AnotherAngle

The page dedicated to "Old Bob"

Maggots

The thing about Fishers' Pond in those days was that the only fishing to be had was in the old swimming pool area and the fish were 'proper', no hordes of obligingly hard-of-caution perch to commit ritual suicide on your size 12. "I really need some maggots to catch" I said in passing "I used to use fish heads buried in a tin of sand". That was true, a bass-head or unlucky perch was left out for a day then buried in a tin of sand for a few days and then riddled out for a handful of rudd catching gold. Old Bob said that was easy enough, we'll paunch the rabbits hanging in the garage and leave the stuff in a bucket for a day with the door open and we'll get plenty. Oh yes. Proper galvanised metal bucket of course. So we did that...

Now...the bucket got a day in the open, on a nice warm day and then for reasons forgotten and unpredictable, two days passed before we opened the garage door. We were, of course, knocked off our feet. The normal smell of old wood and oil was obliterated by the waft of rotten rabbit entrails. It couldn't get worse...but Old Bob thought it best to open the double doors at the other end to "get some air in". And some light. Then we saw them.

Maggots. Thousands of the little bleeders. Have you ever let rain fall in you maggot box? They're off up the sides and away in a trice. Imagine three day old rotting rabbit entrails...you're not even close...and so they'd 'legged it'. There were maggots crawling down the side of the bucket. There was a bunch on the floor under the bucket and radiating trials of slime emanating from the pile where the early escapees made good. They'd even got up the bucket handle and made trails across the beam the bucket was hung from. They were on the floor, on the walls, on the beams, on the bench.

We swiftly rearranged our priorities vis-à-vis, bait and "getting rid of the little ba$tards". The bucket contents were dispatched to a swiftly dug hole, the bucket washed several time with water from the barrel by the garage door. The doors were left open (for days) and we tracked and removed as many as we could and finally Old Bob emptied two cans of air freshener in there. None of that helped in the slightest.

I swear, that even the following summer, the good smells of the garage, the oil, the iron and the slight smell of hanging game were cut with maggot-smell.

Never even got to fish with them, I can still smell them, still makes me smile...

Goose

The Careless Pheasant

Why "Old Bob"?

My maternal Grandfather used to refer to himself as "Old Bob" if something was missing or out of place, it was "Old Bob took it I'd 'spect", but I never found out whether this was an old saw or a private joke...

I can't tell quite how much time I spent with him, but what I do recall, the events, are below, but the point here is not so much the love of fishing and the outdoors, but that he was the first in my family to treat me as an adult and trust me to be responsible. And for that alone I am eternally grateful.

He also of course would spend time and make time to do things and it didn't matter if that was 'going out with the gun', fishing, playing cards or dominoes (5's & 3's) of an evening (play 'sevens' with me and you'll find out I've played a bit) or just a walk up to the long-garden gate. I am grateful for that as well, a new experience.

Some of the rest of my family don't have such a favourable view of Old Bob but I'm not naive and in younger days he could be hard man to get on with, so perhaps I was lucky. But what happened in the past and to others has no bearing on how I was treated, I'm judging on the basis of my experience.

I know that you can catch game birds with rum soaked raisins on fishhooks. One can (allegedly) put grain into paper cones in the ground and when the cone sticks over the pheasant's head it will not move so you can pick them up...and if you can catch them roosting you can fetch them down with a wire noose on a stick...which is quiet. I know how to set snares for rabbits and more importantly how to work out where to place them. I know how to make fish stunning bombs using calcium carbide. And so on...but more importantly I learnt to be quiet and observe when in the outdoors and to appreciate what I saw.

Out with the gun and the Webley Senior

The Western Shore and eels in the bath

Long before I went fishing with Old Bob, he'd take himself down the Western Shore to beach-cast for flatties and eels, and it was common to find silver eels left in the bath overnight sometimes until they were cleaned for the pot. Always objects of fascination especially as given an inch of water they were still alive in the morning, giving the bathroom a metallic smell to edge the damp.

Cockchafers

At the end of the Long Garden was a five bar gate of silvered oak, and in the evening ‘Old Bob’ would lean on the gate with a Woodbine and alternate between berating pub customers for blocking his drive and watching the world soldier past. There was a pair (I think ) of pine trees off to the left, bordering the old cricket pitch and as the light fell cockchafers would appear from some hidden place and whirr around the tree tops and then as the sun eased away for the night, the bats would appear, swoop on the beetles and chittering, carry them off. Always worth seeing.

Did you know an old name for cockchafers is “mitchamador”? I miss being able to hear bats, advancing years. Pah.

The Salmon at Twyford Bridge

Returning the favour at Butlers Court

The Revolver

I used to collect cartridges as a youf, various sorts with holes bored in one side, the powder shook out, penetrating oil to kill the cap. “Old Bob” picked up a .32” rim-fire one day, lead grey against the brass (brasso, shiney brass wonderfully grey lead) and said he’d been given a revolver once, took it to a field with an old metal water tank and fired it at the side. The bullet went straight through, "Christ Alive, that scared me so I threw it in the river".

Charlie

Float fishing from the boat.

The Post Office job.

The garage

Shawford House drains.

Fishers Pond deer in 1986

The Partridge

We were sitting on some bales in the shed and Old Bob was having a Woodbine (a less apt name for a cig. I've yet to come across) and I was watching the trees for 'woodies'. A small covey of partridges came up the track from the golf clubhouse direction. It was a hot day in a warm spell and the track's white dust was scuffed into small clouds by inquisitive feet and bills. They milled around where the track opened into the entrance for our hide, with us drab-dressed motionless against the dark background, invisible, as good as.

As I watched, Old Bob said, without moving and quite conversationally "Do you think you can hit one of those in the head from here?". It took me a second to realise this wasn't a rhetorical question. I thought about it, 20 yards, a Webley Service .22". Possible, but hard. "Yes" says I, leaning back onto the bale behind me and putting the forestock hand on my knee. Clearly as I'm sitting here, I picked out a bird out in front of the field, slightly way from the main flock, so that my shot was hit or miss and missing might give me a second chance. The wind-gun spring thunked and the bird dropped face down into the dust, one wing flapping aimlessly and Old Bob, moving faster that I'd ever seen, (and he was 70 at least then) had the bird in his game bag and was back on the hay bale in a moment. "Good shot, duck" he said softly, watching the sky now and finishing the Woodbine.

DIY 'borrowing' kit

In 2010 I went into an antique shop in Wimborne and behind the counter were two glass front displays, one of shotgun cartridges (which Mrs AA bought me for my birthday) and one which had a line-drawn pheasant backdrop, a packet of fish-hooks, a box of raisins, an old miniature of rum, a coil of fishing line, a couple of small paper cones, some wire nooses.

I laughed when I saw it and the custodian said something, I don't recall as I was laughing, knowing all of those things were for, Old Bob having used all of them at one time or another. We talked about that and the owner said very few people who came in knew the use of all of those bits. Wish I'd bought it now, some things come by only once.

"Old Bob"