CHAPTER 1 - TRIGGLER SKOYLES

I woke up to a beautiful, sunny, copper-coloured autumn morning, and as I opened my bedroom window I could feel a soft, warm breeze, the kind of gentle wind that blows from the west in the early autumn that my father said would always bring the fish to bite! I will never forget what he told me.

“When the wind’s in the west the fish bite the best

When the wind’s in the east the fish bite the least.

When the wind’s in the north the fisher goes not forth.

When the wind’s in the south the bait will fall into the fish’s mouth”!

I couldn’t wait!

I got up, dressed, thanked my mother for the dutifully prepared bowl of warm porridge which I rapidly devoured, clutched my self-made bamboo fishing rod and old Nottingham reel that my father made for me, and headed off to Crossman’s Lake to fish for the monster fish I dreamed about most nights. Fishing was the main love in my young life, but I wasn’t very good at it!

I arrived at the lake puffing and panting, anxious to cast my home-bred maggots retrieved from a carcass lying stiff among several recently shot rats bodies in the outhouse that my father had dispatched.

I cast my line into the clear water and focussed my eyes on the bobbing, luminous float that was to be the tell-tale indication if a fish takes my bait. I fished for more than an hour and only had tiny bites, and although I struck at them I caught nothing.

Winding in my tackle and inspecting the maggots, it was clear there had been fish after my bait as the maggots were sucked and were now like small, limp white sacks. I re-baited, cast again and by lunch time I had caught two tiny perch, which were just like the one I caught at Ormesby Broad, the first fish I ever caught a few months back. I was excited and as I sat on the grass contemplating whether I should change from maggots to bread paste, I noticed a bent rod along the bank to my right!

It was a man already into a fish, his rod bending and flexing as he played whatever it was on his line, but he knew it was certainly a fish, and perhaps a large one. He pulled the fish over his landing net and seemed to take time to admire it, not by looking at it but by the way he stroked it so smoothly, taking more time than would be usual. He didn’t put the fish in his keepnet but instead he gently felt for the hook, unhooked the fish, and slid it carefully back into the lake, with grace and respect.

I watched the man for a few minutes and tried to emulate his method, casting my line back into the water.

After a while, he called out to me without looking in my direction and asked me to come and fish alongside him. I wound in my line and within minutes I was beside him flicking my quill float towards his. He had suggested I cast near his float hoping I would catch a fish.

There we sat, the man happy and kind in his pursuit of fish, and me happy and expectant of a fish; feeling at last I had a fishing friend!

The man caught fish after fish, some more than a pound in weight, and he treated each capture with the same respect. He must have caught a dozen fine roach and each time he caught one he wanted me to flick my float closer and closer to where his bait had been cast so I would also catch, but try as I did, I could only encourage tiny bites and pull in little roach and perch!

“Here we are young fellow, try a bit of this and see if you can catch?” I was overawed, and quickly put a ball of his paste onto my hook and cast out.

Bites, yes, but no fish and by the end of the day I ran home excited and asked my father what the secret was of hooking a fish when it bites!

I couldn’t wait to ask my mother if I could have some flour, dough, and breadcrumbs with which to make a bait like the man’s, my new-found friend.

The man’s name was Triggler Skoyles, and he was the kindest and most pleasant of anglers. I fished alongside him many, many times, often when I had rapidly ridden my yellow Raleigh bicycle to the lake at break-back speed! I was always keen to see if Triggler was fishing there.

Triggler taught me all I know about fishing and stressed that one needed to be ‘at one’ with the fish, even though one couldn’t see them; but they could only be imagined, and it is through imagination that a fisher can be at one with the fish. I dreamed of nothing else but catching big fish.

When I was fifteen I was still visiting Crossman’s Lake, and Triggler was still a feature, as though he had never moved from his usual place on the lakeside.

“Perhaps he sleeps there” I thought?

Tipping my cap to him I was invited to sit beside him and learn, again. “A few things my boy before we start. There’s a big carp in the lake. I heard it swirl over by the island, so we need to be very quiet. I taught you a lot when you were a boy cycling to the lake, but I haven’t seen much of you of late, but never mind, let’s try and catch this big fish.”

I was not equipped to catch a carp, and had never ever seen one, except a picture in a book, and anyway I could not cast more than a few yards with my primitive gear. Excitedly, I watched Triggler as he cast his line out towards the rising carp and waited.

One hour, two hours and still no bite. I had the patience of a saint and just wanted to see a carp.

Soon, Triggler struck, and his rod bent double. He was into a fight with I don’t know what, and after a long time he drew a carp over his landing net, reached down and unhooked it without even picking up the beautiful fish, or looking at it.

“Why are you not taking it out and looking closely at it”?

“Ah, you see son, nature gave that fish to me, that beautiful fish I was privileged to catch, and when God sends such a creature to your hook it is only right that it is not harmed and can be returned to its watery home with respect and thanks”.

“But why catch it in the first place”? “Wait.”

Triggler pulled in his rod after another half an hour and bid me do the same. He sat smoking his pipe and began to tell me a story to help me understand why he fished alone, except for when he was with me, and why he loved to catch fish and return them.

“Well young man, that carp‘s weight could only be estimated by what it felt like, how hard it tugged as it was fighting for its freedom, and besides it is not about weight, it’s about the challenge, the joy, the anticipation and the fact that I am sitting by a lake in the beautiful countryside with a soft, westerly breeze on my face listening to a green woodpecker in the distance hammering the bark of an oak tree, and imagining a kestrel swooping on a crow in the distance, alongside my new fishing friend.

Catching a fish is a bonus, and the reason I always catch is because I have a magic ingredient that I press into my bait. That’s why you only caught tiddlers my boy; you need a magic bait! Haha!”

Ah. So that’s what is all about, a magic ingredient, whatever that word meant. I must go home and mix up a potion and press it into whatever bait I am using and then I will catch fish like Triggler. As I cycled home my mind was busy imagining what I would catch now I have the secret!

I fished the lake until my mid-twenties and caught fish, but never as big as the fish that Triggler caught, regularly. Each time I returned home to Norfolk to see my family I would spend a few days fishing with Triggler, and we became very good friends. He was such a great teacher and loved nature, but I never saw him arrive at the lakeside. He was always there when I arrived, and I never saw him leave! That’s strange!

All those years and I never knew that Triggler was blind, until I saw a white stick lying alongside his gear. I was shocked but said nothing. Triggler didn’t need eyes to be a fisherman!

The last time I saw him I helped him up and offered to guide him to his house, which was a mile away, across two fields, an old cottage, timber framed and quaint.

“No thanks my dear boy. I have walked home many times over the years, always in dark, so I know the way without eyes better than anyone with eyes. I have learned that touch and feel is enough. You might wonder why I never lifted my fish out of the water to admire? Well, I loved the touch, the smooth silky feel of the scales and the strength of a wriggling fish as it strives for its life. I have never killed one, not even a big pike that I caught when I was fifteen. That was a fight I’ll tell you, to catch a big fish like that and reach down to take the hook out to find your fingers crunched in its toothy mouth. Because I didn’t panic, God sent a message to that leviathan to let go, and it did”.

I loved that story, and as he showed me the scars on his right hand where he had been grabbed all that time ago.

Life is a teacher, and Triggler was mine. An angler of such class, skill, and kindness, prepared to help a young boy who had nothing, and encourage him to respect nature and the animal kingdom, was such a gesture. What could be a greater gift. That he was using a magic ingredient got me thinking for many years and I couldn’t bring myself to ask him what it was.

I lost my first wife from cancer when I was twenty-seven, and Triggler was a great comfort to me. He was kind and sympathetic and had a lovely wife at home, but he was getting on in years. His words of comfort filled my eyes with tears, even though I was well into my adult life.

I loved that man, his manner, his respect, and his friendship, but a few years passed, and I was often away in connection with my job as a headmaster so could not fish with Triggler as often as I would have liked.

In 1984 I travelled back to Norfolk and packed by then flashy, sophisticated carp tackle and bivvy into my car, ready to show off to Triggler. I knew he would be by the lake, still, so I parked the car and loaded myself with all I needed for a session and walked towards the bank where Triggler was bound to be.

There was no sign of him and there were no other anglers there. I laid my gear on the bank, walked across the two fields to his cottage and knocked on the door.

“Ah. I thought it wouldn’t be long before you knocked on my door. I am sorry to tell you that Triggler has gone to be with his friends; he is no longer here,” said his lovely wife.

“Where is he then”?

“He has passed away and is in heaven, probably catching fish. He knew you might one day call, so he left you something. He’s been gone a few months now”.

Betty handed me a small wooden box which I still have, the kind one might find for sale on a tourist’s stall on holiday in the Far East and wished me well. The box lid was glued so it wouldn’t open. I put it in my pocket and with tears in my eyes I walked across the fields, collected my gear, and drove to my brother's house.

Sharing the news with him I prised open the box with a knife. It was full of fine whitish grey powder, glistening powder, rather like the gleam on a fish’s scales. There was a small handwritten note amongst the powder which was neatly folded four times. I opened it and read the words, the magic words.

“My fishing friend, a man now. By now you will know that I am happy in heaven catching huge fish, glittering, gleaming fish, all day and all night long. I never have to sleep, and I will be by this new-found lake in the sky for a long, long time, hoping that you will use the contents of this box to mix it with your bait whenever you fish. I promise, because it is magic dust you will catch fish as I did but be sparing as it won’t last forever!”

I returned to Gloucestershire that week, and every time I fished with paste, I mixed in the powder and fished with a new confidence, knowing that my friend Triggler had left me his magic ingredient and that now I would catch fish. I did catch fish, I always used the powder, and after a couple of years I pushed the last piece of bait onto the remaining powder and cast into the lake.

At ten o’clock one evening I struck into a beast of a fish and landed a lovely shimmering carp, its scales lit my moonlight as it nestled in my landing net, with its bright eyes reminding me that fish have eyes but cannot see out of water like humans can, and Triggler was blind and could certainly feel beauty.

So that’s what fishing is all about. Not size, but respect, a love for the catch, not struggling to show off what is the biggest, but to always treasure the catch.

Lesson learned and the magic powder was no longer adorning the inside of that lovely, wooden box. I had to say my thanks and respect to Triggler’s dear wife.

When I visited Norfolk a few years later I knocked on the door, expecting the worst. Within a minute, a rather wrinkly hand, beautiful, warm, and soft like the scales of a carp, rigorously shook my hand and gave me such an embrace, a warm, loving, and all-knowing embrace. Betty, now over ninety-five years old, made me a cup of tea and asked me to sit down.

“I knew you would run out of that magic ingredient one day.

Triggler told me before he died, and I want you to know the truth from me, that there was no magic ingredient!

Triggler asked me to give you his ashes, which I poured into the wooden box I gave you and put the note inside so that you would scatter them in the water of Crossman’s Lake until every last grain was amongst the creatures he loved,

the fish he could only imagine but not see, the fish that were beautiful and free.

Triggler will be at peace now and I think he has left his mark on you, has he not?”

Triggler Skoyles was my inspiration and perhaps I owe him a great debt, because I love fishing, all kinds of fishing, and whenever I try to catch a big fish I think of that man, that man who taught me so much but could never see who I was.

That man who taught me that the size of a fish is the last thing to worship. That nature, respect, and privilege to be able to fish for these beautiful and ancient creatures is what leads to being able to label human beings as great fishermen.

Triggler learned his skill by touch, and it was a huge privilege for me to meet another such fisherman in 1965, who was both deaf and dumb but caught huge chub in the Suffolk Stour in Nayland, Suffolk, with regularity. He lived not fifty metres from my wife’s home, and on the few occasions I fished with him he taught me to catch chub. He was a true master of angling, and always carried in his fishing creel, an old copy, well-worn, of Isaak Walton’s book, ‘The Compleat Angler’.

He referred to the book whenever he had a break, and it was a very rare first edition.

One day, when I was in Nayland, Frankie left a note with my mother-in-law, and a small, brown package. The note read, “This is for you, in memory of the time you told me about your fishing friend, Triggler, as a reminder of his principles, and those of Isaak Walton in this book. Let it be your bible young man.”

I had told him the story of Triggler, taking care to speak slowly to enable him to lip-read.

His heart was warmed as he nodded when I told him; but he never found out that Triggler was blind! How could he?

A blind man was a fishing legend and so was a deaf man!