Shooting and fishing: ‘You’re on the village beat’

I WAS asked to fish last week by a friend who once admitted she came from Basingstoke.

I really don’t think that’s the sort of thing you should let on about in polite society, I chided. But she’s sweet and used to produce poetry programmes for Radio 3. And more importantly she and her husband share a stretch of river with a millionaire who realised early on that he preferred golf to fishing, so is quite amenable to others wasting their time on his river bank if that is what they want to do.

The email said to fish either bank as the boat was there and there is a hut on either side. And there’d probably be other friends about, but just sort yourselves out.

So I went down to the hut on the north side overlooking a large and deep dark slow pool at the end of a run. I took Crumpet, the cocker spaniel (Mango the golden retriever had to be left behind – not very well, but improving, thank you) who likes a bit of salmon and looking for otters in the bank, although I hope she never finds one because it will surely all end in tears and not for the otter.

There was no sign of anyone and the boat was on the other bank. So we started walking upstream and came across a man on the opposite bank with a fish on the end of the line, in a state of some agitation. “It’s a big one,” he shouted, which I wasn’t sure about, as his rod seemed singularly unbent for a big fish. “Can you get Jim?” (the gillie) so off we trudged half a mile up an uneven bank and shouted the gillie down to help out, whereupon it was discovered the line was wrapped round a rock.

The fisherman’s friend waded out following the line while the gillie hung onto the rod (I’m not sure it isn’t the gillie who is meant to throw himself in on these occasions rather than the guest, but there you go) and suddenly the fish woke up, unwrapped itself from the rock and shot off downstream. Much excitement.

It was eventually landed and weighed 10lbs – respectable but not a Leviathan. At which point it became clear after a shouted conversation across the river that I was on the wrong beat on the wrong day and I must have misread my invitation. “You’re on the village beat”. Ah. So we went off, Crumpet and I, and found what approximated to descriptions of the village beat (no one around and no signal on the mobile to ask) and fished for an hour in a rising upstream wind with no luck and then fell in, or rather slipped and sat down heavily and filled my waders. Oh well. Crumpet had fun and we saw a fish landed.