What A Size

A Memory of Royston.

Summer time, I had gone fishing on Royston Canal. The local fishing club had replenished the canal with fresh water trout for the anglers. These fish were so tame that all you need do was to hold out your hand with a few maggots and they'd come and feed from you; they were farmed trout. They knew nothing of predators and would calmly swim alongside Pike. Pike were soon to get so fat from feeding off the trout they were almost like young sharks. One day, whilst fishing with a small live fish, it seemed to take hours to get a bite! It was then, believing that I'd ran out of luck I reeled the fish back in. There were reeds alongside the banking and I had to reel in through the rushes. All of a sudden there was a ''splash'' and the next second I had caught a small jack pike. It was so small that the Jackie as they were called almost choked itself. I was just about to take the Jackie off the hook and throw it back in when an angler insisted that I put the Jackie on the hook and this would help me catch one of the big ones. I took his advice and was to sit on the bank and wait. Within a short time I was to see from the corner of my eye something that looked like a half of a wooden telegraph pole drifting into view. As the thing came into focus I saw the biggest pike ever coming toward the Jackie. I began to tremble with fear and decided that this pike was far too big for me to handle so as quickly as I could I reeled in the Jackie to avoid contact. The angler who was roughly twenty feet away from me told me not to be so stupid and to catch it. Not on your nelly or words to that effect I said. In no way was I going to have eight rows of teeth snap at my fingers or even take my hand off. Call me a coward if you must.
A young lad who was eleven at the time caught one Pike on a thin washing line. He was to be photographed with it. He was only five feet tall and he was to raise his hand up high above his head with the head of the Pike in his hand and the tail of the pike trailing on the ground. He caused an accident due to motorists rubber necking as he walked up Barnsley Hill from the Star Paper Mill,(no longer standing) the car hit and knocked down a concrete lamp post through him turning round for a second look. I wonder if any anglers were the same as I.

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