256 The Fishing Race

First  watched : 12 July  1976

I  can't  find  any  stills  for  this  although  it  seems  to  be  fondly  remembered  on  anglers'  chat  rooms  as  one  of  the  first  attempts  to  bring  their  "sport"  to  the  telly.

The  Fishing  Race  was  the  brainchild  of  Daily  Mail   sports  columnist  Ian  Wooldridge,  a  competition  between  three  pairs  of  "big  name "  ( in  their  own  field  at  least )  anglers  to  see  who  could  land  the  most  different  types  of  British  freshwater  fish  in  a  given  time  period. The  prize  was  a  special  trophy  The  Golden  Maggot.  To  spice  the  programme  up - angling  not  exactly  being  a  spectator  sport -   the  contestants  were  encouraged  to  bend  the  rules  so  one  guy  produced  a  piranha  borrowed  from  the  local  zoo.

I  was  watching  it  because,  as  explained  in  previous  posts,  I  had  been  driven  into  the  company  of  a  friend  and  neighbour  who  was  a  keen  angler  and  as  we  lived  a  stone's  throw  from  the  Rochdale  Canal  was  often  to  be  found  dipping  his  rod  there. I  had  to  follow  suit, drew  some  money  out  of  my  Yorkshire  Bank  Savings  Account   and  got  a  cheap-ish  rod  from  my  mum's  catalogue. Though  I was  interested  in  fish  from  a  nature  lover's  perspective , I  didn't  have  any  skill  or  patience  and  was  a  bit  squeamish  about  handling  the  maggots  , wearing  my  mum's  gardening  gloves  to  general  derision. I  caught , at  the  most,  three  baby  perch  on  separate  occasions ,  and  as  a  hobby  it  didn't  survive  that  glorious  summer. I  can't  remember  who  I  ended  up  selling  the  rod  to  either.

Since  I've  been  walking  as  a  hobby  I've  come  to  despise  anglers  as  surly  misanthropes  who  expect  you  to  hurdle  those  ridiculous  long  poles  that  they  stretch  across  the  towpath  of  the  canals  where  they  fish.   Given  that  most  of  the  fish  in  our  waters  are  pretty  much  inedible  (  I  realise  that  game  fishers  might  be  a  different  breed ) ,  it  seems  the  main  point  of  the  pastime  is  getting  away  from  the  missus  on  a  Sunday , staring  at  a  stretch  of  water  for  hours  on  end  being  preferable  to  putting  up  a  shelf  or  driving  to  the  mother-in-law's.  The  one  clear  memory  I  have  of  The  Fishing  Race  is  one  stubborn  git , against  all  advice,  staying  in  one  spot  trying  to  land  a  salmon  and  thereby  scuppering  his  team's  chances  in  the  competition,  which  would  tend  to  support  my  negative  outlook.