In the beginning part 2 by Bryan Hewitt - Scottish Federation for Coarse Angling

"Scottish club match record shattered - river Forth haul tops 30 lbs."
"30 1/2 lb roach net tops visiting club's Banknock match"
"Four roach over two pounds in 46 lb Clyde blitz."
"Five anglers share 532 lb Forth roach bonanza - best individual net tops 140 lb."

Not figments of a frustrated match anglers imagination but true statistics, extracted from the archives of the former Glasgow & W Scotland Coarse Fishing Association, which was instrumental in bringing big-time match angling to Scotland in the late 1960s.

But the story really began one stormy day in 1966 when atrocious conditions caused me to abandon a roach fishing session at the Dullatur basin. As I was loading my tackle into the car, I began chatting to two other anglers whose day had been equally disastrous.

Tackle dealer Ken McGowan and Glasgow geologist Deitrich Burkel were, like myself, regular visitors to the Forth & Clyde Canal but this was the first time our paths had ever crossed and the chance meeting proved to be the catalyst for plans to form an angling club which would cater specifically for the interests of coarse anglers living in and around Glasgow.

Deitrich was mainly into pike fishing and while Ken's angling interests were concerned with salmon and trout, he received a sufficient number of enquiries through his Glasgow tackle shop to convince him that coarse fishing was worth developing. Within two weeks we had recruited over thirty fellow enthusiasts and the Glasgow & W Scotland Association was subsequently inaugurated in October 1966.

The very first match organised by a Scottish club for Scottish coarse anglers was held on the canal at Bowling on November 20th 1966. The event attracted an entry of 32 anglers and the prize was a Milbro 12ft match rod donated by Ken's tackle shop, the Anglers Rendezvous, which in those days was located in smaller premises in Parnie Street.

The event was won by Bearsden angler Roger Reynolds whose all-roach catch scaled exactly seven pounds.

Where are they now/ Prize winners in the first Scottish Club Match. 2nd Vincent Gallacher, 1st Roger Reynolds, 3rd Patrick Silvey

In those days there were only two coarse angling publications of note, Angling Times and Anglers Mail and both were very generous in their coverage of Scottish coarse events. I subsequently become sole correspondent on coarse fishing matters, writing mainly for Anglers Mail and the valuable publicity which this provided undoubtedly helped our drive to popularise the sport in our area.

Our regularly-reported match results were being noticed by anglers and clubs based south of the border and enquiries, particularly from Lancashire matchmen began flooding in.

Initially, one or two parties made exploratory journeys to the Forth & Clyde canal to sample the roach sport, often with truly spectacular results.

The canal was in its prime during the late 60s and while it might seem hard to believe today, sections were seldom won with less than ten pounds. True there were some bad results but they were mainly attributable to our unpredictable weather conditions rather than a lack of fish stocks which seems to be the case today.

By the late winter of 1966 the Lancashire invasion was well under way and on most weekends, the Banknock-Dullatur stretch would host three or four matches involving up to 150 anglers from visiting north of England clubs.

Kelvinhead was the in-form section in those days and I witnessed or reported many events which produced over twenty-five pounds for the winner and in some cases mere ounces separated the top three or four individuals.

One memorable result from a five hour event in late 1966 was an all-roach haul of 104 lb, taken from the pipe swim at Kelvinhead.

In April 1967. a 30-peg Whitefield A S (Manchester) match was won with 30 lb 8 oz but perhaps more spectacularly, a 21 lb net of roach to 1 lb 4 oz was only good enough for twelfth place.

In November 1967, I took the Association's match record with over 30 lb of roach, caught in the last two hours of a five hour event held on the Forth at Stirling but unfortunately (for me) the record fell a few weeks later to a splendid 44 lb all-roach haul from the same venue by Larkhall member Drew Lambie.

The river Forth was also the scene of one of the greatest one-day catches of roach ever taken from a Scottish venue. Dateline was Easter 1967 and I had arranged to fish with Manchester angler Peter Ineson and three of his club colleagues. The weather was cold, windy and overcast and the river was carrying around eighteen inches of extra water but running off nicely after a recent spate.

Our chosen venue was a large pool in the main river just downstream of the Forth/Teith Junction and while this area was favoured by pike anglers, it occasionally produced good roach sport.

A large bankside eddy was flanked by a pronounced crease where it joined the main flow some twenty yards out and we elected to use 2AAA peacock wagglers (yes we had them in the 60s), bait was plain white maggot presented on size 16 or 18 hooks tied direct to 2 lb reel line.

Everyone caught quality roach from the off and once they were induced to feed in earnest it was non-stop, arm-aching action for over five hours during which time we worked our way through almost four gallons of maggots and a 56 lb bag of brown crumb.

By the end of the session we had amassed an all-roach total of 532 lb; everyone topped the magic 'ton' and the best catch scaled an amazing 140 lb, and required the use of two keepnets.

Most of the roach, which included specimens to one and a half pounds were covered in tubercles and it was obvious, in hindsight, that our once in a lifetime experience was entirely due to the fish forming up into one massive shoal prior to spawning in the dense beds of streamer weed which are located immediately downstream of the area.

As the interest in Scottish coarse fishing gained momentum I was placed under increasing pressure by English matchmen to organise an open competition on the canal and was assured that such an event, staged during the English close-season would be a guaranteed sell-out. My only reluctance was caused by the uncertain weather during the early part of the year which, as we all know is subject to sudden and violent change with resulting disastrous effects on sport.

Eventually, a special GWSCFA Open-Match committee was formed and following lengthy discussions and many arguments we decided to stage a 300 peg event during the English Whitsun holiday weekend in May 1969.

In those days the English NFA match rules were very restrictive and we broke new ground, causing much controversy in the process, by tossing out the NFA rule book and writing our own.

Today's younger anglers may find it hard to believe that hemp was banned, as was bloodworm; competitors were not allowed to use catapults or throwing sticks and only one rod could be assembled at any one time. We scrapped the lot and for good measure, introduced a 10 minute pre-baiting period prior to the all-in.

The first match was sold out within a month of its announcement and was pegged from Banknock to Dullatur.

The first man to be crowned Scottish champion was 'young' Kevin Ashurst whose 11 lb 11 oz winning net taken at the Kelvinhead wides was all the more creditable when one considers that he arrived over one hour late after his van broke down en-route.

Drawn in the same section, Harry Hutchinson suffered long spells of inactivity before his peg came to life half way through the match but from then on it was a fish almost every cast as he struggled to catch up with Kevin. He failed but his 10 lb 6 oz was good enough for runner-up prize and at the time served to underline the overwhelming superiority of the Lancashire anglers, particularly on canal venues. Anglers from Leigh, achieved what amounted to a virtual grand slam of the prize list, lifting the biggest haul of silverware and pools money in the history of the town's matchmen. They took the first three individual places, seven out of the top ten and won four of the five sections.

The second Scottish Open, scheduled for May 1970 catered for an entry of 400 and was sold out within one week of its April announcement, such was the reputation and popularity of the Forth & Clyde Canal.

Pegged between Banknock and Auchinstarry, the event attracted anglers from as far afield as London and Somerset and while the event was again dominated by Lancashire clubs, the entry list nevertheless read like an angling Who's Who. The Ashursts, Dave Roper, Ian Heaps bloodworm pioneer Graham Joynt and his team The Firm, Frank (Boris) Barlow, Dave Docwra with his up and coming Norfolk squad The Dream and Barry Rudge with Goole Avengers.

Scoring his first ever 'Open' win and using stick float tactics, 50 year old Preston coalman, Albert Priestley tempted 13 lb 1 oz of roach to 1 lb from a four-peg hotspot at Dullatur. Albert's winning method would probably raise a few eyebrows today but in those days stick floats were commonly used on stillwaters, particularly when fishing under the rod end from a high canal bank.

Half a mile away and in contrasting style, Leigh Miners star, Brian Lees was hurling a cork-bodied, peacock waggler thirty yards across the Kelvinhead wides. Loosefeeding casters and offering maggot and caster on a size 20 hook, Brian contacted quality roach immediately but despite catching consistently throughout the five hour event, he couldn't match the quality of Albert's Dullatur specimens and had to settle for runner-up spot with 11 lb 9 oz.

The 1971 event was marred by the 'Scottish' problem which had evaded the two previous matches - a dramatic change in weather conditions at the eleventh hour. For the previous five days, mild, settled conditions had produced bumper catches from all reaches of the canal and the stage appeared set for record results but unfortunately the rain started as we were pegging the match length on the Saturday morning and by the time the draw commenced the following day it had poured relentlessly for a full twenty four hours. Not surprisingly, the monsoon, which turned the water chocolate brown and raised the level by nearly two feet killed the fishing stone dead and only three competitors made double figures.

Peter Spencer, a 32 year old sheet metalworker from Burnley topped the 400 strong field and scored the first 'Open' win of his career from a peg near the Dullatur basin.

After a blank first hour Peter resorted to an ultra-sensitive, rod-end technique which was regularly employed on hard-fished English canals in those days. Single caster on a size 20 hook, carried by a home-made paper drinking-straw float and balanced by just three No 8 shot was presented just off the bottom of his six foot deep swim.

His delicate approach paid off and during a two-hour spree he netted just twenty-five roach to take the Scottish title with 10 lb 14 oz.

A few pegs away, Northern AA canal specialist Neville Bennet had just cause to regret the loss of three roach at the landing net with would easily have given him victory. In a nail-biting weigh in, his 10 lb 12 oz lost him the title by a mere two ounces, just one ounce ahead of St Helens' Ken Hill who was third with 10 lb 11 oz.

First winner of the Tru-Test trophy - a new award for the highest placed local angler - was John Simpson, a 27 year old laboratory assistant from Kirkcaldy who recorded a creditable 6 lb 4 oz.

By 1972 it was apparent that the general decline in the quality of the Forth & Clyde Canal sport was well established and in this year's event only the winner made it into double figures.

Bruce Clarke, a 28 year old building society clerk rang the changes with maggot, caster and worm to tempt a mixed bag of 11 lb from the unfancied Banknock section but perhaps the biggest surprise was the total failure of the Dullatur stretch which had dominated the results in previous years.

The top four individuals were all pegged at the Banknock end with Lancashire bloodworm pioneer Graham Joynt taking just fifteen quality roach to the scales for 8 lb 13 oz and the runner-up trophy.

Best local angler and winner of the Tru-Test trophy was our tall friend from Bishopton, Terry Day with 3 lb 3½ oz.

A career move forced me to withdraw from the match scene after the 1972 event and I lost touch for a good number of years.

The emergence of Scottish talent which was becoming apparent at that time and the development of Scottish sport into modern times would obviously form the basis of an interesting story.

There must be someone out there with all the details and statistics - Any offers?

IN THE BEGINNING : PART 2
- By Bryan Hewitt

Bryan continues his nostalgic look back at some of the formative events in scottish coarse Angling. Part 2 looks back at what he calls the start of 'The Match Fishing Years'

IN THE BEGINNING : PART 2 - By Bryan Hewitt

Bryan continues his nostalgic look back at some of the formative events in scottish coarse Angling. Part 2 looks back at what he calls the start of 'The Match Fishing Years'

IN THE BEGINNING : PART 2
- By Bryan Hewitt