The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Was reading with interest some of the stories on here, and thought I would share an experience a friend and I had a couple of summers ago at an old lake in Lincolnshire.

We had been invited to fish this water to try and remove some catfish from there and I was arranging a fish-in of fellow CCG members to fish 2 nights to do just that in the autumn.

Me and my best mate has been invited to do a quick night when we went over there to have a reccy and meet the committee, and so we gladly accepted their invitation. We had the whole place to ourselves, with the committee due to meet up with us again at 9am the next morning.

We didn't know much about the lake so picked a dark corner which was heavily tree lined and looked very catty. I had forgotten to load my bivvy, but as you could park right at the back of the swims it wasn't a problem to sleep in the passenger seat of the car.

The early evening passed without much to note, and around midnight after putting fresh baits on we retired for the night. It was a Friday evening and after having a busy week at work I was really tired and fell to sleep within minutes. It seemed like I had only been asleep a few more minutes when I was awoken by a banging on the window that my head was resting against, as you can imagine I jumped a mile. It was my friend shouting to get out of the car quickly.

Heart beating and hair stood on end I jumped out of the car asking him what was wrong, he was hysterical. In the 30 years I've known him I've never seen him like this. He was as white as a sheet. After about five minutes of nonsense he calmed down enough to tell me what had happened........

Like me he had quickly nodded off but after about an hour he woke up, staring at the inside of his brolly top he suddenly became aware he was not alone. Thinking it was probably me he turned and talked to me only to see the ghostly face of a young boy, maybe 10-12 years of age peering through the open door of his bivvy. He froze, couldn't move or make a sound and just at the point when he thought his heart would give way the "boy" turned and ran along the bankside towards my swim. He sat upright to see the boy had no lower legs and appeared to be gliding silently along the bankside.

As the boy vanished around the corner my friend scrambled up and through the bankside vegetation to where my parked car was and started banging.

We did a lap of the lake to make sure no one had arrived late on but it was as we thought, just us on the lake. We had a couple of brews and then tried to get some more sleep but think it was safe to say neither of us could settle the rest of the night.

We didn't catch any cats that night.

Lovely bedtime story

there is a second part to this story from when we had the 2 day fish-in, but I will save that for another time........

Oh come on! Spill the beans

Yeah, come on Rich, spill the beans! I love a good ghost story. Welcome to the forum.

The boy ran...without legs? Scary stuff indeed.
Maybe he'd had them pulled.

Welcome to the forum.

Ooh strange! Welcome aboard Rich....... now where's part 2?

Cheers for that, not like I need sleep anyway. Welcome to the forum too.

OK.

Roll the clock on 3 months to September and it was time for the organised fish-in to remove some of the cats and re-home them.

I picked my mate up on the way (to make sure he actually went as he was still upset by what he saw). I assured him I had not told a sole about his experience (only my wife) as he was concerned they would think him barking mad.

We were the first to arrive, greeted by the committee and after a quick look around the lake we were keen to avoid "ghostly corner" and fished the opposite side of the lake. An hour later and the other seven lads had arrived ready for a weekend of socialising and hopefully good catting.

As darkness fell the atmosphere around the lake was electric with cats slapping the surface all over the lake. By midnight we had caught 4 or 5 fish, three of which were over 50lb the others being mid 20s. At about 2am it was time to call it a night, the surface activity had ceased and so had the highly charged atmosphere.

At about 4am I awoke and needed to answer a call of nature, returning to my bed a few minutes later. Just as I was starting to nod off again my mobile phone rang. It was one of the lads fishing bang opposite me........"Rich, I don't know how to tell you this but you've got an old man stood at the side of your bivvy. In fact he's been there for over an hour. At first he was sat on the bench to the left of your swim. I've been laid on my bedchair watching for ages. He's as white as a sheet, its a ghost mate"

I didn't say a word. My hair felt like it was stood 6 inches off my head. I didn't know what to do. I replied I had just got out of my bivvy for a wee and didn't see anything......"he was still there he's at the other side of the bivvy".

Now I didn't have my glasses on and I have really bad eyesight without them, in fact I am blind in one eye anyhow so its perfectly possible that I wouldnt see anything unless it was right in front of me.

As I started talking again, he said its gone. Simply faded away, your voice seems to have scared it off.

I was stone cold with fear and leant forward and zipped up my bivvy front and put a light and radio on, as if to scare anything else off. All I could think about was the little boy from the previous trip and now this old man standing by the side of my bivvy.

It was soon light and I felt brave enough to come out of my bivvy and put the kettle on. I told my mate what had happened and he pointed out that the bench this ghostly figure was sat on was in fact a memorial to an old member of the lake no longer with us, the inscription pointing out this was his favourite swim.

I take it you never caught any of the Cats out of his swim otherwise who knows what would have happened to you,perhaps the young lad did?