The Lock's this week

Well peep's we finally made the 9000th assisted boat passage through Hillmorton lock's this season (that's April to October) on Friday. The lucky couple were Carole and John from Buxton on their narrow boat Huxley. Carole and John were duly presented with a certificate celebrating the occasion by your very own volly lockie AKA the man with the golden windlass.

Also this week the case of the disgruntled fisherman and can fish read?

An angler set out his vast array of equipment on the landing area for lock number two, even hanging his keep net over the mooring bollard. After a short while a lone boater came round the corner and had to use the lock landing causing some bending of the angler's keep net. A not very happy angler protested but the boater pointed out that as he was on his own he had to use the bollards to tie up his boat.

After the boater had left the lock the angler approached yours truly to complain about the action of the boater saying he had got over £100 pounds worth of equipment. I did however trump his call by pointing out that the boat was probably valued at about £30,000. He then had to retrieve his keepnet from the canal using his £100 landing net.

The angler then asked why the boater could not use the other side of the canal to which I respectively enquired why he couldn't use some of the several miles of canal away from the locks. His response was that the BIG FISH seemed to like it by the locks.

I did remind him that this particular area was delegated for the use of boats using the lock's and this fact was reinforced by pointing out the numerous "NO FISHING" signs. This information passed him by as he carried on fishing.

I then pointed out that as it was a Friday afternoon he could expect it to get rather busy around 4 p.m. and it would probably be a good idea to move. Again this advice was not taken. Shortly after that the newly acquired hire boats started to arrive with the angler having to pull in his line on numerous occasions to avoid further damage to his equipment.

This brings me back to my original question, can fish read?. Do they like it by the locks because of the NO FISHING signs. Another conundrum.

See you all again next week.