Sunday 22th May, Willington Trout Fishery, Derbyshire.
Photos collected, selected and edited by
Mike Berridge
The great day arrived at last, with much
promise of mixed weather, old friendships to be re-kindled, new ones to be
forged, fish (possibly) to be caught but above all the promise of good banter
to be indulged in!
Myself and Kevin O' Sullivan (Kevos1) travelled down together in my shiny
new car from Liverpool. We were both eagerly
anticipating the day, little dreaming that 3 days later our enjoyment of this
day would be eclipsed by the agony and the ecstasy of the Champions League
Final (had to get that in!) Kev regaled me with tales of Wayne Rooney's
schooldays as he had taught him in secondary school and managed the school
football team that Wayne
played in! Much of the information relayed is too sensitive to be retold here
but suffice to say my opinion of Mr Rooney remains unaltered!
The journey was pleasant, uneventful and straightforward and we
arrived half an hour ahead of schedule. Ah, if only the same could be said for
Mike (Biggun) Berridge and Tony (barbel revisited) Smith who both conspired to
get lost - Tony more comprehensively than Mike it transpired. Mike was probably
hoping fervently that Tony would stay lost due to this being payoff day for
"that shirt" wager! Indeed Tony, God love him, was actually phoning Mike for
directions and Biggun was alleged to have said something like "Turn left after
The Angel of The North" or words to that effect!
"Willington
Trout Fishery" On arriving at the Willington Fishery lodge
we were met with a homely building resplendent with log fire, coffees laced
with strong, warming stuff and lots of friendly, slightly puzzled faces
scanning each new arrival for clues as to their identity. Some of the faces
were recognisable from BFW photos - Andy Davies (who said I was a cheeky
b*****d for asking him to bring me 2 buckets of Elips pellets to the event to
save the postage) Cahal (Morston) Daly, Chris (Seepee) Pearson and Graham ("I
am a really big fan of Wychwood barbel rods") Elliott. Others needed the
addition of the laminated name tags, thoughtfully provided by our hosts the
RATS, before recognition, handshakes and broad smiles were forthcoming. Mr Paul
Whiteing (paul4barbus), that doyen of the fly rod, could not be with us due to
a painful shoulder complaint and Tony2Canes was too ill to make the trip. So
the stage was set, the players assembled, the weather looked perfect and hopes
were high.
The curtain raiser to the day was to be the wearing of the Arsenal
shirt by the disconsolate Biggun for losing the bet with Tony that their
respective teams would finish above each other in the Premiership. Mike,
sporting new cropped hairstyle, paced anxiously as Tony's arrival drew nearer.
When the said Mr Smith arrived, suffering mightily from a hangover
incidentally, the shirt was duly produced and Mike, being the big man that he
is, put it on to raucous cheers! Doesn't he look a picture in it? He wore
it for the rest of the day prompting people to reflect on a possible change
of loyalties from Manciness to Goonerism (well his
team did win NOTHING this season!)
"Biggun"
Our hosts for the day, the RATS, (Cahal and
Dave Wingfield) proceeded to relieve people of money for food, etc and with the
prospect of Steve (eelfisher) arriving on crutches at lunchtime, breakfast
butties were devoured, fishing tickets purchased and anglers told the rules by
jovial fishery owner Mark. Flies were discussed and purchased either from the
shop or from Cahal and myself who had tied batches up for sale, with the
proceeds from ours going to the McMillan Nurses, the chosen charity for the
day's proceeds. Anglers then tackled up and dispersed to various parts of this
very picturesque, gin-clear, ex-gravel pit lake. With instructions to return
for a barbecue on hearing the hooter ringing in our ears, we dispersed to the
four winds. Kev, myself, Biggun, Steve Ralph and Steve's brother-in-law Charlie
all headed for a promising looking promontory, but unfortunately travelled four
times further than we had to due to some silly sod (red face for yours truly)
ignoring a well worn short-cut and leading everyone round the edge of a large
bay!.
Kev had the first fish, a beautifully
marked brownie, I had the second, a feisty rainbow
that parted company with my fly on the way to the net to howls of derision and
abuse from my fellow anglers! Steve Ralph, for reasons best known to himself, decided it would be a good idea to part company
with a particularly solid, stable bit of bank and attempt to fall in, unaided.
He chickened out at the last minute and to various expletives, guffaws and wind
milling of arms he maintained his grip on terra firma! We observed rods bending
into fish at various parts of the morning and moved swims a couple of times. On
passing the lodge on one early move we observed Keith (keitht2) Truscott fishing from a boat jetty. At any given part of the day
after that, Keith could be seen steadfastly fishing from the same jetty, like
Patience on her Monument. He had his spot and he wasn't going to be parted from
it!
A particularly heavy shower in the early
afternoon had people scuttling for the lodge verandah where more acquaintances
were made and faces put to names. Well known Scouse-basher Gary (bbking) Staddon was identified, as was
Mark (wishbonefish) Nicholls, Ian (Burmese Barbeler) Hobkirk, Roger
(Hinkleydealer), Paul (Tigersman) Hayes, Chris (Felix333) Netto, and Steve,
(scubasteve) Williams, Keith "Sainsbury's" Mountain to name but a few more of
the 24 who attended.
At this point mention must be made of Chris
Netto who neatly combined tragedy and comedy in one package. He set out to fish
with a six-piece travelling rod and ended up travelling back with a five piece!
He had managed to cast the top section off his rod and propel it, William Tell
like, toward the horizon like a crossbow bolt!. The
first question anyone asked (after wiping tears of mirth from eyes) "Why didn't
the fly or flies stop it?" Unless Chris, unbeknown to the rest of us, was
employing a stalking tactic so subtle that to avoid spooking the trout he
wasn't using flies at all! After the event Scubasteve obtained permission to
dive at the lake, later in the week, and to look for Chris' rod top, but couldn't
go as he filled his Discovery with the wrong fuel - the rod trip tragedy was
fast descending into farce! A postscript to the incident is that Steve did later
complete a dive at Willington but failed to find the rod tip, although he did
see some very big trout lurking around the island out of casting range.
Probably not out of range of the Exocet missile that was Chris Netto's rod tip
though!
Steve (eelfisher) had by now arrived,
dragging his broken leg on crutches, accompanied by his lovely wife, Erica and
their eldest daughter, Lisa. Steve then added his voice to theto the critics gallery who were whiling
away time watching the row of anglers (including myself) fishing from the lodge
shore to various comments, cheers or hoots of derision depending on their good
fortune (or lack thereof). Graham Elliott hooked into a rainbow trout and then
proceeded to "play" the fish in rather cavalier fashion, whilst turning and
talking to his admiring public. Needless to say the trout was not impressed and
disengaged itself from his hook before the act of netting to cries of "Oh dear,
Graham" and "What a shame!" from the critics in the Gods. In the meantime,
yours truly, on observing what flies were hatching and how fish were taking
them, had switched flies and put on a good old-fashioned Invicta wet fly. I
then proceeded to "winkle out" 3 brown trout in the space of about 20 minutes.
The first was a really beautiful fish of around 2lb, which I wanted
photographed. Gary
duly obliged with his Super-Duper techno-digital SLR which lost battery power
in mid-focus! By the time he had finished faffing around with it the fish had
to be revived in the water having nearly expired, with a fixed "Cheese" on its
lips, while David Bailey Junior was setting up his shoot! With photographers
like Gary
around it's no wonder those supermodels are built like one of Tony2's rods -
it's malnutrition!
"The Silver Fox"
The hooter sounded and a splendid barbecue,
cooked by our consummate chef Ralph on the
lodge verandah, was consumed and washed down with ales of distinction provided
by Cahal, (who seems to have some sort of affinity to beer!!!) The food, drink,
company and setting was superb and great credit must
be given to the RATS for the organisation of the day. The hat got passed around
for the McMillan Nurses and came back very full indeed!
"Mark
the owner and Ralph, our chef"
Before the start of the afternoon session,
the traditional group photo was set up, and taken, by Mark, the fishery owner.
1)Gary (bbking) Staddon, 2)Andy Davies, 3)Roger
(Hinckleydealer), 4)Keith "Sainsburys" Mountain,
5)Mike (Barbule) Berridge,
6)Dave
Wingfield, 7)Steve (eelfisher) Richardson,
8)Ralph (chef), 9)Enrico (Willington staff), 10)Graham Elliott, 11)Andy C,
12)Ian (Burmese Barbeler) Hobkirk, 13)Kate Daly, 14)Kevin
(kevos1) O' Sullivan, 15)Lisa Thorpe, 16)Paul Swift, 17)Erica
Richardson,
18)Steve (scubasteve) Williams, 19)Cahal (Morston) Daly,
20)Chris (Seepee) Pearson, 21)Chris (Felix333) Netto,
22)Mark
(Wishbonefish) Nicholls, 23)Steve Ralph, 24)Paul (Tigersman) Hayes, 25)John
Milnes, 26)Keith (Keitht2) Truscott,
27)Bernard, 28)Charlie, 29)Andy's
Dad, 30)Tony (barbel
revisited) Smith.
So the afternoon got under way with anglers
going out to try their luck once more. The picket line of fishermen, (whose
idea of a long walk is presumably a trip to the toilet), was by now firmly
established at the foot of the lodge bank. To be fair this was the area in
which fish were most frequently seen to be moving. The rest of us traipsed off
to various parts of the lake, passing the Keitht2 (Trussers) moving, memorial
monument still firmly fixed to the boat jetty.
"Trussers"
The afternoon passed fishless for me.
Biggun got one towards his wildly optimistic four fish limit and Tony struggled
with the effects of a blinding hangover to eventually net one for himself. The
two Gooners had now become inseparable!
"The Gooners"
As the afternoon drew on towards Raffle
Time I found myself back on the Lodge shore fishing between Roger (Hinckleydealer)
and Chris (Seepee). Chris was bemoaning the fact that the fish were rising a
couple of yards further than he could cast and sticking 2 fins up at him, when
one (a veritable David Blunkett of a fish) took his fly, to loud cheers from
the gallery. The fight was short lived and the air blue when the trout in
question straightened the hook on the way to the net. Chris, seeing his one
opportunity of piscatorial glory swim off smugly, was
understandably a trifle miffed and let us all know about it! Shortly after that
I hooked into a nice rainbow to more cheers from the gallery and lost it when
trying to play it too hard to prevent it running into Roger's swim. Cue for
more hoots of derision from the merciless, guillotine-watching harridans on the
verandah!
"Scouser"
So the afternoon drew to a rosy close and
we all assembled in the lodge for the grand raffle, which contained some
excellent prizes including a signed Fred Crouch book, a rugby ball signed by
the Leicester Tigers team, a day's fishing with the RATS on the Trent and
Derwent and lots of wine, spirits and fishing tackle all generously donated by
the BFW members present and the fishery owner Mark. Kate, (Cahal's wife and
better half) Erica and Lisa performed the selling of the raffle tickets all
afternoon and even had to make up new strips, by hand, after selling out of the
tickets provided due to the resounding generosity of all those present. The
proceeds included sales to some of the members of the fishery staff who were in
attendance.
"The Raffle Queens - Kate, Lisa and Erica"
My memory will not stretch to all the
prizes won, but I pocketed the day's fishing with the RATS to my great delight,
young John (a lad of about 12 or 13) from the fishery won some women's lingerie
to everyone's great delight, Mark Wishbonefish won a bunch of leads that
threatened to wreck his car's suspension, Biggun won (amongst other things) a
cordless mouse, Ian Hobkirk won the signed "Tigers" rugby ball and Erica
Richardson won the coveted Fred Crouch signed first edition. Andy Davies
took the photos of the winners....
Dave Wingfield presents raffle prizes to:
 |
 |
| Bbking |
Andyc |
 |
 |
| Steve Ralph |
barbel revisited |
 |
 |
| Hinkleydealer |
Bernard |
 |
 |
| Wishbonefish |
Ian Hobkirk |
 |
 |
| Erica Richardson |
Graham Elliott |
|
|
And lastly to - Himself!!!
Graham Elliot, the originator, and usual organiser
of the BFW Annual Fluff Fling, gave a speech and thanked everyone, especially
the RATS, for making the day such a resounding success. At the final tally
approx £270+ was raised for the McMillan Nurses which was made up to £300 by Grahams
guiding business "Angling Experiences."
Steve, Dave and Cahal offered to organise
and stage next year's Fluff Fling at the same venue, to a chorus of general
approval. The day ended at approx 6.45. Some people went to have a few "last
chucks" before going home, most ambled off to cars chatting on the way and
making dates for future rendezvous. For myself, a
member of BFW only since last October, it had been a wonderful day. I had met
some genuinely great people, had a good laugh and enjoyed my fishing. I don't think
anyone had anything other than praise for the RATS, the venue, the catering and
for the day's arrangements. With the barbel fish-ins for 2005 still to come it
must be said that BFW is the place to be. I would recommend anyone to go to
Willington for a day's fly fishing, but be respectful as you pass the white
haired gent fishing from the left hand boat jetty, malnourished, sunstruck and
covered in bird cr*p - Trussers is single-minded in his pursuit of the wily
trout!
Additional Gallery Pictures
Paul Swift 13.06.05
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