Colchester Piscatorial Society

Autumn has certainly arrived and that was made even more apparent by returning to the river near Langham to visit the Colchester Piscatorial Society, and comparing how it looked this morning with how it looked just a few months ago at the height of summer. Using some elaborate directions we found our way to the blackberry bush at Black Barn, next to which we were to park our car, and proceeded through a small wooded area to the river where we could see a few fishermen quietly and intently watching the river.

Today was the second round of the W Tolhurst Memorial Charity Match and several members of the club were bidding to become this year’s champion whilst also raising money for the East Anglian Children’s Hospice We took a leisurely stroll along the bank, filming and recording at certain points to collect some more footage for the film. We haven’t started editing yet, but we certainly need to make a start soon so that we can complete the film over the winter to have it ready for the spring. We chatted to some of the contenders as we went. Some seemed to be doing much better than others and we took news of catches, or lack of, with us along the bank. Some anglers were happy to share with us information about their equipment and techniques or encounters with the one that got away whilst others were happy to keep their focus forward and let us pass by.

One person who was happy to have a chat was Mick (who was fishing with Angela) who is always happy to spin you a yarn or two. Today he reminisced about his acting days of yonder on the sets of Lovejoy and The Chief. The former in particular was shot at many locations around Sudbury and Mick happily recalled his time trudging around the countryside to various sets and having to play a myriad of characters, mostly covered in mud and driving Bentley’s.

Having recently kayaked from Sudbury to the Sea and seen 25 miles of river along the way we can say that it’s certainly one of the loveliest stretches along here and we can see why the anglers love to spend time here, even if they don’t catch anything.

List of fish caught:
Gudgeon
Roach
Chubb
Bream
Perch
Pike (one of which had been trying to take caught fish from the line as they were landed, was landed itself, taken a fair way up the bank and put back into the river, only to swim back down to where it had been taken from and carry on being a nuisance).