I was clearing out a cupboard in my shed the other day and came across a jar of anchovy paste. I had bought it years ago after reading about how good it was in one of the angling papers. Apparently if you mixed it in with your breadpaste you'd have big roach fighting for the pleasure of getting into your keepnet. The old jar wascovered in dust and I didn't dare to open it so I threw in the bin. It did however send my mind back to the days when I would try all sorts of additives to help give me the edge over my fellow competitors.
Canals without boats is like heaven for anglers
Most of my matches were fished down the cut so we are talking about delicate flavourings here, fine groundbait with fine ingredients. One chap who was reasonably successful always sprinkled some chocolate powder in his groundbait and onto his maggots before every match and he reckoned it worked wonders. Like I said he did get in the frame quite often so it obviously didn't put the fish off. Of course other anglers fishing on the same circuit as us copied him and the effect wore off.
While he was doing well I was doing better. I won for two years in succession, the championship that we both took part in and I never went near the chocolate powder. However, I did have an additive that at the time I swore helped me to lift those two trophies. I didn't tell anybody else what it was either even though there was much speculation about it everytime I turned up for the draw.
It had two names "Red Cap" and the "Sharneyford Secret," you couldn't get it where I lived so I relied on my brother-in-law who is also a keen angler to bring me a couple of jars whenever he visited me from his home in Wigan which is about 60 miles away.
Anyway, I don't know exactly what happened the additive seemed to disappear off the market and his wife's sister divorced me so I never saw him again. (If you read this Steve, drop me an e-mail.)
I won't bore you with the details but after my divorce I stopped match fishing so it didn't matter about not being able to get my favourite additive. I fish only for pleasure now and sad as it might seem, I look forward to having a few minutes peace between catching each fish. I used to count each fish I caught and aimed at a minimum of 1 per minute during the first hour of match, but I don't think I could do it now. My eyesight isn't what it was, I'm having enough trouble trying a 12's never mind a 24's.
What are your thoughts on additives? Do you have a favourite?
Please let me know what you think and if anybody knows what happened to "Red Cap" I'd love to know about that as well.
If you would like to read more about my thoughts on additives I have included some information in my book. More details and a free sample download can me found on my website. Book and download details
Scotland and Writers
Scotland will form a big part of my next blog and I will be talking about others ways that freelance writers can make money, so please watch out for it.
I'll leave you with this beautiful picture that my wife Terry, took of Loch Awe. This was our view across the loch to Ben Cruachan from our holiday chalet in Portsonachan.
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