Roy Marklow

 

At the formation of the Ireland Colliery Sports and Social Club it was decided to start with an annual fishing match, the first one to be on the River Ouse. The intention was to get as many men on this match as possible and as a result we had a full bus. Woodhouse buses of Bolsover were used and all was set for a good day’s fishing.

One chap, who had never been fishing before, but had agreed to come along was someone called Roy Marklow. Mark, as I will call him, was always good for a laugh and the regular fishermen agreed to set him up with fishing tackle. On the day of the match Mark was picked up at Norbriggs and took his seat.

Now one of the favourite things we all took part in was declaring what good bait we had and what was going to win the match. Mark just sat there and said nothing but I could see that he was not looking too comfortable. As he had not declared his winning bait, all the men were getting more and more curious as to what bait he had. Then very reluctantly he produced a black boot polish tin in which was a massive lobworm and that was all he had for a day’s fishing.

 Anyway, all the men ‘chipped’ in and explained what he needed and gave him some of their bait. On the matches we had cash prizes that individuals could enter consisting of best over weight and biggest fish caught and places to fish were by drawing numbered tokens.

Mark drew a place next to me and the match started. This was proving to be a bad day for fishing and not many men were catching anything. Suddenly there was a shout and lots of splashing from Mark’s position and even though we are not allowed to help fellow anglers, I went to see what the matter was. He was all excited, with his rod held up in the air and splashing on the other end of his line was the biggest Perch I had ever seen.

This was now a big problem because a good angler would have a lot of difficulty in landing such a big fish but Mark had no idea of what to do. By now other anglers had come to see what was happening. The fish had no intention of giving up the fight and proceeded to swim all over the river. “Wind it in, let it run, give it some slack” shouts were coming in thick and fast and poor Mark had not a clue which advice to follow. After about half an hour sweat was dripping off Mark’s nose and he was complaining that his arms were dropping off when the fish decided it had had enough and gave up the fight.

 With a grandstand of about 10 other anglers watching Mark landed the fish and I estimated that it weighed around 5 or 6lbs, a specimen weight for a Perch that anyone would be very proud of.

Mark unhooked the fish and word had spread about the wonderful specimen catch that several members had cameras and Mark proudly posed with this fantastic catch.

One of the fishermen looked at the fish and said to Mark “With a fish like that might win you the big fish pool”. Mark looked at him and promptly put the fish back in the river. Everyone looked at Mark in total disbelief. “What did you do that for” was the shout from all the fishermen. “It’s no good saving that fish” Mark said “I am not entered in the big fish pools”

That fish would have won Mark the match.