Angling Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Thirteen short stories with a twist in the tail.

Angling Tales of

Mystery and Imagination

By Keith Jenkins and Friends

Smashwords edition © 2014 Keith Jenkins, Freebird Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the publisher. Digital Edition Created by eDigital Creations Ltd.

Edited & proofed by Keith Jenkins

Illustrations by Harry Haskell and Ian Webber

Front Cover illustration by Ian Webber

Layout and Design by Beverley Young

Print Management by Linda Jenkins

Table of Contents

The First Tale – Three Wishes By Keith Jenkins

Given the opportunity, what would you wish for?

The Second Tale – A Dream Come True By Keith Jenkins

Dreams or nightmares – who can tell?

The Third Tale – The Witch of Moorly By Harry Haskell

Sometimes the old pubs aren’t always the best.

The Fourth Tale – Robocarp By Keith Jenkins

Be careful what you wish for – one day you may get it.

The Fifth Tale – Putting the Record straight by Keith Jenkins

Ever wondered what might happen if the past got changed?

The Sixth Tale – For Whom the Bell Tolls By Harry Haskell

That unfished lake is not always what it seems.

The Seventh Tale – Diamonds are Forever By Keith Jenkins

A nice stroll in the country can easily turn sour.

The Eighth Tale – Wreckers' Reef by Mark Walsingham

The best stretch of reef - but why so empty?

The Ninth Tale – Josie By Harry Haskell

Love and carp fishing can be a worrying mix.

The Tenth Tale – Keeping it Real By Keith Jenkins

Carp fishing in the future – heaven or hell?

The Eleventh Tale – A Perfect Day By Keith Jenkins

The best day’s fishing you’ve ever had, but at what cost?

The Twelfth Tale – The Vanishing Lake By Harry Haskell

Is the perfect lake too good to be true?

The Thirteenth & Final Tale – A Walk on the Wild Side By Keith Jenkins

A midsummer night’s dream?

The Final Nail...

I’ve not written any short stories before, not seriously anyway, but I had an idea that came to me for ‘Diamonds are Forever’ after chatting with Pete Springate, and it took me just a matter of hours to get it down and, to be honest, I was pretty happy with the outcome.

I like the discipline of writing stories of 5000 words or less. You’ve got to get all the necessary information to the reader quickly and efficiently, whilst still making it an enjoyable and, if possible, suspenseful read. The ideas came from totally different sources; some from news items which I took and twisted inside out; others from a chance conversation about a particular subject; some from just a simple phrase that I’d heard, or had mouthed to myself. The stories themselves came from I know not where, although they were probably more ‘structured’ than either ‘The Myth’ or ‘The Keeper’ ever were.

I loved Harry Haskell’s short story, ‘Witch of Moorly’, which we put into ‘Reeling in the Years’, so I asked him if he had any more – what a stupid question! For someone with such a fertile imagination it’s almost a case of saying ‘Okay, that’s enough. You can stop now!’ Not only has he got a wonderful way with words, but he’s also very adept when it comes to providing illustrations to embellish those words. And why not, he knows exactly what he’s describing, down to the smallest detail, so who better to illustrate his stories?

Mark Walsingham’s ‘A Fool and His Eel’ is still one of the best fishing books I’ve ever read, and not only is he good with prose, he also has a beautiful way with words when it comes to poetry. I, therefore, had little doubt that he could turn his hand to fiction, and so he has proved with the story he’s written for this book. I only wish there were more of them, but hopefully we’ll rectify that in the future.

I am far less adept with a pencil or paintbrush than Harry, so I have to rely on someone who is. Fortunately, I have an Ian Webber, whose mind is a strange and scary place which is capable of producing the most surprising and descriptive artwork from a mere whisper or sideways glance. His bizarre depiction of an ‘ornery old carp on the front cover tells you all you need to know, and was the inspiration for the ‘Robocarp’ story. Between them, Harry and Ian’s illustrations have added beautifully to these stories.

So why a book of short stories? Well a couple of reasons, really. I’d written a couple, read them and thought they were pretty good. I then sent them to a couple of people who I could trust to be honest with me, and they also seemed to like them, so I wrote a few more.

I then thought about whether it would be worth publishing them. Nobody’s really done a book of short stories in the fishing market, and I wasn’t sure whether there was a call for it, but I’m not the only person who likes reading fiction on the bank, so I thought it might be worth a go.

But did the stories warrant an actual book? That, I wasn’t sure about. Although I’m not a great user of Kindle and the like, millions of people are, and so it seemed like a good idea to put out something as an e-book, if only to test the water and see if a future hardback would be worth thinking about. I’ll have to rely on your feedback for that.

If that does happen there’ll be another dozen or so stories to add to these – I just can’t turn my brain off! And hopefully there’ll be a few more authors; after all, everybody’s got a story to tell.

I hope you enjoy these, oh, and you may need to read some of them in daylight...

Tale 1

I’d like to tell you my story. It may seem quite far-fetched but then most good stories are. Let me tell you a little about me first, by way of a background to the ensuing tale.

I love carp fishing, absolutely love it. Some say I’m obsessed and, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t disagree. Eat, sleep and drink it? Yep, that’s me. I’ve read everything I could possibly get my hands on; books, magazines, news clippings, online articles, facts, figures – you name it, I’ve read it. I’ve read about rigs, rods, feeding patterns, moon phases, but for me the Holy Grail is bait.

I’ve researched loads about it, from bait construction to the workings of the carp’s digestive system and everything in between, and I’m not too embarrassed to say that I think I’ve probably devised one of the best baits there is. It’s not commercial, not even my mates use it, but it is successful. For me, though, it’s not successful enough.

My obsession seems to have grown recently, and I’ve even taken to lying next to my big fish tank for hours, just watching the carp’s reaction to different baits. But that’s not enough. I need to know more. I need to know how a carp senses things, what it ‘feels’, how it thinks. I want to get into the mind of a carp.

That’s how my story starts. Now you know a little bit about me. I’m not going to spout all sorts of weights, and ‘I’ve caught this many in a day’ twaddle. All you need to know is there, so let us move on, to the bit just after the start.

I was fishing at one of my favourite little pools. It isn’t large, maybe four acres and, to be fair, the fish aren’t large either, but they are tricky. They seem very clued up, and catching one is a real achievement. With just a 25 man syndicate, it is lovely and quiet, and on most days I have the place to myself. It would seem that a ‘good’ season on there is about a dozen fish per angler. In the first two months of the season I’d already exceeded my quota. But that wasn’t good enough and I needed to learn more.

It was early in August and, as usual, I was alone on the lake. There was a bit of high cloud scudding across the sky, but the sun was warm and I was nicely relaxed. An early carp had eased the pressure I put on myself, but now they were frustrating me and I really wished I could think like a carp.

I wound in, slipped another bait onto the hair, then looked for a likely spot to recast. I didn’t like to concentrate on one spot for too long if it was proving unproductive. A nice hole in the weed, twenty yards out, seemed to beckon so I underarmed the small lead towards it and watched it plop down. Too short. Only by a matter of inches, but that was enough, so I flicked over the bale arm and began retrieving the rig. As I wound in the hook snagged on something, but with a steady increase in pressure it came free and began moving back towards me. I could feel an extra weight on the line but that was no surprise. There was a lot of weed around, and a few snags below it, so as I skimmed it closer I was a little surprised to see the sunlight glint off of something metallic.

I lifted the rod and swung the hook towards me and there, to my amazement, hung a kettle! It was grubby and dull, but the hook had caught the handle perfectly and I grabbed it as it swung closer and removed it from the hook.

It was...a kettle. It was a kettle, and still with the lid on. As I held it I pondered its existence in the lake. Had it been flung in there by a frustrated, gibbering angler, unable to take the fickle nature of the lake’s carp?

Or maybe it had been blown in by some huge gust of wind, in the autumn of ’87 perhaps. Still, here it was and, to be fair, it looked pretty serviceable. Of course, I’d have to give it a good wash, but you never know, maybe it would bring me luck. As I bent to put it on the floor the sun caught it and what I thought was a dull and grey finish flashed briefly.

I set the rod down, then sat in my chair and, grabbing a cloth, began rubbing away the silt and slime. In little time the true beauty of the kettle was being revealed, and far from being your bulk standard silver pot, a filigree of golds and reds began to show through. Wetting the cloth a little more I began vigorously rubbing away a bit more of the grime when there was a sudden flash of light, which temporarily blinded me.

I dropped the kettle and rubbed my eyes before blinking the focus back into them. Before me stood a fairly tall man, his dress being best described as ‘dapper’, and I wondered where he had been fishing as I thought I’d been alone.

‘Err, hello,’ I stuttered. ‘Can I help you?’

The man looked at me and smiled. ‘Oh no, my friend, it is I who can help you.’

I looked closer at him and although I didn’t recognise him, I thought his face familiar. ‘You can help me, and how could that be?’ I asked, very, very warily.

He brushed a curl of black hair from his forehead and smiled once again, his teeth glowing white against his tan skin. ‘You have summoned me, therefore I am bound to grant your wishes.’

This was a wind up, wasn’t it? I looked around suspiciously to see if there were some giggling buffoons in the bushes, but there was nobody else to be seen. I turned back to face him; he was still smiling, like somebody who knew