The good old days...

I was having a sift through my old fishing stuff today and found this from October 86....

Thats some fishing....

I remember fishing that match and was just along the beach from Chris. He was on the corner of a sandbank casting and the heading back to his box to bait up a spare trace ready for his next cast. I also remember that I was disappointed at having a poor night relative to the winners. Now I’m left wondering just how disappointing it was; was it no23 levels of disappointment?
 
Cheers Jim, wondered where it had gone there for a moment!

As you can probably tell, I've nowt better to do today than have a bit of a rummage! :D Here's Whitley Bay's prizewinners from 1979 - left to right as best as I remember:

Arthur Smeaton, Tony Taylor, Alan Boomer, Brian Martin, Meself, Chris Stringer, Garry Daglish, John Nixon, Billy Gellender, Terry Patterson, Jackie Young and...?? - memory fails on the last face - anyone recognise him?

WBAS79prizegiving.jpg

The guy that's on the end is Ken Mole, I think his son fishes in Tynemouth club.
 
I remember Alec Harvey winning a car in the biggest ever Sunderland open with a bag of coalies from halfway along the South pier. Might have been in the late 70's I'm not sure. I believe the car was worth about £2,500 at the time.
 
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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.

Might you be referring to Byron "Ron" Barawhiski ?. He great caster and gentleman angler but bit of a non conformist. I recall him fish heavy marks up beside St Mary's using a Tatler shark reel with 60lb line on and he could still get good distance with it. The road was a Temple's custom one and I recon you could easily beat an elephant to death with it BUT it worked great with 8 oz weights.
 
I remember Alec Harvey winning a car in the biggest ever Sunderland open with a bag of coalies from halfway along the South pier. Might have been in the late 70's I'm not sure. I believe the car was worth about £2,500 at the time.

i could be wrong but was it not 2 cars and and think it was the world championship 2 day event in 80 or 81 at seaham
 
I remember it was either the end of September or the start of October '86 fishing South Shields Pier. People were sunbathing in the dunes and Mackerel were still getting caught on the end of the pier. Basically we ran out of bait well before the fishing slowed down. We were using Pennel rigs and were bringing in 2 codling at a time ,most of the time. My mate lost a full rig and shock leader only to bring it in with the next cast. He said it felt heavy so was hoping for a good fish and asked if I could see if it was one fish or two. 3 was my answer which confused him a bit!!!
Anyway I left with 2 and a half stone of gutted codling when the bait dried up.
All on the small side (No bigger than about the 2 pound mark). Quite a few undersized which went back as well.
Happy days!
 
good old days

good old days

I remember my father telling me about the times when his father worked at Bartrams in Sunderland and on his dinner hour he would go to the bay end (filled in now with the rubble of the garths i believe) and bait 2 cordaline hand lines up with mussel and tie them off and when he finished his shift he would go back and pull them in and my dad said he seen them that big that his dad would have a nail on the inside of the coalhouse door which he would hang them off by the bottom jaw and when any of the neighbours wanted fish the came and cut a steak off and in return would leave veg from there allotments , them days are long gone now as im in my 50s and they will never come back .
 
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When i where a lad in the 70's, i remember that only the first half of Roker pier was open to the public. Access stopped at the barrier where there where a set of gates not too dissimilar to the ones at the beginning that got pulled down and updated a few years ago. The rest of the pier up to and including the round end was fenceless.
I just cant quite remember exactly when the whole length was opened to the public
 
Sure it was the mid 80s, got a cutting somewhere.

On a big spring low tide, you can see the middle gates lying in the bay
 
frazers on the tyne

frazers on the tyne

Gone are the days when you got a good run of spring codling in the tyne. I remember going down frazers (the old north east rubber company) on a sunday morning and not being able to get moved for anglers on the top wall. Everyone fished in conveyor type fashion when the tide was moving and everyone caught codling, as well some good coalies, so long as you had crab. This was in the mid to late 90's when I was a teenager, I'm 30 now and never thought I would see such a change in the fishing as there has been. Smiths docks used to be the same and still remember having some brilliant days in there before they started building on it.

These are some of my best memories, growing up on the tyne, going down the middens for crab and digging some monsterous ragworm. The last couple of years have been poor imo so I don't fish it that much now.

Great memories, great times, it was how I spent my youth.
 
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