The good old days...

Thanks Sam - keeping em coming NESA.

I remember turning the tops of me proper fisherman's socks over me wellies and thinking, noones laughing at me, perhaps I can drive a car as well (I was 6)
 
Good stuff.

I have been told that the pier had been wiped out before. Good to hear how, i would have been put off going on there after that! haha

the rickety old thing was moving about today in that sea!
 
Big Skate ?.

Big Skate ?.

A lot of years ago I was a member of an angling club in Newcastle called the Novocastrians, in fact I was the Chairman. We used to fish both shore and boat matches and have trips to exotic places like Eyemouth, Scarboro' and even the Heugh at Hartlepool. One weekend we booked a trip on a boat out of the Tyne. Once aboard the skipper headed down towards Souter Point. Now, I had two Penn Squidder reels one with a plastic spool for the shore, the other metal for the boat, in my hurry I put the wrong one in my bag, the plastic not the metal.
We went on the drift about three miles off and started picking up a few fish, after about half an hour my rod was nearly torn out of my hands and I could feel whatever it was it didn't want to come up.
Everyone pulled their lines in to give me a chance with whatever this thing was, after a few minutes the spool of my reel imploded, the side plate opposite the handle flew off, but the "thing" was still on. Reduced to handlining I could feel the "thing" still putting it's head down and swinging about. After a while one of the lads said he could see this huge shape deep down, after a couple more minutes, two or three of the lads started shouting "it's a common skate, it's huge look at the size of it". Two of the lads grabbed gaffs and stood by, a couple more minutes and the two lads with the gaffs told everyone to move back to give them room to try and swing it on board. Reaching over,the gaffs went in and they heaved the "thing" onto the deck. And there in front of us all was a 4 foot 6 inch Dunlopillo Mattress. From then on for some time I was known in the club as Sam, Sam the mattress man.
Every year there used to be an annual small boat competition on the Isle Of Arran which our club always used to fish. On the pier at Lamlash there was a resident fish and chip van which was always the first port of call as soon as you got back to the shore. One evening there were about twenty of us standing waiting to be served, talking about the ones that got away and so on. Suddenly the chap that was serving threw himself over the counter and just shouted "run", which he did, we stood there wondering what the hell he was on about when there was an almighty bang and fish and chips started flying out of the chimney, across the counter, it seemed from all directions. We were covered in batter and squashed fish and chips. and these damned things were red hot, that was when we decided that we had better join him and run, which we did.
Tight Lines lads.
Sam.
 
I started fishing almost 70 years ago so you can imagine the changes and funny things that I've seen happen in that time. I promise you lads every word of all the stories I've told you so far, and can tell you, are true.
For instance, a pal of mine Byron Barawitzca (no longer with us) and myself decided to fish Blyth Pier. Now it was New Years Eve and we got along the pier about 10 at night. There wasn't another soul in sight just the two of us, and it was snowing very heavy in fact there was a good foot of snow on the ground. We got as far the gate, in those days you couldn't get past it, and tackled up. Now Byron used to use an Apollo Hollow Steel 13 foot rod and a twelve inch Scarboro' reel, we didn't fish light in those days. We tackled up and cast out, nothing, not a bite, we kept checking the baits and rebaiting. After about two hours Byron pulled in rebaited and cast out. Now you can imagine the weight of his rod and reel, and as soon as he had cast out he put the rod down resting it on the railing and was kneeling down winding in the slack line. The rod was between his legs when suddenly he got an almighty bite which lifted the rod off the ground and smacked him hard in the "crown jewels". He didn't say a word, but after about 4 or 5 seconds he gave a low moan and almost in slow motion fell over onto his side, oblivious to the fact that his ear was full of snow and he was being covered in it. He lay there for almost ten minutes, every now and then giving out a moan and sometimes what sounded like a little squeak. Now, I was also lying in the snow not able to help him because, I was laughing so much. By the way just as he got the bite the chuch bells started ringing in the New Year, it certainly rang his bells. He walked funny for a couple of days afterwards.
Another time there were about half a dozen of us on Blyth Pier. We had been there most of the day, some decent fish were coming in because there was a nice sea running. It was just getting towards dusk and we noticed a boat out at sea heading towards the harbour. We watched it get closer (it turned out to be a German coaster), now this thing was being pushed around in a big way by the heavy seas. The closer it got the more we doubted about it getting into the harbour entrance, suddenly we realised it wasn't going to make the entrance the damned thing was coming straight towards us. It was a case of grab the rods and bags, we didn't reel in, and run. The boat cut the pier in half and our fishing on Blyth Pier was stopped for a long time afterwards.
Plenty more lads if you want to read them.
Tight Lines, Sam.

byron whatsitisname? was he a polish bloke who lived in ashington but had a caravan on church point? think i might have had a bit crack with him a few times!
 
Byron Whatisname !.

Byron Whatisname !.

Byron was English and lived in Jesmond, Newcastle. A top class angler and caster.
My two late wives were always on at me to write a book, maybe I will one day, and dedicate it to them. I have been writing down some notes to remind me of things that have happened over the years, (I'm getting old, you know, I feel like an eighteen year old, but her who must be obeyed won't let me have one). Some of the things that have happened have brought back some wonderful, and sometimes sad memories of people and places.
If you want to hear more of the things I've done, places I've been and seen, I'll keep telling you all. Let me know.
Tight Lines, Sam.
 
Byron was English and lived in Jesmond, Newcastle. A top class angler and caster.
My two late wives were always on at me to write a book, maybe I will one day, and dedicate it to them. I have been writing down some notes to remind me of things that have happened over the years, (I'm getting old, you know, I feel like an eighteen year old, but her who must be obeyed won't let me have one). Some of the things that have happened have brought back some wonderful, and sometimes sad memories of people and places.
If you want to hear more of the things I've done, places I've been and seen, I'll keep telling you all. Let me know.
Tight Lines, Sam.
with out a doubt sam, please keep them coming they are a joy to read:)
 
Dove Marine.

Dove Marine.

What is now the Dove Marine Laboratory at Cullercoats, and now owned by Newcastle University used to be an aquarium open to the public many years ago. As you walked into the entrance hall there used to be a big pool in the middle of the floor. This pool was only about eighteen inches deep but there were some big plaice in it, fish of 3, 4 even 5 to 6 lbs. There were no pay kiosks or anything because it was free to get in. We used to sneak in with a short piece of line with a hook attached, a small piece of ragworm or a limpet heart, drop this into the pool and within seconds you would have a good plaice on. The idea then was to get out as quick as possible before you were caught, happy days, it was better than standing on the rocks getting cold and wet.
A lot of years ago at Amble some of the commercial boats used to take anglers wrecking. One of these boats had a party out one day, now the boat had a very low gunwale and the nets were piled all along one side, and the top of the nets were a bit higher than the side of the boat. The skipper decided to try another wreck and we were all told to pull our lines in. When we asked how long it would take to the other wreck the skipper said "about half an hour". One of the lads lay down on top of the nets at the side of the boat and fell asleep. About 15 minutes later another one of the charter boats crossed our bows and the swell that this created made our boat roll around. This caused "sleeping beauty" to fall overboard into the sea. After we managed to get him back on board the skipper put it out on the radio what had happened with the suggestion the he had, "had a wet dream."
I was in Finland working for a Finnish T.V. company filming a series on angling in Europe. We were taking part in the Finnish/Swedish Salmon Trolling Championships out of Helsinki. The idea was that we went out into the Baltic and trolled for salmon and sea trout, nothing else could be weighed in. I had been made a member of the Finnish National team for some reason, I couldn't even speak the language. Whenever I went across I always used to take a few bottles of whisky, brandy, gin etc. for the lads,because drink across there is very expensive, the cheapest bottle of whisky, and I mean cheap is between £35 and £40, so they were always glad to see me. On the first day of the competition I had taken my bag with all of the drinks in it with me to hand out, I put this into the boat I was in and forgot about it. We made our way out of port into the Baltic, we were nearly into Estonia before we started our drift. There was a heck of a swell running and the cameraman and sound engineer ended up flat on their backs in the cabin, end of filming. At this point I remembered the bottles and asked if anyone wanted a drink "Oh ja" was the reply. Before I realised what was going on the three other members of the crew had a bottle in their hands and within minutes had drunk them and started on another one each. Half an hour later they were rolling all over the place and singing dirty songs, at least I think they were dirty songs because they were in Finnish. I was the only one sober, being teetotal. I didn't know where the hell I was, I started calling on the radio for someone to give me directions back to the harbour at Helsinki the problem was I couldn't find anyone that spoke English, and I only knew one Finnish word and that's "Keetos" , which means thank you, that didn't really help me. So I set off in the direction I thought I should be going and after a while I could see the harbour, when I got tied up at the quay I managed to find someone who spoke English and we somehow got the drunken bums off the boat and to the hotel which I thought they were staying at. It turned out the following morning that they hadn't been staying at the hotel at all , they had been intending to sleep on board the boat. They weren't too pleased when they got the hotel bill. Serves them right.
Sam
 
Paragraphs.

Paragraphs.

Hi Charlie. O.K. Will do next time. Problem is I'm a one finger at a time man at typing, so I do my best. Sam.
 
Ireland.

Ireland.

Angling has been very good to me, it's taken me all over the world apart from the far east. But one of my favourite countries is Ireland, lovely people, beautiful scenery, great fishing.
I went across to Westport, County Mayo with a journalist from the Angling Times a few years ago. With us were a couple of lads from the North East who had won the trip through a competition I had run on Radio Newcastle. The plan was that we would stay a couple of nights at the Helm Hotel on the quayside at Westport (the owner Vinny Keogh has his own charter boat), then to go out to Clare Island for two or three nights.
Clare Island is about 17 miles off the coast and the next stop is America.
On the first night on the Island we got the taxi, which is a tractor with a big bucket type thing that you stand in on the back, honest, along to the hotel for a drink.
Myself and one of the lads decided about midnight that we had ,had enough, so we walked the quarter mile back to where were stayng.
The guy from the Angling Times left to come back at about one o'clock on his own.
Now he was sleeping downstairs, he had a room to himself and had expressed the wish that he had a woman to share it with him (dirty little devil).
The skipper Francis Clark, Norman Dunlop from the Irish Tourist Board, the crewman Tom and a couple of local chaps and the other prize winner made their way back about three in the morning, stopping for a kebab on the way, the shop doesn't open till two in the morning.
They were all a little "merry", and walking back along the cliff top one of the lads tripped over a sheep that had been lying asleep in the middle of the road, they decided to bring it back to the digs with them, so picking the poor thing up they carriied it.
When they got back one of them said let's take it in with us, which they did, deciding the sheep didn't like kebabs they thought lets put it in, (I'm not going to mention his name as he still writes for an angling magazine and I don't want to get hit for telling the truth), so and so's room, he said he "wished he had a female to share it with him."
His door was opened and the sheep was pushed in, about a minute later all hell broke loose, the sheep had jumped on ----s bed he woke up screaming, they must have heard him on the mainland. In his panic he couldn't find the light switch so he didn't know what this "thing" was.
We could hear him falling over things, furniture being knocked over, he's still screaming, hammering on the walls trying to find the door. We by this time were having hysterics. Eventually he managed to find the light switch, when we went into his room you would think a bomb had hit it there was broken furniture, his clothes were scattered all over. But, the worst part was the sheep had s--t every where, on his clothes, on his bed, on him, I swear some of it was his though.
He didn't speak to us for two days afterwards, I don't know why.
Tight Lines, Sam.
 
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