There comes a point in every angler’s life when he realises two things. Firstly, his knees now make the same noise as a keepnet pole being assembled in January, and secondly, the little lad he once carried down the towpath clutching a net bigger than himself is suddenly fifteen years old and asking if you’ve got Wi-Fi in the Jimny.
Fifteen!
I still remember taking Sam fishing for the very first time, eleven years ago, when he believed catching gudgeon was comparable to wrestling crocodiles on the Zambezi. Back then he’d sit there in oversized wellies, chucking maggots into the margins while asking questions every fourteen seconds. “Why do fish like worms?” “Do perch have ears?” “Can pike eat ducks?” “Would a shark survive in the canal?”
Mention wading chest-deep after barbel or stalking summer chub with floating bread and suddenly the lad reappears from beneath the hormonal fog.
There’s something reassuring about that. Rivers still beat Playstations. Nature still beats TikTok. Bread still beats £14.99 wonder-baits endorsed by a man called Darren wearing mirrored sunglasses indoors.
So with renewed optimism I stopped off at The Case is Altered on the way home from work.
Now there’s a pub.
Over four hundred years old and still stubbornly refusing to modernise itself into a gastropub called “The Rustic Spoon” selling deconstructed pies on roof tiles. No televisions. No neon lager signs.
No artisan hummus. Just beams blackened by centuries of smoke, a proper pub, and enough atmosphere to make you expect a highwayman to emerge from the shadows asking if you’ve seen his horse. Use your mobile you’re fined a quid and it goes to charity, and I’m not joking.
Apparently it was originally called “The Case” because the building was tiny, which is fair enough because if you swing a cat in there you’ll hit three pensioners and a packet of pork scratchings. Somewhere along the line when it was extended it became “The Case Is Altered,” which sounds less like a pub and more like something a medieval solicitor muttered before charging somebody six groats an hour.
Ben Jonson used the phrase. Shakespeare used it. Tudor playwrights used it. Nowadays it’s mostly used by anglers after dropping a net pole into deep water. Anyway, after a pint and a moment of deep reflection involving crisps, I decided against all available evidence and basic common sense to return to Tramp Alley.
Now most sane men, having previously endured a session involving missed bites, tangled rigs and enough incompetence to qualify for a government grant, would probably choose another peg. Not me. Oh no. I approached it with the confidence of a man who has watched three YouTube videos and now considers himself tactically elite. This time there would be changes. Serious changes. Tactical changes. The sort of changes football managers describe before losing 4–0 away at Rotherham.
Out went the lift method.
Out went the overcomplicated rig that looked like it had been designed by NASA during a power cut.
In came Sensas 3000 Gros Gardons groundbait with a suspiciously technical “nadger” of liquidised bread. Angling has become wonderfully scientific these days. Thirty years ago my grandad used bread mashed in an old ice-cream tub and occasionally caught fish so large they altered local geography. Now every bag of groundbait sounds like a Formula One component.
Then came the float.
The Dave Harrell SENSITIP WAGGLER.
A float so sensitive, according to the description and Nic from Avon Angling (who is on cloud 9 having caught a 4lb crucian recently), that fish merely thinking about the bait should register as a bite. Crosshead insert. Ultra-low resistance. Enhanced visibility. Adjustable tip. It sounded less like tackle and more like something used by heart surgeons. Naturally I spent twenty minutes adjusting it by microscopic amounts before eventually convincing myself that the red tip was psychologically intimidating the roach.
The rig itself was wonderfully simple. small float, centrepin reel, Maggots. Straight-through 2lb line. Proper old-school fishing. The sort of set-up that whispers, “I’ve stopped trying to impress everybody.”
Of course, simplicity in fishing lasts approximately four minutes before chaos resumes.
There are fishing sessions that fill a man with confidence, pride and dreams of becoming the next Richard Walker. Then there are sessions like this one, where you spend four hours staring at a float harder than a pensioner stares at a self-service checkout while questioning every life decision that led you to sitting next to a canal known locally as “Tramp Alley”.
The day started with optimism. Foolish optimism. The kind of optimism only anglers and people who buy scratchcards possess. Armed with the Angling Direct float rod, which has all the subtle finesse of a Victorian lamp post, I settled in convinced the roach would be queuing up to fling themselves at my maggots like drunk blokes outside a kebab shop at 2am.
After approximately three geological eras, the float finally buried and I struck into what felt like a decent fish. The rod reacted with all the sensitivity of a scaffold pole, the fish came off after a couple of seconds, and I was left staring into the middle distance muttering words that would have got me excommunicated in medieval times. Thankfully it didn’t feel massive because losing a proper lump this early in the session would probably have resulted in me throwing the centrepin directly into the canal and taking up bowls.
Naturally I assumed this first bite meant the swim had switched on. It had not. In fact the canal immediately died harder than Woolworths. There were the occasional signs of life: a tiny fish topping here and there, and at one point a skimmer launched itself completely clear of the water while being chased by something nasty underneath. It looked like a silver frisbee being hurled by Satan himself. This at least confirmed there was more life in the canal than there was in my swim.
It seemed like hours passed (it was 2). My backside had fused permanently to the chair then, just as I’d mentally started planning my next hobby, the float slid purposefully toward the reeds opposite. I struck and all hell broke loose. The fish bolted sideways like it had seen HMRC approaching. The centrepin screamed, my thumb instantly became an emergency braking system, and for a few moments I genuinely believed I’d hooked either a giant hybrid or an escaped Labrador.
The fight was glorious. Proper lunges, savage runs, the rod bent over magnificently despite possessing all the refinement of industrial plumbing equipment. Eventually the fish surfaced and I nearly fell off the chair.
A tench.
A BLOODY TENCH.
I honestly stared at it like I’d just hooked a crocodile in the South Stratford. Beautiful olive green flanks, little red eyes glaring at me as if annoyed I’d interrupted its afternoon. Turns out I’d actually caught one here years ago (2014) according to the blog archives, though I’d assumed Barry the Otter had long since converted the local tench population into compost. Suddenly the whole grim session felt worthwhile. Isn’t fishing ridiculous? You can spend 2 hours fishless and questioning your own sanity, then one surprise tinca turns up and suddenly you’re driving home grinning like an escaped lunatic.
Mind you, one thing did become painfully obvious while taking the photos in the gloom: the iPhone 11 front camera is now about as sharp as a mashed potato sandwich. Time for an upgrade I think. As for the roach… where have they all gone? Have they emigrated? Joined witness protection? Been entirely consumed by Barry and his extended family? Nobody knows. But one thing is certain: Tramp Alley can absolutely do one for a while.
Next trip, new venue.
Probably still disappointment.
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