HOW things have changed for women anglers! I can remember when it was rare even to see a lady on the bank, although I can recall two – the late Kay Stuart and Jill Orme – who were both excellent anglers who could hold their own in what was then considered to be a man’s world.
These days the fairer sex is well represented in our sport, and I think that’s great. In fact, it’s happening right across the board. Take this week – I watched England’s Lionesses doing the business in the Euros, and the very next day I met up with rising match star Lottie Wootton for a day’s barbel fishing on the Severn.
Before Covid, Lottie had said she wanted to catch her first barbel, so I promised her a day on the Rowley water at Coalport. Last Wednesday we finally got around to it, and by 6am Lottie, along with her dad, Andy, and me were walking down the dry grassy slope to fish one of my favourite pegs.
Lottie likes fishing natural waters, and straight away she fell in love with this Shropshire venue. I was taking the mickey about the lack of toilets, breakfast bar and tackle room, but Lottie took it all in her stride and handled my Black Country humour very well indeed.
To be honest, the fishing was slow, but then again I knew it would be as soon as I saw and smelled the white foam on the water. The three of us got set up and talked about the differences in approach between match and specialist anglers and the wide choice of baits and tactics, especially for carp.
Usually the rod-tips would be dancing as barbel moved around the swim in search of our feed, but not today. Then, out the blue, Lottie’s rod bent double – a proper barbel bite!
Now we could see what the girl was made of, because this was a swim with lots of snags, and it needed skill to land the fish.
No problem! All those hundreds of carp she’s played on stillwaters stood Lottie in good stead, and soon we were admiring her first barbel safe in the landing net.
I could tell from the way she looked at the fish, the care with which she handled it and the way she couldn’t wait to get back out there to catch another – which she did another three times – that here was no ‘lady angler’, just an angler, full stop. And a very good one at that.
All too soon the sun was high in the sky and the rods didn’t so much as twitch. Nothing we could do would make those barbel have another go.
Of course, in a match situation Lottie would have changed tactics and perhaps tried to add a few float-caught roach and dace to her total, but today it was barbel or bust.
Back at the cars, we said our goodbyes and all agreed it had been a special day.
On the half-hour journey home I had time to reflect on this changing world of ours.
I concluded that, although angling is under all sorts of pressures, we still have a good future if we can attract more anglers like Lottie into this sport of ours. I’ll drink to that!
