Fishing in Bourne

by PETER SHARPE

There was a time many years ago when young children could occupy themselves by fishing in the waters in and around Bourne. Sadly, the only place left now seems to be the narrow drain that runs by the Rainbow supermarket in Manning Road and flows out under the tunnel beneath the Spalding Road. This waterway is home to a small number of chub, some of which are surprisingly large for their limited environment.

I am not old enough to remember the time when fishing matches were held on the now filled-in brick pits off West Road but I can certainly remember fishing in the Bourne Eau adjacent to the memorial gardens, and behind the Anchor Inn in Eastgate, pictured below. That section of the river alongside the memorial gardens held mainly roach, pike and eels but occasionally carp, chub, dace, tench, bream and even golden orfe that were introduced from elsewhere. 

The river behind the Anchor Inn was full of dace, in spite of the accumulated effluent from decades of overspill from the now defunct tanning yard. Weed never grew next to the old discharge pipes and the bottom of the river was an eerie white in colour. The thick shoals of dace were easily visible as they passed over these patches. Both of these places are now silted up, weed-choked and almost stagnant. The water in front of the Wellhead cottage reeks of sewage, and recently turned a milky purple. 

One of our favourite places was the Bourne Eau railway bridge, to which we would cycle across the fields to fish for eels from the parapet. The usual method was to stand peering down into the four-foot gap between the two sections and wait for an eel to come swimming along. You then had to drop a worm in front of its nose before it passed out of sight. I can also remember seeing an elderly gentleman who used to practise the art of totting. This involved threading a hundred or more worms onto a coarse yarn, then gathering the revolting mess into a large ball. This was then tied to some strong twine, attached to a thick bamboo pole and dunked into the water until the eels could be felt attacking the worms. As they did this, their fine teeth would be temporarily snagged in the wool, and with any luck they would remain trapped long enough to be swung into a tin bath, that was moored at the edge of the water to contain them. 

Another venue within cycling distance was the River Glen at Tongue End, where we would fish all day for the roach and dace and dream of hooking one of the tench and bream. There was a time when it was difficult to get a place on this stretch in winter as coach parties would come all the way from Sheffield for the excellent roach fishing. There were so many anglers at this time that the house on the bank, downstream of the bridge, acted as a café and served hot breakfasts. Looking from the bridge these days, it is often difficult to see the water through the weed, although transient shoals of tench and bream can still be seen in late April, when they move up river to spawn. As soon as their activities are over however, the river seems once again almost devoid of fish life all the way down through Guthram to Pinchbeck. The muddy drain running along the Tongue End road up to the bridge was absolutely stuffed with roach and pike but most of this was filled in and the fish are now long gone. 

It always seemed a mystery to us that when cycling along the fen road it was always a head wind, both there and back. How many youngsters these days would cycle to Tongue End in all weathers with their bikes laden with fishing tackle? 

One of the few places left in Bourne for youngsters to fish, the tiny pond off Stanley Street, was recently wiped out by pollution, leaving only the Bourne Eau close to the sewage works. The river at this point consists almost entirely of sewage effluent and most of the remaining length is now too silted up to support fish life for most of the year, even if it was possible to find a small hole in the choking weed. 

A rare treat was acquiring a permit to fish Grimsthorpe Lake, where even a beginner could fill a net with small bream. Sadly, a recent netting of the lake revealed just one shoal of the larger bream, with small fish being almost entirely absent. One can only assume that the smaller fish have fallen prey to cormorants. I believe the Stew Pond is still worth fishing, although mainly for tench these days instead of the roach and perch that were once predominant. 

I always used to have a dream in which a gravel company had created a huge lake on the outskirts of Bourne that became teeming with fish. Perhaps these benevolent developers we keep hearing about will create something along these lines but I fear that I may have to just keep on dreaming! 

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