Stories about pike
Garrett Fallon meets Bob Hornegold, chairman of the Osprey Specimen Group A thick mist clings to Epping Forest, oozing from the ground like smoke from a burrow, badger bonfires blocking out the world. It obscures all, revealing light only at the very last moment: dodging cars on sharp bends, clenched teeth and arse cheeks desperately …
After a huge lost fish, Garrett Fallon takes a novice fishing on the Thames, to learn at the hands of river guide Steve Roberts.
Garrett Fallon explores the fishing potential of a long forgotten lake. There are rumours and myths, and tales of predation – but what can Garrett discover over the course of a couple of increasingly stormy, winter days?
There is a healthy sprinkle of salt in my father’s bones. He wasn’t born beside the sea, but his family moved to Swanage after the Second World War and he spent his formative years exploring the cliffs and coves of the Purbeck coast. It made for quite a contrast to the shell-shocked suburb of north-west …
The green-eyed monster, a pack of lies and a big pike, by Garrett Fallon I was getting frustrated with all the talk of twenties. We’d been fishing the lake and its bays and inlets for three days, swapping between hunting lake trout and plugging for pike, but we hadn’t caught or hooked a single 20lb pike …
It’s cold. Damn cold. The lake is iced over across two thirds of its width, a mischievous crust selling an illusion of solid ground, and a boisterous wind blows towards the outflow, slowly pushing the thaw with it. Winter can be beautiful, especially with a frost or snow, but nature is naked today without a …
Festive television is invariably underwhelming. Full of re-makes, repeats and Christmas ‘specials’ that make you smile, but only because the excess of port and stilton has left you mildly stupefied. I did watch Charlie Brooker’s 2016 Wipe last evening though, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Mind you, the past twelve months have delivered plenty of …
5am. It’s dark. Sort of. There’s a full moon that lights up the garden like a five-a-side pitch. I can see my cat racing along the grass to tackle a trespassing fur ball. I like these early starts, when it feels like the whole world is asleep, but of course it’s not. A couple of …
A couple of miles to the south east of the market town of Stalham lies Hickling Broad. Covering some 400 acres of open water, Hickling is the largest of Norfolk’s Broads. A further 1200 acres of reeds make it the largest single area of reed bed in Britain and it is unsurprisingly a haven for …
As Fishpool was nosing through the 1963 edition of the Anglers’ Annual, a familiar name caught his or her eye in the Coarse Fishing Catch Review section. Captor of one of the biggest pike of the year (a fish of 32lb from Hickling Broad) was Dennis Pye. A further glance below at the rudd report …
There was a time – a dark, dark, time – when Fishpool was merely a leaf floating on the breeze and Mr Fallon, our hallowed master, was forced to conjure up Bits and Pieces for himself. One of the first entries in ‘Things we Like’ was The Domesday Book of Mammoth Pike – and Fishpool …
Why is it that we spend so much of our lives running, when really all we’d like to do is walk? We have a propensity to complicate our days, rush through them, fill them with activity, purpose, goals and achievements. But does it actually get us anywhere? Do we actually know where it is …
Aaahhh, the wonderful Lake District. Inspiration to authors such as Arthur Ransome and poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge. It was also home to Beatrix Potter, whose former cottage is now a museum close to Esthwaite Water. Esthwaite is one of the smaller lakes of the Lake District – though at 280 acres size is relative. …
Who could forget that try for the Barbarians against the mighty All Blacks in 1973 (or, in Fishpool’s case, seeing re-runs of it…ahem). And is there a Welsh rugby fan who wouldn’t name Gareth Edwards the greatest player the country has ever produced? Certainly the best number 9. It came as little surprise that Gareth …
No fish, in freshwater at least, stirs the imagination like the pike (Esox lucius). This is a fish unchanged since time began – a relic of the Ice Age – though when you have no need to change, why evolve further? The pike is long and sleek, with a big tail and late slung dorsal …
Before you think that Fishpool has been sniffing hongeohoe (see Bits and Pieces Issue 15) or has had one too many bottles of Barbus Barbus (see Bits and Pieces Issue 6), the aspect of pike gaffs and jaw spreaders that he likes, is the fact that their use has been all but consigned to history. …
Eight miles north of Newport, and neatly situated between the towns of Pontypool, Cwmbran and Usk, the reservoir of Llandegfedd is a popular location for birdwatching, water sports and, of course, angling. The reservoir was opened in 1965 and covers 434 acres. Stocked with rainbow and brown trout, Llandegfedd offers superb fly fishing, with fish …
The very best fishing stories are those with an element of truth to them, and what makes a good story great, is when there is sufficient evidence to keep people talking about it forever. In 1934, beside the mouth of the River Endrick on the shores of Loch Lomond (see Places we Like) the body …
My late father was a prodigious purchaser of fishing books: H.T. Sheringham, G.E.M. Skues, Charles Cotton, Frederick Halford, Zane Grey, BB, Dick Walker, Bernard Venables, Chris Yates and so the list goes on. But the one that stuck out the most was The Domesday Book of Mammoth Pike by Fred Buller. I was a teenager …
The Royal Canal in Ireland was a white elephant. It had been built by an over-zealous entrepreneur who intended it to compete against the nearby Grand Canal, but it went disastrously over-budget and he was nearly broke by the time it was completed. Then the railway came to Ireland and didn’t so much eat into …
I hit the road early but got gridlocked in the Blackwall tunnel, so was suitably late when turning up for my days fishing at Walthamstow reservoirs with the angling writer Dominic Garnett. Thank heavens patience is a virtue often found in the heart of an angler. Fallon’s Angler was launching the next day, and Dominic …
