketch book in hand, whiled away the time until she could get busy with the landing-net.

Now before anyone wonders if they’ll shortly be called up upon to choose between flowers or a donation to charity, let me reassure you.  There is no way, ever, that I would eat anything out of that canal.  All I want to do is snare a fish, admire it, take its photograph and return it to its native element. This (see my thoughts on cleaning, scaling, gutting and cooking above) seems like a good deal to me. I’m not sure what the fish would think, but it might entertain some mordant thoughts on the nuttiness of human behaviour.

The fish tried.  They loved the sweetcorn.  They ate it off the hook and came back for more.  That rod is the most complicated way of giving a fish a healthy snack ever devised.  We re-baited the hook and tried again.  And again.  And then It Happened.  There was a massive tug at the line.  Now, there’s not just tiddlers in that canal.  There’s at least one twenty-pound pike and the way the rod bent double I could believe I’d got it.  The line must have stretched, because I reeled in and reeled in and still there was a terrific threshing in the murky waters.  “Reel it in, Mum!” yelled Helen.  “I’m doing it!” I said… And then Helen put the net in the water. Now she didn’t mean to hit the fish, but she did.  And broke the line. There was a clunk, a final tug and the fish was gone.  An irritated-looking shiny black back rose twice out of the water and that was it.  This never happened to Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall.  Fishing on the telly is easy.