The Two Terriers

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A corner of a West Norfolk churchyard

11.11.12

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An icy evening

Walking Lucie on a cold, clear late afternoon, the temperature hasn't risen above plus one all day and there's no doubt that tonight it will drop to minus four or five. Fishing plans have been suspended because every waterway in the Fens has a coating of ice. The was one piece of clear water I noticed the day before, it was under a tree, and I could see fish moving there. Now it is frozen over but as a test I decided to drop half a brick on the ice and it just made a twanging sound and then skated away over the ice sheet for ten or twelve feet. This morning a change, it's minus three and freezing fog is setting in and getting thicker by the minute. Proper winter weather and home for a cup of hot tea I think.

Book ending the day

Well, after a first cup of tea finished off by Lucie, we set off for our earlymorning walk to be greeted by a beautiful dawn with the sun not even over the horizon, a little chilly but as yet no ground frost to speak of and wildlife still dozing apart from the odd rabbit and alerted pheasant. When we set off for the evening walk the sky was pretty much the same with just a few clouds and the odd vapour trail from the fast jets from RAF Marham and the USAF at Lakenheath but the sunset was almost, not quite, but almost, providing a matching bookend for the day. It was going to be a frosty night and mist which may thicken was rising from the dykes, all very atmospheric and a pleasure to be alive and see it. Some days you just get lucky.

Peter Carter. Fen man. Eel man. Gone

Peter Carter, the last remaining traditional Fenland eel fisherman, has hung up his traps for good. He has employed the same methods for catching eels that have been in use on the Fens for 3,000 years and now those skills that have been handed down through generations will disappear. Changes to fishing laws and the dramatic falls in eel stocks have resulted in Peter giving up eel fishing for a living. Peter closed his impressive shop in Outwell a few years ago and no doubt his punt will now slowly sink to the bottom of drain where it is moored and be reclaimed, like all things, by nature. Maybe some of the few surviving eels will make their home in it as it gently rots away. A sad day but as Peter said in an interview with Downham Market Life 'I can't live on empty pockets.' Shown at the top is a linocut that I cut and printed showing Peter in his punt on one of the lo...

Fishing the jungle

Late last week I received an invitation to go and fish for trout on the upper reaches of the River Wissey, what an opportunity and to say it is an exclusive stretch of water is a major understatement. The water is where the Wissey runs through the Stanford Military Training Area and I imagine that nobody ever contemplates poaching a river where there are live firing exercises and military level security. The invitation came from a contact on the two terriers who commissioned me to print some Christmas cards of his Norfolk Terrier, called Dodger, for Christmas last year. Rick promised that when he was visiting Norfolk the next time, and during the trout season, he would be in touch so short notice or not all roads were leading to Stanford last Saturday. A rendezvous in a nearby pub for a quick pint and then off to be checked and passed through security, sign in, park the car and then head for the river. We didn't see an...

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