A Sunday in 1967 - "The Cart Horse in The Donkey Field" - A True Story by Mike Jones

After a bit of banter with Mike Jones at the last Coffin Dodgers Match I teased him about the story of the Horse that ate his GB. The reason I knew about this was because I worked in the same company as Les Evans whom I use to meet up with at his Milling Machine every Monday morning to discuss the weekends fishing and on a Monday during 1967 he mentioned some of the following story now re-told in detail by Mike Jones (pictured right picking up more coin on the national match scene in 1968) in his own words.

"During the foot & mouth outbreak in the late sixties all fishing on agricultural land was stopped, all club waters were closed. After several weeks of no fishing a small group of us discovered that the donkey field at Rotork was a public footpath and could be fished.
The following Saturday a small group of us met to have a sweepstake.
The match started and for a while we were all catching quite well when the resident very large cart horse came along and started to eat my ground bait, casters, food and all the grass around me, and being a wimp I didn't argue with a horse the size of a steam train. he then moved up to Malcolm Murfet who was in the next peg and did exactly the same.
Next peg was the late Mike Roussell, now Mike who was not known for being over generous, patted the horse on the nose and said f**k off Dobbin.
Dobbin did not like this and as a wise old carthorse knew exactly what Mike was saying. In a flash Dobbin put his head in the small of Mikes back, flicked his head and Mike was in under the water in the river. Now Mike was 17 stones and flew into the water like a rag doll. After much mirth we dragged Mike out of the river, Dobbin had a good s**t in his peg and wandered off.

True story."

Too good a story to leave in the comments section of my blog.

Top That

I first met Mervyn Haskins during the fishing season of 1969 - 1970 at a South West Winter League match when I fished for the Ridgeway AA. Mervyn, is of course, better known as “Topper” Haskins. Topper was then captain of the City of Bristol team, a team always in contention for the South West Winter League title. Back then, Topper travel to matches on his motor bike with his tackle box strapped to the rear and with rods on his back.

There is a miss conception that Topper got his nick name through some association with fishing – not true! His name was given to him by his family – commonly known as his “Family given name”. Mervyn was born in 1939 and had four brothers Tom, Gordon, Jim, Jay and two sisters Brenda and Diane. Jim’s Family given name was “Demon” for some reason. The rest of the boys were also known as “Topper”.

Topper started fishing at an early age and had quick success. In 1956 Topper qualified for the “Peoples” Championship final on the river Ouse. For the youngsters reading this the People was Sunday broad sheet paper, very similar to the “News of the World”. It was a very popular paperback then – I know I use to have a Sunday newspaper round!! Alan Coley (another well known float maker - Wagglers and Sticks) had also qualified and travelled with Topper to the final.

Topper was fishing against the best anglers in the country, such as the great Ivan Marks. With heavy overnight rain the competitors were confronted with a rising river Ouse. However, Topper had a good draw with a bay just down stream, giving him some slack to trot an Avon float in to (no quiver tips or feeders back then). Topper won the match with 9lb 2oz. The picture on the right shows Topper landing a Roach on his running line and float rod - why the two keepnets?

Topper had a few good years winning most of the big club match

trophies. The picture right shows Topper being presented with the Bristol & West Open Trophy fished on the Crane stretch of the Bristol Avon at Keynsham in 1957.

In 1960 the fishing had to be put on the back burner as Topper was conscripted into the army at the age of 21, for the mandatory two years, joining the “Somerset and Cornwall” Regiment (it’s a shame that conscription was ever stopped). Topper traveled overseas quite a lot in that two years. One of his more memorable days was taking part in the “Gibraltar Sports Day” in North Africa – Trabruc – Al’adam. The sports day was traditionally held against the Army arch rivals the RAF based at Al’adam. Topper’s chosen event was the pole vault!! However, back then they didn’t have the carbon fibre poles they have today. Topper had to make do with a stiff aluminium pole. However the pole vault event became army versus army as the RAF were left wanting some what. Topper came second with a vault of 11 foot 3 inches, narrowly beaten by his army buddy.

As I have previously written Topper became the Bathampton AA Club team captain and had many successful years. The team event that Topper is particularly proud of was his John Smith’s Teams of Five win. Topper (pictured right with his winning catch) won the match with 9lb 4oz. His weight consisted of mainly Barbel, an eight pounder!

You can’t write about Topper without mentioning his now famous Crow Quill Avon floats, also commonly referred to as “Toppers”. The first of Toppers floats were constructed with a shaped balsa body slid over a crow quill. Topper later developed a three piece float with Separate crow quill tops and bottoms with high density foam with slimmer shaped bodies (helicopter internal blade quality – say no more). The foam floats took much more shot than the previous balsa type. He also added colourful whipping to help give the float rubbers grip. They were in fact a work of art (see photographs right of his float range) – and all duly signed “Topper” with the approximate weights in BB's.Topper has now retired from float making; however, a distant relation of his Mark Haskins is still making a very similar float (as far as I am concerned they will never be the same). I remember fishing an open match at Fry’s and Topper was up stream of me and he lost one of his home made Crow Quill Avon’s (this was before he made them commercially). The float had freed itself from the line and floated down in to my swim. I recovered the float and my first Topper float was in my tackle box. Some years later I explained the story to Topper and offered to return it. I treasure that float and I still have it in my river float box today. The result was another win for Topper - third in four matches (see newspaper clip bottom left).

With river matches in decline, mainly due to the advent of commercial fisheries Topper fishes few matches now days. However, he can be enticed back as a stand in on the river if a winter league team is short, but the river has to be “spot on”.

Topper married his wife Pat in 1963 and today (pictured lower right together in their back garden) –46 years on both share the same hobby of Caravanning. Topper now has a caravan down at Brean and spends most of the summers there. He tells me he goes fishing most days on a small lake adjacent to his caravan (Bream to 7lb).

I will never forget the 114lb 3oz match catch of Bream Topper had from the Bristol Avon from one below Swineford Outfall. Topper fished down the middle with one of his 14 BB Crow Quill Avon’s with bread on the hook.

TOP THAT!

An Irish Match Remembered

In my blog - reference "The Early Years" - "Sunday 28/09/1969 - Angling Times South West Winter League - Limpley Stoke to Barton Farm". I published the photograph of the City of Bristol Team (published again beneath for reference - also suggest revisiting the above blog for more details) that had won through to the Angling Times Winter League Final in Ireland I posed the question "Can you recognise them today"? In response I received the following letter from one of the team members - Malcolm Murfet (single click each page in turn to make them readable):

I thoroughly enjoyed the letter, as I too have many fond memories of the team fishing. For me it is about "sharing" with each team member come success or failure.

Malcolm Murfet is pictured left (left smiling) presenting a Silstar rod to a junior angler who was seriously injured by high voltage electricity discharged through his Carbon Pole.

Malcolm also mentions Charlie Jones (pictured left - the caption on the back of the photograph reads "Our Charlie in action"), Charlie was one of the unsung greats of river float fishing.

Lucky "Bloke"

The above title is reference to Ian (“Bloke”) Pulsford. Ian earned his nick name through him referring to everyone he first met as “Bloke”. Bloke had retired from work in his early forties to fish full time. Bloke had built a reputation as the only angler in the South West that fished every day of the week. However, his match fishing with Bathampton is limited for financial reasons. Bloke is a close friend of England International Des Shipp. Bloke will tell you that he taught Des all he knows – there may be some small amount of truth in this – Des always appears to know how venues that Bloke fishes are responding.

Bloke fishes regularly at Bitterwell Lake – particularly Tuesdays. So it was no surprise that I met up with him whilst out walking the Lake.

I exchanged the usual “how’s it fishing” stuff, and for some reason the discussions got around to dropping pole sections in to water! Bloke then went on to explain this amazing story:

It was one day in 2005, when Bloke decided to go pleasure fishing on the Bristol Avon at Keynsham, electing (for reasons only known to himself) to fish the swim just below the Donkey field, behind Keynsham Marina (photograph right shows the swim, but subsequent to the following events the swim had a “Kissing Gate” erected right on it). This section of the river is rarely fished and used mainly during winter league matches, particularly when the river is running high. This is due to it being just above Keynsham Weir and is between twelve and fourteen foot deep, with the summer water level having a slow steady flow. It’s also unpopular because of the narrow foot path and the overgrown trees each side of the swims (see photograph lower right). It’s not somewhere you would select the pole as first choice. Feeder is the most popular choice. During the session Bloke lost a number six section from his new pole, into the murky depths. He tried all the usual landing net business to recover the section, but to no avail. So, being cheesed-off Bloke packed up and went home.

On his arrival home, his wife Margaret, known as Marge noticed that Bloke looked a bit down hearted. Marge enquired for the reason. Bloke explained what had happened to his pole section and the £200 cost for replacement. Marge asked why he didn’t get in to the water to recover it. He explained that the swim he was fishing was 13 foot deep and he was concerned about debris from the trees, etc… which may cause injury; in any case Bloke admitted that he is not a particularly strong swimmer.
His Wife then volunteered to go and try and recover it for him as she was a much strong swimmer. Bloke tried to dissuade her, but she was now set on trying.

So the next day Bloke and Marge, duly attired in swim wear, arrived at the river. Marge stripped down to her swim suit and dived in the river – YES DIVED IN! Marge made repeated dives only to return to the surface with bits of wood, branches etc…Bloke finally persuade her to give up and return home without the section.

I discussed the whole event with Marge, explaining how the first dive down, was the most important, as initially the body if full of oxygen. Repeat dives would last less and less time due, to the depletion of body oxygen. On the first dive Marge made it to the bottom but could only see "stones in the murky, green water". Marge did find and retrieve some sticks and branches. Marge also explained that at the time, the flow of the river was quite strong, hampering her staying in position over where the pole entered the water. Marge, thought afterwards - "what if, she had drowned, how would Ian explain it to the Police". Marge thought this scenario hilarious.

Have a look again at the top photo – would you dive in to this swim to retrieve a £200 pole section – not likely! Marge did at the age of 58. Well done Marge.

Below, middle, is a picture of hero Margaret and Ian celebrating their 40th (Ruby) wedding anniversary.

The only way to describe someone who is the position to go fishing every day and have a Wife prepared to dive in to a river to retrieve your tackle is:

Lucky Bloke