The Army Flyfishing Team – My Year of Humiliation

My recruitment began at Bisham Abbey where I was meeting my best mate who was on a sports physio course. Weirdly I was introduced to Mike as he came off the netball court having just played in a mixed game involving the sports commentator Tony Gubba, not quite the Gary Lineker of his day but I thought worth a mention! Mike was serving in the army and as fate would have it he was Captain of their flyfishing team.

After a few drinks we somehow agreed to meet up and fish Grafham.  I should at this point make it clear that the world of big reservoir rainbow trout fishing was a complete unknown to me. Anything that wasn’t wild and couldn’t be caught on a floating line or a sink tip at worst had previously been of little interest.

A couple of weeks later my contemptuous view of what I thought of as easily obliging stockie rainbows was quickly confirmed as on our first Grafham drift I had a couple of fish in the boat. And so the day went on, show me a drift and I’d catch a fish. Mike was struggling and somewhat in awe of me by the end of the day, little did he know that lightning had made its first and only strike.

By late afternoon I had been conscripted into the official army flyfishing team, as it turned out Mike was not only the Captain but also sole team selector. The fact that the nearest I’d been to the army was my dad’s brief end of war career in Italy didn’t seem to matter – I was in.

It was a strange world. What I learned quite quickly was that the army would spend inordinate amounts of money keeping its troops sober and out of trouble when they weren’t actually involved in a bit of legitimate fighting. So Mike’s sporting involvement extended to being the team physio to the army ski and rugby teams. Unfortunately, I didn’t get invited to any swish ski resorts but I did get to stand on the touchline at the annual Army v Police rugby match and I remember having to skirt round a towering Wade Dooley to get to the bar.

And so began my Summer of humiliation.

To the fishing, well almost, first there was my meeting with the rest of the team the night before. They would already have had a full practice day, yes really, whilst me having a real job rushed there after work arriving late and flustered just before last orders.

Accommodation was provided, normally in the nearest Army or Air Force base. As I booked in on my first night at some RAF base I got into a strange argument with the mess steward who met me at the door. The conversation went:

“What rank are you Sir?”

“I haven’t got one, I’m a civilian.”

“But what rank would you be Sir?”

“Sorry?”

“What rank would you be if you were in the Army?”

“Er ….. but I’m not?”

“But if you were?”

“Er…..”

“What do you do Sir?”

“Why? I don’t understand, I’m a Chartered Accountant.”

“OK Sir, we’ll say you’re a Captain.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“Sir, it’s to calculate your mess bill!”

To make this conversation even more Pythonesque it turned out that the difference between ranks was pence and believe me it’s a lot cheaper to drink in an officers’ mess than in your local Wetherspoons.

So to the morning of the competition. I have to say the rooms were pretty basic and you normally had to share with someone you’d never met before, but then there was breakfast. Stewards in white jackets and proper silver service – who has that??

If you need a clue as to why we haven’t got enough aircraft it may due to things like the conversation I overheard whilst tucking into my sausage and bacon. Apparently they had spent their entire year’s budget on respringing the ballroom floor! To be fair I think it was their social budget and not one meant for Tornados.

And so to my various assorted humiliations. They all stemmed from the very simple and unavoidable fact that I was out of my league when it came to the world of top level competitive reservoir rainbow fishing.

Through the Summer I perhaps fished half a dozen competitions and there was an almost endless drip of failure as I caught very little whilst most people were catching quite a lot.

The first humiliation seared into my conscience was fishing Chew on a warm decent fishing day in May, conditions that should have suited my traditional approach.  I started with the bright idea of fishing dry with I think a pair of Shipman’s buzzers. Even this was quite revolutionary for me – I was all for fishing dry but buzzers? Please remember this was the 1980s! Very quickly I hooked a fish but unfortunately the grumpy and uncommunicative boat partner I had drawn tangled his sinking line over my cast – I lost the fish – no word of an apology. Totally his fault but I but I was gracious and soldiered on.

Now, I’ve never believed in casting a long line from a boat but this bloke just kept catching fish at a range which was beyond my natural casting distance.  This made no sense to me but so it went on and I was becoming increasingly fishless and desperate to avoid humiliation.

Time was running out but as the sun dipped to the horizon I finally hooked a second fish. The day was about to get worse, don’t ask me why but for some reason I had brought my short folding river net instead of my usual long handled boat net. Normally not a problem but by this stage I was in a state of panic under the fairly contemptuous gaze of my boat partner.

Making a wild lunge at the fish with my pathetic excuse for a net I lost the plot and the fish, I looked an incompetent idiot – deathly silence from my supportive mate at the other end of the boat. Silence only matched by my teammates as I was the only one not to trouble the scorers at the weigh in.

My second humiliation was on some soulless southern concrete bowl I would never have dreamt of fishing. It was high summer, flat calm and cloudless with the reservoir low and showing its bones. Basically a day when in my fishing world I would have been having the occasional desultory cast expecting nothing and probably meeting my expectations.

So I found myself sitting in the middle of this mirror glazed reservoir flogging the proverbial dead horse catching nothing but sunburn. Conditions should have been a great leveller in that everybody should have been as fishless as me. But no. There was a boat becalmed perhaps thirty yards away from us and the chap in the stern just kept catching fish after fish.  He seemed to be doing exactly the same as me but obviously wasn’t. As it turned out that was probably why he was Jeremy Lucas star of the England National Team and I wasn’t!  ………………. 

But I did have my one moment of triumph. The Benson & Hedges at Grafham. Yes in the 80s when they weren’t sponsoring limited overs cricket at Lords, Benson & Hedges were putting their money into fly fishing, who’d have thought it?

The day started well with me being drawn with a “normal” friendly angler who wasn’t that competitive, simply happy to be out there.  It was just a nice day’s fishing. Then out of the blue I hooked a really good fish on a Gold Muddler fished on the top dropper, the fish was so good  that my new friend suggested that he net it. Doubtless this was against the rules but by this point in my Summer of failure I was way past caring. I can’t remember what else we caught that day but at least I returned to the jetty with my 4lb plus rainbow. I can honestly say that this was the first and only time that I had any interest in the weigh in.

Sure enough I had caught the biggest fish of the day. I was presented with my prize, a very thick sooty olive green and grey flecked oiled wool sweater complete with leather elbow patches. Unbelievably I’ve found it at the bottom of a drawer and have modelled it for this blog – it didn’t use to be so tight!

Following the presentation I was ushered off to the water’s edge by some Benson & Hedges PR person to be met by an official photographer complete with all his fancy lenses.

Somewhat stunned by all the attention I was interviewed and gave all my details before being told to keep an eye on the local press.

A few days later I could be seen peering out of the local paper complete with trout and chunky sweater. Weirdly it turned out they weren’t allowed to give out many personal details such as where I lived because I was representing the Army and apparently the IRA might be reading the Oxford Mail!!!

Following my brief time in the sun I returned to mediocrity for the rest of the season. At the end of the year to use the football euphemism I ended my military service by mutual agreement and so my brief period of conscription thankfully came to an end.

In Memory of Captain Mike Garvie who cast his last fly in Shetland.