GONE FISHING GONE FISHING BOB MORTIMER & PAUL WHITEHOUSE Published by Blink Publishing The Plaza, 535 Kings Road, Chelsea Harbour, London, SW10 0SZ www.blinkpublishing.co.uk facebook.com/blinkpublishing twitter.com/blinkpublishing Hardback – 978-1-7887-019-5-2 Ebook – 978-1-7887-020-3-4 All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or circulated in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the publisher. A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the British Library. Typeset by seagulls.net Copyright © Owl Power, 2019 Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have asserted their moral right to be identified as the authors of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All images © Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse, except p. 6, 22, 78, 92, 111, 198, 234, 244 © John Bailey; p. 60, 102, 217 © Getty Images; and p. 206 Bridgeman Image Archive. BBC and the BBC logo are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. BBC logo © BBC 1996. Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them. This work contains general information on heart health. The information is not medical advice and should not be treated as such. The information is provided without any representations or warranties, express or implied. Blink Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK www.bonnierbooks.co.uk Bob: To my beautiful wife, Lisa, for all her kindness, fast dancing and wonderful singing Paul: Dedicated to Harry Whitehouse CONTENTS Introduction 1 Our Hearts 2 Our Friendship 3 Childhood Fishing 4 Going Fishing 5 A Brief History of Fishing 6 A Healthy Fisherman’s Recipe Collection 7 How to Fish 8 Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing 9 The Fish – A Guide to Our River Pals 10 The Ecology of Fishing 11 On Rivers 12 Fly Fishing 13 Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone to the Pub 14 The End Acknowledgements Bibliography Paul: Fishing. Put simply it’s a wonderful way to spend a day or two. INTRODUCTION ‘Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a’fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; And that night they caught nothing.’ The Book of John, Chapter 21: Verse 3 A few years ago, Mortimer and Whitehouse hadn’t gone fishing. Well, that’s not quite true. Paul had – he’s been doing it all his life; never stopped. But Paul and Bob had never been fishing together. And if you’re reading this now, you might be like Bob was then. You might have always wanted to go fishing. Maybe you thought, You know what? I’m thoughtful. I like fish. I don’t mind the outdoors. I’m exactly the sort of person who I’ve always thought would enjoy a good angle.’ You might have dreamed about an imaginary riverbank as you drifted off of an evening, of the dark and tempting shadows gliding gracefully beneath the waters and the weight of these alien shapes tugging on the gossamer thin line that you hold in your hands. Perhaps you watched Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing and said wistfully to your companion (human, canine or feline): ‘You know what, Alan? That does look like fun. Ooh, I’d quite like to give that a go.’ And Alan will have rolled his eyes, remembering how you were also really keen on making a cake after you caught the second episode of The Great British Bake Off, and how you once told him you were thinking of moving to Bridport while the trailer for Broadchurch played in the background. Maybe you remember fondly messing about in rivers in your youth, which seems both an impossibly long time ago and as vivid as if it were yesterday, and wonder if it would be possible to recapture the wonder of those long-gone days. You might have been sitting on the Tube, heading into work, and sleepily pictured yourself crunching through an early-morning frost, pushing past a knot of low, twisted trees and finding a suitable spot where the grass has been smoothed down by a previous angler’s arse or a slumbering deer. With the noise of coots pottering about and the sound of tiny scurrying from the hedgerows, you can see yourself sitting down, casting out, and before you, the river. Its low and constant bubbling roar, like the sound of blood rushing through your ears, is the soundtrack for your day. Next to you is a Thermos full of hot coffee and a plastic box filled with cling film-wrapped sandwiches, an apple, some Smiths Square Crisps and a Drifter. And the journey home – wellingtons squeaking as you hoist a duffel bag full of fish onto your back, their damp weight showing the world you’ve worked hard to put your dinner on the table tonight. And then the train stopped at Euston and you forgot all about it. You might have pondered buying a rod, or even have one gathering dust in a shed, and you daydream of breaking it out, blowing the dust off and just heading out somewhere – only you don’t quite know where yet. For many people, those idle thoughts and vague hopes are as close as they’ll come to fishing. There are a lot of reasons why so many of us don’t ever go fishing. We’re busy, we don’t know how to get started, we don’t know where to go, we don’t want to get in trouble … But it shouldn’t be like that. If you want to, you could go fishing. If you want to, you should go fishing. But everyone needs someone to give you a helping hand to get you started. An eager friend to help you make that first step. Hello! Nice to meet you, mate. We’re Bob and Paul. And we’re taking you fishing! Fishing has brought us so much enjoyment over the years. It’s also given us a TV series, which we made because we wanted to show people why it’s such a unique and joyful thing to do. We were spurred on to doing it because of some health worries, but now we’re both as fit as fiddles, we still can’t wait to go. What might have started as a bit of physical and mental therapy is now a total passion that we share. One thing that came out of the series is we’d meet a lot of people who’d watched the show and they would always say the same thing: they’d love to be able to go fishing, but they didn’t have a clue how to get started. So we thought, ‘You know what? We should write a book, and then instead of people being sad and unable to fish, we can recommend they pick it up and it will tell them everything they need to know!’ But it’s not just the mechanics of putting a hook in the water. A lot of people assume fishing is solely the act of catching a fish. That’s a big part of it, but that’s not the whole story. For us, it’s also getting out into the beauty of the British countryside: it’s spending quality time with an old friend that otherwise you might not see; it’s being gifted an inner calm which is harder and harder to find these days; it’s the well-earned pint afterwards, one you really feel you deserve, and the dissection of the day just gone; it’s the countless delightful little moments that you didn’t even realise would appear until you’re there, right in the thick of it, and BOOM, there they are; it’s just a wonderful way to spend a day. Or two. Or more. When we decided to write this book, we didn’t just want to give you a beginner’s manual on how to fish. We wanted to tell you why you should fish. And so we’re going to tell you why we fish and why it means so much to us both. We wanted to celebrate this ancient pastime that brings its devotees so much pleasure, regardless of where we all are in our respective fishing careers. And hopefully it might resonate with you, whether you’re a handy angler or someone who doesn’t know a tackle box from a box of chocolates (don’t get this wrong on Valentine’s Day, by the way). There’s a fisherman inside everyone who’s dying to be let out. We hope this book will show you how. Bob: Can I hold it now, Paul? CHAPTER 1 OUR HEARTS ‘I early learned that from almost any stream…the great secret was this, that whatever bait you used, worm, grasshopper, grub, or fly, there was one thing you must always put upon your hook, namely, your heart. When you bait your hook with your heart, the fish always bite; they will jump clear from the water after it; they will dispute with each other over it; it is a morsel they love above everything else.’ John Burroughs, Locusts and Wild Honey, 1879 ‘But Paul said we did have a reason: the jeopardy! One of us might die on the bankside, and if it was filmed, then that would be a feather in the BBC’s cap.