fishing

If there are any fish, of course. There was a fishing competition on the beach here yesterday. A busload of people from Liverpool, some from Cardigan and some locals, all competing to see who could catch the greatest weight of fish. I went out about half way through their competition and no fish had been caught at all. None. Not one. Nada, zip, the big 0. The only thing they’d be catching was a cold.

I spoke to one of them and he told me it was because the wind was blowing from the land onto the sea, which is rather rare round here, and so the fish headed for deeper waters.

There is a lovely song called “The Fishing Blues” which I thought was by the old blues musician Sam Chatmon, but it turns out to originally be by Henry Thomas. It was revived a few years ago by Taj Mahal. This is Thomas’ original recording of it from 1927:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh19MUIp5d4&feature=related

I couldn’t find Sam Chatmon’s version of it, but here is another of his songs. I think he is about 80 years old in this lovely film of him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBk8t3C4yws

Chatmon modified the lyrics to suit himself and he made the song much more amusing, in my view:

“Before you go a-fishing, you stay out late
But here’s a little something I’m gonna state
‘Most any fish will bite if you’ve got good bait
So your wife’s going fishing too
And I bet she’s gonna catch a big one too!”

Lots of those old blues songs are full of that sort of mild sexual innuendo, and John Hurt’s song The Candyman is another great example.

Cheers, Tom.