Interview: Mersey People: Louise Clark
Lo It is unusual, all my mates think that it’s ((boring?)) that I like fishing at my age and stuff and they all think that it’s dirty, if you’re touching fish, even my boyfriend doesn’t like it.
I’ve been fishing with my dad since I was about three or four.
Le This time of year I do a lot more fishing than what Louise does because of the weather conditions and there’s a lot of good fish to be caught in the River Mersey at this time of year. My dad, who’s passed away now, he got me into it and I’ve been fishing ever since. I’ve got my own small boat and we do a lot of fishing out in that as well as all the club activities that we do with my club, Sefton Sea Anglers.
Lo I just like when you’re standing there watching and waiting for the bite and then when you get it, the ((force?)) like reeling it in and the fight it puts up and then when you bring it in and you see what you’ve caught, you feel proud of yourself of what you’ve done. You need patience to do it because sometimes you can waiting for ages and not have anything. Or all day you could not get a bite. I got bored when was little but as I’ve got older I’ve got used to it and enjoyed it.
More people do course fishing that I know but I think sea fishing’s better. You do need a lot of equipment because you need to be prepared to lose it when you’re out there and it gets snagged.
Le It is an expensive hobby, it really doesn’t come cheap but you can go and buy a rod and reel from the tackle shop which you know you can start yourself up for £30/£40 and get down the beach and have a go.
Lo I get a cob on if I don’t catch any fish, I always go to catch fish.
Le The fishing in the Mersey in the winter months, you can’t beat it. It’s probably one of the best fishing venues in the winter in the whole of the British Isles. There’s anglers from, oh far and wide that come to the River Mersey to fish it because the cod that you can catch there, one of my fellow anglers in the fishing club, he caught a 28 pound cod last year. I think it was one of the record sized cod that was caught ever, out of the river. That’s just in a taxidermist at the moment, getting stuffed to go on his wall.
Personally I do a lot of fishing off the beach throughout the winter months and we’ve just got our permit back now to fish the Mersey Dock and harbour wall which we weren’t allowed to fish for a couple of years.
Lo ((02:10?)) when other trawler boats come from far and wide and that, they come in and they sweep all the fish up in one and take them and didn’t leave much for us, other than like little codlings or little ones they threw back.
Le The last ten years it’s cleaned up a heck of a lot. I think personally the fishing has improved, we’re getting bigger fish and bigger species and different species coming up the river now whereas we’ve never had them before. I was fishing off the Mersey Dock and harbour wall last year and to my surprise I seen a pod of dolphins swimming past up towards the pier head.
I think there’s about ten or twelve maybe more species of fish that you can catch in the River Mersey. In the winter months it’s mostly cod and whiting and dabs, flounders, you get the odd dogfish or thornback ray.
Lo I tell everyone that I caught a thornback ray. I tell them all the story about that one. That’s the biggest one I’ve caught.
Le There’s a really good story about that thornback ray. We launched from Hall Road or ((Barebow Bank?)) just by the Coastguard Station there. We didn’t go out far, it was just to where the buoys are to mark out the channel. Anyway I anchored up and whatever, I wasn’t catching nothing and neither was Jay, so Louise got a little bite and she struck and her rod bent over. Anyway she started reeling it up and everything, she got this fish to the surface, it just broke the surface and all you could see was a big pile of thorns coming down its back and a pair of eyes on the top of its head. And Louise leant over the side of the boat and she shouted “Dad I’ve caught a crocodile”. We were in touch laughing because she’d never seen a thornback ray before. That was of her biggest fish she’s ever caught, she was over the moon. And I was jealous as sin because I never caught nothing on the day. I’ve caught bigger since.
Lo The beach is like my favourite place to go, just like when you’re looking over from Crosby and you can see the Liver Birds and stuff, make it feel like home to me, I just love seeing that.
Le Many years ago me and her mum, we went through a divorce and whatever, when Louise came back from Southampton where she was living with her mum, to come back and live with me, she said Southampton didn’t seem like home because she didn’t have the River Mersey or the Liver Buildings as a part of her life no more. And that’s why she was over the moon to come back.
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