This period piece is set in the dark days of the late 60's and the early 70's. My tangled hair and comedy sideburns must have seemed a fashion statement at the time, but now exist only on yellowing, dog-eared photographs which pop up to embarrass me when I'm least expecting it. As whimsical psychedelia bowed out to stern prog-rock, I had somehow managed to bluff my way into the sixth form, and the weekend trips into the Fens after predators were a cathartic necessity; mainly to clear my head of such ponderous irrelevancies as the Schleswig-Holstein question, but justified to my parents, as a means of purging myself with fresh air and healthy exercise. The fact that these trips often left me cold-ridden and exhausted was brushed aside as mere coincidence.Trouble was brewing in the windswept flatlands. A well-intentioned River Board employee had decided to introduce an exotic import to the supposedly enclosed Great Ouse Relief Channel. Just ninety-seven zander, or pike-perch as they were called then, were secretly introduced to the twelve mile, fish-filled water. Just a few years later, I read an intriguing article in the long defunct Fishing magazine entitled, "And then they came - pike-perch from a Fenland drain". The writer and his friends had been troubled by countless missed runs on livebaits, until as an experiment, they scaled right down. Suddenly they were catching one pound zander one after the other and the secret was out.
Within ten years, they had spread to such an extent that they were biting chunks from the living flesh of large bream; stripping them down to the bone, eating them alive like starving pirhana. By night they would leave the water, fanning out across the fields, raping the local wildlife and setting fire to workmen's cottages. Panic spread throughout the kingdom from Mildenhall to Kings Lynn. A hired killer was brought in. His name was Bear - George Bear. Many a captured zander was nailed to the village cross or burned alive in a wicker cage. Norfolk was awash with blood and scales. In spite of all these efforts, by 1985, not a single non-predatory fish was to be found alive in the whole of Fenland. The zander populations were magically sustained however, as they evolved to subsist on rats and sugar beet, with the occasional treat of a passing cyclist.
The idea of fishing for these hard-as-nails invaders was incredibly exciting to me in my late teens. Not for me the lady-like roach or the foppish bream. Even the pike seemed to have a rather lazy air about them, only savouring ultra violence in short, rapid bursts. With their rough scales and spiky dorsals these were true punks, almost ten years ahead of their time. They didn't just grab a fish and swallow it; they would beat it to death with bike chains first, then tear it apart, fin by fin.
This is just a short extract. You will find the whole article via this link... probably
http://www.fishingwarehouse.co.uk/section/articles/articleinfo.asp?articleid=1307
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