THE story so far: The Black Lion's D team, comprising Zorro, Scoop, Scratcher and the Brain have, after years of trying, suddenly had a couple of results on the hard Yorkshire circuit. Spurred on by this and despite all the odds, they decide to branch out and try their luck further afield. The Brain's home computer, fed up with all the relevant details, pinpoints the River Trent as the first venue to receive their attention. Now read on. ..
STILL elated by his fifth place at the weekend open on the Swale, Zorro had now to face the reality of telling Eunice that he was about to take the Friday off and go down with the rest of the lads to practice on the Trent before the Notts Fed open on the Saturday. Zorro grappled with the best way to break the news to his wife. By Wednesday, he still hadn't plucked up the courage to broach the subject. As it happened, it was Scoop who gave him the nudge that evening. The knock on the door about tea time was ignored by Eunice. She had seen Scoop walk past the kitchen window and had shouted her husband through.
Scoop was let into the kitchen and Zorro made a cup of tea for them both. Eunice was taking a morbid satisfaction; she knew from Scratcher's wife what they were planning for the weekend and she was taking great delight in watching her husband pluck up the courage to tell her about their night out.
"You all ready for the weekend?" asked Scoop, slurping his hot tea.
"Yea, yea, got my bait ordered and things", offered Zorro.
"I've got us booked into the Anchor at Gunthorpe", blurted Scoop.
Eunice stiffened and her top lip started twitching visibly, as she continued to peel the potatoes, waiting for the inevitable "matter of fact" statement from Zorro. She wasn't to be disappointed.
"As a matter of fact pet, we'll be going down the day before and stopping overnight", said Zorro, hurriedly. "How about me?" snapped Eunice. "
on't I ever get the chance of a night out? I want to come too!"Zorro's face turned the colour of freshly driven snow. The thought of this dreadful old hag accompanying them on a rare weekend trip, was just too ghastly to contemplate. She'd want to go late night shopping in Nottingham, curtail the boozing and get in the way on match day.
"I'd love to take you pet, but we're hiring a car and there'll hardly be enough room as it is". Zorro winked at Scoop, hoping that his mate would back him up.
"We could just about squeeze you in pet", offered Scoop.
Zorro's head slumped forward and he closed his eyes, contemplating the inevitable.
" . . But you'd have to have the maggot tray on your lap", added Scoop, winking at Zorro.
Charged with enthusiasm
The meeting at the Black Lion on the Thursday night was charged with enthusiasm and brown ale. The Brain had run a prodigious amount of data into his home computer. Results from four years' matches at Burton Joyce had been force-fed into the data bank and the Brain was now in possession of the salient facts.
"The Trent at Burton Joyce . . . mid February . . . Saturday match . . . conditions normal," he began. "Expected winning weight ... 27Ib". All three gasped and nodded encouragingly.
"Winning peg ... or pegs . . . three below the outfall at the top of the road stretch. Pegs 196 or 184. Winning method . . . stick float at the outfall peg, feeder on the other two. Target species.. .chub and roach and the best bait is caster".
"Is that all?" asked Zorro.
"Not quite", said the Brain. "There is one other important factor which seems to play an important part in nearly every win at Burton Joyce".
"What's that?", they all asked eagerly.
"You have to be a member of Notts Fed", added the Brain, looking pleased with himself. The others all looked crestfallen.
"That's simple", said Scratcher, brightening. "We all buy a Notts Fed book before the match". Scratcher's failure to grasp the significance of this last fact was drowned in a torrent of abuse.
The meeting ended a couple of hours later and the final transport arrangements were made. The Brain was to collect the hired estate car and pick them all up at first light.
The Brain treated the hire car with the usual care lavished on all hire cars and, in under two hours, they were on the roadside stretch at Burton Joyce. The river looked in fine trim. The D team threw their kit out of the car and spread themselves out at intervals. Scratcher set up a light stick float rig and started work close in. He was overjoyed to be into fish straight away. Roach to 6oz, small gudgeon and skimmer bream came in a never-ending procession. The Brain tackled up likewise and was soon into action himself. Scoop opted to fish a feeder close in and found himself amongst a shoal of small chub. Zorro was the last to get started and was totally undecided as to what method to fish. He sprayed the swim with a variety of baits and eventually opted for the big feeder down the middle. After ten minutes without a bite, he suddenly became unsure of himself.
"You still gettin' 'em Scratch?", yelled Zorro.
"Yea, a fish a chuck, with some big roach amongst 'em", said Scratcher, breaking off to lean into another decent fish.
Desperate tactics
The others continued to hammer out fish. By half eleven, they had double figures—all except Zorro, who had moved swims four times and, in desperation, was now legering a cheese and lobworm cocktail. Scratcher and the Brain had walked off to the Lord Nelson for a pint and a sandwich and Scoop and Zorro were minding their pitches until they came back. Zorro decided to spend this quiet spell having a look at their tackle.
Zorro quietly marvelled at the way Scratchier had strung his shot out, starting with a No1 beneath the float and decreasing to a No10 nine inches from the hook. The Brain's stick float rig was almost the same and on having a look at Scoop's tackle he was at a loss for words.
"Where's your hook?" he asked.
"There", said Scoop holding up his terminal rig to reveal a single caster held on by a forged 22 to 1lb bottom.
Zorro had been fishing a number ten on his big feeder rig and a forged 16 with a single maggot to 21/2lb bottom on his stick float rig. Zorro stumbled back and reset his tackle, slavishly copying the others. His cheese and lobworm cocktail was still out in the middle of the river somewhere. Suddenly his rod end knocked a couple of times and then it was dragged round. He grabbed his sawn-off salmon rod and held on grimly, as an obviously huge Trent carp or barbel fought hard.
"I'm in here", he yelled to Scoop, standing up to get more leverage. But the line parted with an audible crack and Zorro sat back heavily on his box. All thoughts of silly shotting patterns were forgotten, as he hastily tied a number four direct to 7Ib line and cast out a huge lump of luncheon meat and casters into the river.
"This has to be the method", he mumbled to himself.
The rest of the day passed peacefully enough. Zorro moved pitch another three times and ended the day fishless. The other three had caught more in one eight hour session, than in all the past three months fishing combined. Scoop had about 20lb of small chub, the Brain had 16 or 17 pounds and Scratcher had done two stone easily. At about four o'clock they packed up and drove the short distance to the Anchor at Gunthorpe. Apart from Zorro they were highly delighted with their day's fishing. The others had all caught on casters and hemp, either in the feeder or loose-fed. Whilst they were discussing this in the bar before dinner, Zorro suddenly saw an escape route for his appalling performance.
"Yea, well, I was on maggot, wasn't I? We had to ring the changes if we were going to suss out the method; it's no good just going down there to bag up, somebody had to try a few other methods".
Nobody had the heart to explain that he would have caught on maggot, if he'd tackled up right, stopped at the same swim and fed the same line.
"You could be right mate", said the Brain. "We'll give the maggot a miss tomorrow, casters and hemp down the side . . ."
"Or the big feeder down the middle", added Zorro. "Or cheese and meat, if you draw a carp peg".
"Trouble is, we don't know which are the carp pegs", said Scoop.
"Well, we'll ask won't we? That Frank Barlow, He'll put us right", said Zorro.
"Oh, you know Frank do you?" asked Scratcher.
"Sure I know Frank Barlow; I was pegged next to him in a match a couple of years ago."
"And he'll remember you, will he? asked Scratcher.
"He'll remember me, all right, I was pegged above him and I must have trotted a couple of feet into his swim".
"What did he say?" asked Scoop.
"Not much; asked me if I liked hospital food or something, I just nodded and humoured him . . . seemed like a nice bloke. He doesn't half draw some good pegs, though. He had about 20Ib and I weighed 4oz. Just shows you, even on a river like the Trent you can get two pegs that look the same, but one is stuffed with fish and the other is a load of rubbish ..."
The others just nodded silently in agreement.
The next day dawned bright and fresh. At the draw, it looked like a Who's Who of match fishing: Dean, Swinscoe, Toulson, Barlow, Perry, Walton—the list of Trent legends was endless and so it seemed was the queue for the draw.
Eventually their moment arrived and the Brain handed over his sweep money and fumbled with the draw ticket. "225", he announced to a bored Roy Toulson, who was recording the draw, hoping for some clue to the form of his peg. If Roy knew something about peg 225, he gave no indication that he was going to divulge information freely. "Is it any good?", he asked, as Zorro elbowed him out of the way to get a draw ticket.
"You'll catch there", said Roy with little enthusiasm.
The Brain seized upon this scrap of idle gossip from Toulson, grabbed Scratcher’s arm and hissed: "He says I'll catch on 225, it must be good".
Scratcher nodded impatiently and looked to see what Zorro had pulled out of the hat. "153", he said to Toulson, then added "Any good?".
"Go pleasure fishing", offered one of the Nottingham lads, "It's good for about five or 6Ib". Zorro looked crestfallen. Scratcher drew out 251 on the roadside stretch, not far from where they had pleasure-fished the day before, and Scoop pulled out 196.
"That's reasonable", offered Roy. "You haven't got far to walk, anyway".
"196", muttered Scoop. "That's one of the numbers that your computer came up with."
"196", said the Brain. "That's the peg! That's the one! Get on the feeder, it's stuffed with chub and a few barbel as well".
The only member of the D team who wasn't pleased with his draw was Zorro. The others had all drawn on pegs they were happy with and he had drawn a peg worth at the best, six pounds, when it was evident that you would need over 20Ib to be in the reckoning.
Good pasting
Several hours later, all four members of the team were wishing that they had stopped at home. The Brain was getting a good pasting off the next peg; after three hours he had mustered about 12 oz of gudgeon and small roach, whilst the angler downstream had put about 10Ib in the net. Scratcher had committed himself to the float, only to watch the anglers either side of him catch on the feeder in the middle. Scoop had only set up a feeder rod and after catching a couple of chub in the first ten minutes, could only watch in agony as the anglers all around him strung fish after fish together on the float. It was clearly a case of going back to the drawing board.
Zorro, on the much-maligned 153 hadn't even had a bite after two hours, but the bloke upstream on 154 was obviously something of a celebrity and he couldn't catch much either.
"You gettin' 'em Frank?" asked yet another bankside walker to the man mountain on 154.
"Naw, I'm just trying out this new rod", he'd say as he deftly put down his stick float rig to winkle out another gudgeon.
"Frank?" thought Zorro. "That must be Frank Barlow ..."
"Not having it, are they Frank?" offered Zorro, anxious to ingratiate himself with this Trent superstar. "You'll never know 'till you start fishing", offered Frank unkindly.
Zorro spent the next five minutes working this one out. It was then that he remembered his experiences of the day before and he leaned back to select his crude leger rod. He moulded a big lump of cheese on the huge hook and slung the whole lot into the middle of the river. He stuck his rod rest up in the air, planted his rod on it, and rested the butt on his box as he went for a cup of coffee.
Barlow watched this change in tactics with mild curiosity. What manner of man, he thought, could set up five rods, fish and feed one to six rod lengths out, throw in all manner of feed, and then resort to a lump of cheese down the middle. Frank was just on the point of wrapping up, when he noticed the end of Zorro's rod thump savagely down and Zorro grab the rod with both hands and stand up.
"Jeeezes", hissed Frank, "I'll have to watch this".
Zorro hung on for grim life as the large fish headed off upstream. Gears and cogs and the other innards of his reel were snapping and groaning as Zorro fought hard to hold the fish.
By this time, Frank had strolled along to watch the proceedings and now stood behind Zorro. Spotting his opened sandwich box and flask of steaming coffee, Frank sat down on Zorro's Barbour, and without further thought, waded into his picnic. "It'll be a carp", offered Frank. "Looks like a decent fish —two of those and you'll be in the money".
Zorro set his jaw and cranked the handle hard. The fish turned and the battle then continued in the downstream peg. Ten minutes later, an absolute dog of a carp wallowed within reach of Zorro's landing net.
"You'd need a gaff to get that thing out", offered one of the bankside gallery.
"There's one in my box", offered Zorro. "Could you get it out and screw it onto that bankstick". A visible shudder went through the onlookers, as they exchanged horrified looks.
"I think you'd better net it", offered Frank, turning ashen-faced at the prospect of anyone sinking six inches of curved steel into the belly of such a prized fish.
Moments later, Zorro dragged the fish to the bank, its tail protruding over the side of the landing net.
"It'll go 14lb easy", said someone. "And the rest", added another onlooker.
Zorro was shaking with excitement. He unhooked the carp and slid it in the keepnet. He moulded another lump of cheese onto the hook and, after a couple of casts to free the deep-bedded line, eventually reached the middle.
The crowd of onlookers didn't have to wait long for the action to begin again. The rod end rattled and Zorro was on his feet again, striking with both hands. This fish was no carp, but turned out to be a chub of about 3 Ib. The whole fight lasted less than a minute. Out went another lump of cheese, but that was to be the last of the action. Frank packed his kit away, already dreaming up a blueprint for a Shakespeare 11 foot Trent carp cruncher.
Big weight
Zorro weighed in 19lb 1oz, with the carp going a shade under 16Ib. Back at the Lord Nelson, word of the carp had already reached the rest of the team, who were assembled by the bar. All they had heard was that some clogger had caught a big double-figure carp; nobody in the D team imagined that Zorro was that "clogger".
Zorro's face was a picture as he walked through the door. A grin split his face from ear to ear.
"You look pleased", said Scoop. "
id you get a few?""Just two", said Zorro, barely containing himself. "A 3lb chub and a piggin' 16lb carp!"
"It was you!" cried the Brain. "We heard that someone had got a big carp, but we didn't ..."
"You didn't think it would be me", interrupted Zorro. "Yea, well, I showed 'em all today, stuffed that Frank Barlow off the next peg and some geezer said I'd win the match. Imagine that, winning a Notts Fed open at the first attempt — that'll sicken some of those clowns from back home".
"Well, I haven't heard of a better weight so far", said Scratcher. None of us did any good, though someone said there were a few weights near the outfall at the top of the road stretch".
"Yea, but no one will have had nineteen pounds, though, will they?" asserted Zorro, helping himself to Scoop's beer. "I mean to say, it's fished poo by all accounts".
"Well we'll just have to wait for the results then", said the Brain, resigning himself to listening to the account of how Zorro won a Notts Fed open for the next five years.
An hour later, Roy Toulson dragged himself to his feet and shouted for order, so that he could announce the results. Zorro sat back in his chair beaming.
"First, with a weight of 31lb 2oz, Colin Walton". This announcement was greeted with a mixture of boos and cheers. Zorro's jaw dropped. "You'll be next son", whispered Scoop.
Second with 29lb 1oz, Colin Perry; third 28lb 14 oz . . . and so it went on down to tenth place and 21lb-odd. Zorro had finished 14th and well out of the money. The rest of the team had to help Zorro from the Lord Nelson. Overcome with grief and alcohol, he was not a pretty picture.
In a couple of hours the lads were back on Teesside. Zorro, now only mildly suicidal and depressed dragged his box and holdall into the garage. Eunice was engaged in doing something brutal to some vegetables at the kitchen sink.
At that moment the phone rang. "It'll be your mother", said Zorro. "Probably wants to know if she can borrow your broomstick to go into town tomorrow."
Eunice stormed out of the kitchen and returned a few moments later.
"It's a Colin Mitchell from the Anglers Mail or something . . . What did you do— fall in and get swept over a weir?"
Zorro ignored Eunice, went through to the 'phone and closed the door behind him. He came back into the kitchen five minutes later.
"Well?" asked Eunice.
"If you must know, I caught a specimen fish in the match and they want the story".
Eunice thawed visibly. "
oes that mean you'll have your name in the paper next week then?" she asked, allowing a rare smile to crack her face."Better than that; they want me to do an article on catching specimen fish in matches and they'll pay for it as well." At the mention of money, Eunice became a different person.
"Now just sit down dear and I'll get your tea ... take your shoes off and I'll get your slippers". Eunice bent down to get Zorro's moth-eaten footwear. The last thing he could remember was Eunice picking up the slippers from near the door and maggots dropping to the floor. He vaguely remembered her looking at the maggots, looking at him, then everything melted into a blurr as her hand swung through 180 degrees and the slippers made contact with the side of his head.