One way or another sport has always been very much part of me. Although I was never good at anything and it took me years to understand the niceties of the games I played, I did enjoy being involved. At primary school it was cricket, football and hockey, and then in my teens – basketball, rugby, rowing, swimming and squash. All these had stopped by my early thirties and it is years since I even went to watch a sporting event.

By way of recompense, since my retirement I spend more and more time watching sport on the television or listening on the radio and when reading a newspaper I spend time studying the sports section. In all this I have become particularly fascinated by how sport ‘works’ and while in some ways this new interest feels excessive, even perhaps obsessional, in other ways I see it as simply a change that comes with age!

It was in keeping with my interest in sport that I recently struck up a conversation with three men on a cross-channel ferry. On our way home from our summer’s stay in France, in front of me in a queue at the ship’s bar were Steve, Mitch and Graham, three friends waiting to buy their pints of beer. It soon became apparent that they had spent a week fishing in Brittany. This blog is based on what I overheard while in the queue and later in the chats we had as they sat drinking at a table near ours (see first illustration).

It may come as a surprise, but their hobby is the most popular participatory sport in the United Kingdom. We ‘Brits’ spend around 25 million days each year with our fishing rods at the water’s edge and the number has steadily increased since the start of the Covid pandemic.

Unlike sports that only require armchair participation and so where watching is the main activity, anglers argue that their pastime demands physical activity as they cast their lines then, whether or not successful reel them in, and if something is caught, weigh it then release it back into the water and start again.

The three, who were in their thirties, are close friends who started fishing as children; one introduced by his father, one by an uncle, one self-taught. Their particular speciality and love is coarse fishing, where their chosen quarry is the beautifully coloured carp (see second illustration) which is known as the ‘Queen of rivers’ and who never gives in without a fight. Coarse fishing is by far the commonest type of angling in the UK, with game fishing where the fish – salmon or trout – is landed then later eaten, or fishing at sea or from the coast, a long way behind.

Steve, Mitch and Graham’s stories told all. Like last year, they had booked a spot on the bank of a lake owned by a friend-of-a-friend with a large Manor House in Brittany. Twice now they have spent a week there sleeping in tents and either cooking their meals on stoves at the lake side or eating in the manor itself. Their trip this year was part of a package deal which in all cost each of them around £1000. This holiday was a real break!

Now, to the fishing; each had a rod with a line that stayed in the water for around 23 hours each day. If a carp bit on the bait they either saw the ‘float’ bobbing up and down on the water, felt the line taughten, or at night time heard the beep of their ‘tug detectors’. While all this was going on, in the daytime they chatted, read or ate, and at night, slept. And as a break from their day jobs – carpentry and decorating – this was a real treat.

But the most revealing part of their stories is that in their week together, they caught just one fish. Yes it was magnificent, weighing almost 40lbs which meant it was probably around four years old, but that was it. On questioning they were unanimous – their chosen sport, which they adored, was about patience, luck and more than anything else, hope. And they were already making plans to go back to the same lake to hope next year.

Discovering that sharing days of waiting and hoping with friends in the calm of a lake bank in the middle of the countryside could give such pleasure was a revelation. I could not do it, but congratulations to all those who can. 

The first illustration shows a photo of Steve, Mitch and Graham sitting, chatting with their pints of beer on the cross-channel ferry. The second illustration is a photo of a common carp.

For helping me write this blog, I would like to thank Steve, Mitch, Graham, Merrily, Rohan and Vivien.