Lizzie Byrnes gives her perspective on being an angler...and a woman!
Most people start their fishing experiences by going with their dads. My dad spent many a day shuttling me to and from athletics meetings, hockey matches and tennis lessons, supporting me come rain and shine but not once did he show me a fishing rod. For me, fishing was a self-taught skill.
It started with an outdoor activity centre job I had where I spent eight hours a day teaching others how to kayak, raft-build, windsurf and generally mess about responsibly and safely in the water. The lake that formed my classroom at the time had a small head of fairly large carp plus several other species, and while I was teaching, I saw many fish bosh out and scarper from the margins as the kids were scrambling into their kayaks, or flailing about in their unsuccessful attempts to avoid falling in.
The activity centre had a ticket to fish and at lunchtime the boss and his second-in-command would sneak out on to the
pontoons and have a spin for the pike. One day I watched as one of them hooked into a fish, the line went whizzing off the clutch and soon a 10-pounder was in the net. It was the guy’s first ever pike and I remember the look of excitement on his face and thought to myself, ‘I’ve just got to have some of that.’
So, with my next pay cheque, I went straight into the Harefield tackle shop and sorted out two Fox rods, a pair of Daiwa Emblem reels, two Fox Micron bite alarms, a bagful of ready-tied rigs and a crash course of how to tie a knot, from the bloke behind the counter. During this time I had bumped into the head bailiff of the lake who was carp obsessed and could not have been more helpful. Perhaps his kindly attitude was partly due to the fact that I agreed to drop a bucket of bait on some spots for him on my next shift with the power boat, but I was grateful for his help all the same.
For the next few months, I spent many hours a week fishing after work. However, I was blanking miserably so I came up with a plan. This was to leave my gear on the opposite bank, set up near where I instructed my kayak groups so I could keep an eye on it, fish the nights, and then paddle my way into work the next day. This way, I could save myself the 30-mile battle around the M25 twice a day and the wage-sapping fuel bill that went with it. I remember asking the boss if this was okay and after he’d picked himself up off the floor, he agreed. Little did I know at the time, that his reaction to my 'strange' request was to set the tone for the future.
The whole session lasted ten days; with no support from my powerboating colleagues who thought it would be great fun to wipe out all my rods on the only afternoon I got to finish work early. However, the next day I was the one smiling while they spent at least an hour cutting two spools of line from around the boat’s propeller while getting a right rollocking from the boss.
After the eighth night, at 5am I had my first bite and although it was a 7lb bream, I was well and truly hooked on fishing. When the job came to an end, it occurred to me that wherever I fished next, it would not be in the secure environment I now enjoyed. With its locked gates, showers, clean toilets, and where the only people I ever saw were my colleagues and a bailiff. Without really knowing, and certainly without fully appreciating, it, I'd found a little piece of angling paradise. I'd lost it, too, and now my angling and I would have to venture into the big wide world. I was up for it, though, although I now realise that a fair bit of my cheerful attitude was down to me not having a clue what lay ahead. Mind you, it didn't take long to find out.
The first thing I discovered was how unusual it was to be a woman on the bank. When I started visiting tackle shops to enquire about local lakes and clubs, the staff would say, ‘Yeah, if he wants to pop in with his photos, he can join.’ When I pointed out that I was the one who wanted to join, they were embarrassed and apologised and it was obvious that they didn't really know what to say. I was an oddity, and I certainly felt like one.
Undaunted – I don't do 'daunted' - my fishing adventures continued, this time on the waters controlled by Farnham Angling, where, being a proper club, it has to cater for 'oddities', not just men. Their Badshot-lea venue held an encouraging head of carp and cats, and with a key to the gate and a sturdy six-foot fence around it, I felt safe enough to truly enjoy my fishing. We oddities need our security, you see. Well, this one does, anyway.
The first morning I arrived at Badshot-lea, there was a chill in the air and I was shaking with adrenaline. I was really going to do this; a night on my own at a proper venue. This was a big deal in my developing world of angling and it seemed to take me forever to prise the gate open, with the hinges screeching as I entered, as if the lake was protesting at me, a woman, actually daring to walk in!
With no real idea of where I needed to be, I settled into a swim about halfway round on the right and set up my house, laying everything out in its own little place, and then I started on the rods. By this time, the slight mist covering the lake had cleared so I could see my victim. My rods had 15lb Daiwa Sensor line on them with a loop tied at the end of the main line. Then I added the lead core to it, connecting the two loops and threading it back though itself. To finish the set up, I added a 3oz inline lead and my ready tied rig.
I was using Yateley Angling Centre's ASAP boilies and I cast my little trap into the pond with not the slightest clue what it
was likely to land on because marker floats were still way beyond my fishing abilities at this stage. It was a crap cast, too, but I was just so excited and rushing to get the rods in that I just left it and went on to the next one, which did not really go that well either. Actually, it would have been a perfect chuck had I been fishing for squirrels, and my heart sank into its very first angling crisis. I thought, ‘I really can’t do this. I shouldn’t be here. Maybe women don’t fish because it’s just not natural. Maybe I was playing against Mother Nature’s wishes and she was showing me a sign. She wasn't. I was just being a pathetic girl, and I don't let that happen very often, believe me.
Then, as I stuck out my bottom lip while trying to tug my rig free of various branches, a short, sharp, but definite bleep split the morning calm and my world was all back in perspective. ‘You're here, so sort your life out, get on with it and learn from your mistakes.’ I retrieved my rig, re-tackled and soon I had two rods out and fishing. “I can do this,” I said out loud, my girly sulk now replaced by a frankly scary degree of resolve. Inside my head, the opposing forces of negative and positive were bickering, and I walked up and down, pacing the swim and talking to myself. “Just ‘cos there are a lot in here, Lizzie, it doesn’t mean you’re going to catch one.” Then the other half of me was saying, ‘Yeah, you can. You’re going to have the biggest one in here and make the front cover of Carp Talk.’ Well, that was enough of that old cobblers – it was time for a Pot Noodle!
I really enjoyed my session. I had one fish of 14lbs the next morning, but after the strange look I got from the bailiff when he'd checked my ticket the night before, there was no way I was going to ask a fellow angler to come and photograph it for me, so I took a quick photo on the mat, and popped him back, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl.
I returned to the venue again and again. Each time, I went to Yateley Angling Centre for more supplies and always received a great welcome from Ruth, who unknowingly gave me the courage to continue with my fishing and to start asking fundamental questions like how to tie my own rigs and how to find out what was on the lake bed. All this acquired information improved my fishing massively and helped me catch a pleasing amount of carp.
There was still this massive man-hurdle to jump, though. The reactions I got, and still do, when my head pokes out of the bivvy door, are quite disheartening and even though not deliberately, they're actually quite rude! When I get asked for my ticket, that's all the conversation I get before they shuffle off. I can really do the chat thing, too, even in my sleep, so the fact that the guys would not stop to talk to me was hard to accept. All the more so, when in the next swim, I could hear them chatting for ages about bait, rigs, what they'd seen or caught, and enjoying the general pointless/essential banter of the bankside. Oh well, it's their loss. Yeah, right.
Eventually, I moved even nearer to Yateley Angling Centre and asked about the CEMEX Angling waters but I had limited time on my hands and being on a student’s wage, I had to be fussy with my choice of venue. There was a guy in the shop who was, at the time, the head bailiff on Sandhurst. He said, “We have just lost our only female bailiff so why don’t you come and give it a go, then you can fish the water for free.” This really surprised me. There was another woman interested in fishing, and not only that, she had the guts to bailiff! That really brought a smile to my face. There were at least two oddities in the fishing world, three if you count Ruth, and they were all local! Ruth came up trumps again, and said that if I ever got any trouble I should call her, and she scribbled her mobile number down for me. This was heartening – nobody messes with Ruth!
So I was in. Friday was my bailiffing day and this was always busy, so in a way it forced me to converse with 'the other side'. The other bailiffs were so supportive and would do anything to help me and this worked really well. The other anglers actually started asking me where the good swims were, but being new myself I didn’t know the answer and I felt that they would be saying behind my back, ‘She’s a woman. Told you she wouldn’t know! But at least I didn’t hear them.
I really started feeling 'normal' on the bank. I was improving all the time, using braided line on a rod set up just for marker work, and finding another world under the water, an unpredictable, exciting world, filled with angling potential. I think that’s what really got me buzzing. Being part of a bailiff team meant I got loads of helpful information about the water from people who had been fishing and caring for it for years. One of the bailiffs took the time to sit in my swim and talk tactics. He was talking about maggots and other baiting methods that worked and I watched as he gave me a maggot rig demo. I can’t say it was the nicest things I’ve ever seen or smelled for that matter, but I now had another string to my bow. I was doing well by my standards and I had some great fish stacking up in my album.
I also stumbled across another angling interest in the form of my soon-to-be-husband, Ian Russell, and just because he is the fishing legend of the household, there was no way that he was going to take over and change everything that I had worked out for myself. I still fished by myself, for myself, maybe nicking the odd hook from his box, but there was some information I wanted to pick from him and this was about pop-ups.
Owning his own bait company at the time, he was definitely the right person to ask. I had never used a pop-up before and thought you just put it on like a boilie and left the rig poking up full length in the water. Yes, Ian did spit his tea out at this point. I had already changed my set-up from the inline system to the quick-change links and the Korda safety lead set-up because I was becoming more aware of fish safety and care. Fishing alongside Ian is like having a tutor on tap but I very much have my own ideas, methods and ways, and to be fair he respects that and just lets me get on with it. As a mark of his extreme class and dignity, he also pulls faces at me behind my back when I have not done it the Russell way. Men, eh?
One of the ideas I have developed for myself and had success with on every venue I have fished this past year, is what I call the 'pink and stink'. This little beauty consists of a 10mm Heathrow Baits Service Stench hardened hook bait, balanced with a piece of bright pink Enterprise rubber corn. It’s the female element that counts here, because all the blokes put that particular colour in the bin. Well, after you’ve read this little girly tip, I’m going to be checking out all your bait bags!
Although I have caught a few nice fish this year, for the past three years there has been a certain little person who had put a huge dent in my fishing, our daughter, Elsie Russell. Running a household, a business and being a mother, keeps me away from the water’s edge for much of the time. Ian and I both have very busy work and social calendars but we have now found a balance. Elsie is Miss Outdoors, like her parents, so instead of sticking her in front of CBeebies we get her involved. She comes with us to the lake and even camps out. Boy, is she going to have some stories to tell when she starts school! The guys on the lake love it and spoil her rotten and she has accepted them well. When I first met Ian's mob I was both a bit star stuck and quite on edge, but the fact that I did things my way got me well up in the respect level and I think I passed my initiation.
Like I said, my fishing is limited but I have to make the most of it when I do go. It’s taken me a while to master the spod, though. Whatever I did, I ended up baiting up either the edge or everyone else’s swim. As they say, practise does make perfect and I’m now winning on it. I thought it was because physically I’m a lot smaller and was not strong enough to master this skill, but then I took a look around and some blokes are smaller and weedier than me so it was not a question of strength, but technique.
Fishing is like life really; you never stop learning and you’ll always have ups and downs, but when you sit back and think for a while you suss it, and if you want something that badly, you find a way of getting it. I wanted to fish and I was not going to let anything get me away from that feeling you get when the alarm roars off whatever time of the day or night. I love the fresh air, the beautiful stars, the phases of the moon and the overall feeling of satisfaction when, even if you didn’t catch, you gave it a go and you enjoyed doing it.
Whatever else changes around me, I will continue my angling. I do want to enter some form of match to get the feel for it, and to go abroad and see if my successful UK methods work in foreign waters. I would love to see my daughter get involved in the sport because she already shows a natural skill for it, sitting alongside me at the canal, watching the float, and then leaping into action with the reel handle.
The other important thing I'd like to do, is to give some advice to any women wanting to get into fishing. However much you want to prove yourself, please remember that safety is important. Choose your venues with a bit of care and don’t be embarrassed to ask for help if you do get in a spot of bother. If you have a furry friend, Mr Mutt, then take it with you when rules allow, because a dog is a great source of comfort and company, as well as being the perfect furry security blanket. Leave your make-up and perfume at home but do check that the venue has loos and if you’re up for a long session, it’s always nice to have a shower part way through.
Above all, learn to enjoy your angling on your terms, for your reasons and at your own pace. Women certainly can be anglers, and good ones, too. There's nothing odd about us at all, really. We just like to do things our own way, that's all!
All the best.. Lizzie Byrnes
Please note: no nails were broken during the typing of this article!