Silver Searcher
Gold Member
For the last couple of months I have been chasing a double figure Barbel from my local River...the Tees Till today they have eluded me, but finally I managed to hook into one, not a double, but a eight pounder...I'll take that for a start
The River and surroundings are quite spectacular, and steeped in Ancient history, although it's like jungle warfare, the long walks and wild life are part of the day.
The area I have been fishing is on the Sockburn Peninsula, Sockburn is a site of great antiquity, Higbald, Bishop of Lindisfarne having been crowned there in 780 or 781 and Eanwald, Archbishop of York, in 796. For many centuries the estate was in the hands of the Conyers family. In medieval times a Sir John Conyers is said to have slain a dragon or "worm" that was terrorising the district. The stone under which the Sockburn Worm was reputedly buried is (or at least until recently was) still visible, and the falchion with which it was said to have been slain is in Durham Cathedral Treasury.
Another literary association is with Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. His father was sometime rector at Croft-on-Tees, and it is said that the legend of the Sockburn Worm provided the inspiration for his poem Jabberwocky.
SS