Q + A

With a business to run and a growing family, John Cash utilises his time wisely. Joseph Brazil catches up with him on the banks of Black Swan, to find out how he manages to fit everything in, as he also recalls some of his memorable captures…

AN INTERVIEW BY JOSEPH BRAZIL

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN CASH AND JOSEPH BRAZIL

JOSEPH BRAZIL: I guess the obvious place to start would be at the beginning, so where did it all kick off for you in terms of your angling?

JOHN CASH: “From a young age, I’d always dabbled, but really only because of friends… I was never madly into fishing then. I remember a mate’s dad took us for my first night, and I caught my first twenty using some of his spare kit. Then I went out and bought a little set-up. I was around fourteen at the time, and armed with my pair of new Fox rods and alarms, my good friend, Ashley, took me to Farnham Flint for three nights. I blanked, and as soon as I got home, I told my brother he could have all my fishing gear, and that I wasn’t interested anymore. He actually gave me 20 quid in the end, just so I couldn’t ask for it back.”

JB: At what point did this all change then?

JC: “It was when I moved from Reading to Thatcham in 2007. Ashley, and my mate, Nathan, had slowly worn me down, and eventually I found myself making the odd trip to Bellwood Lake. There was a large mirror in there, a mid-forty named Shoulders. I was fishing when I could, but honestly, I didn’t have a clue. My mates were always keen to give me a little push and they told me what was what, and they taught me a lot. I was in my early twenties by this time and doing the odd night here and there. We’d flit about between a few places, like the Thames, Bellwood and a couple of local pits that seemingly didn’t belong to anyone, one of which I went on to catch a forty-pound mirror from.”

JB: So was your fishing starting to become more of a focus by then?

JC: “It was. I had my first forty from Bellwood: the mighty Shoulders at just over 43lb. It all changed from there. I found myself making time to fish, rather than just going when I could.”

I was able to make my own swim— it was that kind of water

JB: Where did it go from there?

JC: “I had been bouncing about, fishing a few different waters, and eventually I ended up fishing a large sailing lake which a friend had been running. It was big, and at 350-acres I felt way out of my depth. There was only a small syndicate, so it was great for getting about on, for baiting areas and for just learning what was what. I remember making a cool little swim out in the lake using scaffolding and everything… it was one of those kind of waters.

“That spring, I settled in an area which contained a large set of snags. I was keeping bait going in and checking on the snags daily. I remember going down seventeen days on the bounce without fishing it, just look- ing around from the boat and baiting. On the eighteenth day I had a golf tournament, and I ended up getting badly sunburnt. I had planned to get to the lake afterwards, but was feeling rough with maybe heat stroke, and so I went home. A mate, who had also been fishing a similar area called me at around ten that night to tell me the fish had turned up. I’m fairly confident they were there all day and that he just wanted a head start on me! [laughing]