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John the Vet recalls his early fishing days
I remember wanting to go fishing from a very early age, especially since I was surrounded by water, growing up and living in Pembrokeshire in the 1950’s, which, looking back, was a bit of a golden age, especially for sea fishing.
However, despite friends of mine telling me tales of the times they went fishing, somehow our family never got round to it, though we did go to the beach quite often, both winter and summer. I suppose it was because, at that time, neither of my parents had much interest in angling. It wasn’t until after we all moved to Manchester in July 1963, the 15th to be exact, and my parents bought a caravan in Morfa Bychan, near Porthmadog, where we then spent nearly all of our subsequent holidays, that myself and my brother were actually allowed, and some would even say encouraged, to scratch the fishing itch that had been building up over the years.
Two huge influences
Two people greatly influenced us, in our early days, one through meeting and fishing with and the other through his writing. I say us at this stage, as this refers to myself and my brother Bernard because we never went fishing alone in those days, always doing things together. The first person was an old salt we called Charlie the Fisherman; we never knew his last name, who owned a tackle shop in the main street of Porthmadog. He is the one who sold us our first set of tackle, told us where and how to dig bait, harbour ragworm from Porthmadog Harbour and lugworm from Black Rock Sands, where to fish and even took us out in his boat into the Glaslyn Estuary, teaching us to fish and telling us many fishy tales which just fired our enthusiasm even more. The other was Harvey Torbett, with the writings in his book entitled “The Handbook for Fisherman”, published in 1964. This was the bible, as far as we were concerned. It was read and re-read, cover to cover, and though it contained information on coarse, sea and game angling it was the general bits about knots, reels, line, fish etc. and the sea section that enthralled us, giving many hours of pleasure and loads of information which was readily consumed by our eager minds.
Fished almost every day
During every holiday, we fished nearly every day that the weather or our parents allowed. We’d walk down through the caravan park to Black Rock Sands, to dig lugworm and then try to catch plaice, which I now know were probably flounder, and the legendary bass that Charlie had told us so much about. We managed the former regularly and to a good size too, but never the latter. The actual weight of the fish caught was not recorded, some were big and certainly more than a meal for one person, but most were pan sized. We knew nothing of minimum sizes in those days.
Digging for ragworm
Other places we would fish were either the Cob or the Harbour Wall at Porthmadog or off the beach at, or rocks adjacent to, Borth-y-Gest on the western side of the Glaslyn Estuary. The harbour, naturally enough, was the place to dig harbour ragworm, or Maddies, to give them their other name, which we would do, before either tackling the Cob, over which ran the Ffestiniog Railway and privately built to keep back the sea, or the harbour wall itself, both over high water. Borth-y-Gest was a low water venue, we’d fish into the channel between the beach and the huge sand bar that is the Glaslyn Estuary at low water, or off the adjacent rocks, which Charlie said was a great place for bass, though again we never saw any.
Finding plaice in Porthmadog
Porthmadog Harbour appeared stuffed with plaice; again they were probably flounder, a fish a chuck on our one hook running ledger traces, imagine the number of fish we we’d have caught with today’s sophisticated tackle and traces. We did own some brass wire spreader paternosters at that time but rarely used them, most likely because we didn’t have that much faith in them and didn’t want to lose what was to us a relatively expensive bit of kit. We were happy, they were halcyon days when the sun shone and the sea held a plentiful bounty.
Congers off The Cob
The Cob was different, here we encountered flounder again, but not so many, along with the silver eel, some of which had us wondering, were they the infamous conger eel we’d read and been so much told about? We just classed them all as eels and I must admit they were of no great size, but the slime used to get everywhere. One thing you had to be careful of on the Cob was where to put your fish if you wanted to take them home. The place must have been infested with rats as no sooner had you unhooked a flatfish, killed it humanely, put it down behind you, cast out again and turned round, it had magically disappeared. We never usually kept the eels, though on one occasion we did and I would swear to this day that it was a small conger and not a silver one, in order to see what it tasted like. This was a big mistake in my book and is the first and last time I’ve ever tasted conger eel. As I can hear, in my mind, Edmund Blackadder saying: “It tasted fishier than the fishiest fish in the fishiest sea on the Planet”, Urgh, I can still remember it to this day. It was a complete nightmare to skin and how our mother ever stood the smell of it cooking, I’ll never know.
Favourite venue and a real fish catcher!
Borth-y-Gest was probably our favourite venue at that time, especially the rocks, where we were out of site around the corner from the beach and could enjoy an illicit smoke while we tried to empty the sea of fish. The rocks were not as productive as the beach itself, which like Porthmadog Harbour seemed carpeted with plaice (flounder?), but it did produce sometimes. However, on a number of occasions we had a visitor, Sammy the Grey Seal, who would show us how it was done and then lie on his back on the surface, munching away merrily on what seemed to be a cracking flatfish before our very eyes. Needless to say on these occasions, we caught nothing but still enjoyed the ambience, the company and the taste of tobacco. The other way to catch flatfish at Borth-y-Gest was to go fluking for them. You could wade across the channel at low water onto the massive sand bar and then paddle about in the huge pools left by the retreating tide. The first time I remember standing on a fish I let out a shout and jumped off it. That didn’t last long as the next time I stood my ground and was putting my fingers into its gills I lifted my prize catch into the air. Once again Halcyon days.
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