Pier Pressure
Quite apart from the obvious history, splendour, even engineering artistry that metal built Victorian piers have in abundance, these structures also play a crucial, sometimes fundamental role in sea angling even today. Often they are nursery platforms, training grounds, call them what you like, for young anglers without as yet either money or casting skills, educating and drawing them in to fishing in the sea in a way that quite frankly no other dry ground fishing platform can. Certainly not while offering the same level of potential, not too mention personal safety. So for that reason alone they should continue to be preserved. And in my case, for reasons of nostalgia too. I've spent many a grim but enjoyable winters evening treading the gratings of Blackpool's North Pier jetty, which sadly is no longer with us, though the main structure of the per itself remains and should continue to do so, as this is the oldest surviving Victorian Pier designed by Eugenius Birch, and as such has been ear marked by English Heritage as a Grade II listed structure.
Blackpool's North Pier was the first of the three piers jutting seaward from the town. Work started back in 1861, and it was duly declared open for business the following year. But not in guise we see it today. Victorian piers were nothing more than long railed platforms for the well to do to promenade along close to the water without getting messy or wet, while also keeping themselves apart from the hustle and bustle of the sea front itself. They even moored Admiral Nelsons old flagship HMS Foundroyant close to the end in 1897. But unfortunately, she slipped her anchor in a storm and almost became the first in a list of sea going collisions suffered by the pier and its jetty as she was washed ashore on the nearby beach. But in 1936, a Llandudno based pleasure steamer did actually manage to slice a ten foot wide gap through the jetty, much to the alarm of the promenaders stranded out on the seaward side. Repairs were called for again in the 1980's, at which stage it was also given a helicopter pad. But not even that was enough to save the jetty, leaving North Pier similar in layout to nearby Central Pier, and the last of the three to be built, South Pier, none of which now have an angling jetty.
Some anglers would and still do fish off the higher main pier structure. It even had a small tackle shop where you could buy bait. But it was the lower jetty, which was added to the pier in 1886 and extended in 1889 to give a total pier length of 1410 feet that was the real angling attraction, though there were times, particularly in stormy weather, when jetty access was barred on safety grounds, and rightly so. Even in fishable conditions on a big tide towards high water, the tops of breaking waves would come buffeting through the metal base grating with a huge crashing roar at intermittent intervals along the jetties length, completely enveloping some poor angler, leaving him or her soaked through. I think we all got a good dose of that from time to time. But un-deterred, we would take our punishment and fish, on unless completely soaked through, in the knowledge that we were definitely putting our baits, however short the casts, in amongst good numbers of feeding fish.
I sometimes wonder if to some extent anglers fishing the jetty were actually responsible for attracting in many of the fish. Ask any charter boat angler fishing at anchor in water too deep for uptide fishing where the best spot is on the boat is, and the answer will invariably come back as being the stern. It seems that having a dozen baited terminal rigs closely grouped up under the boat sends out sufficient scent down the tide to draw fish in. And when fish are working back up the tide, which are the baits they are most likely to come across first. So maybe a similar pattern develops from a Victorian Pier standing above the sea on legs with free water flow underneath it. In my experience, you would catch certainly as many and quite often more fish with a short lob rather than a long throw casting from the down tide side of the jetty. So maybe the fish did see it as a localised source of food. The trick was to be aware that the tide along the Fylde Coast floods to the north and ebbs to the south, both virtually parallel to the shoreline flowing in one direction or other underneath the pier and jetty. People fishing the 'disadvantaged' uptide side would still catch fish while at the same time contributing to the rubby dubby slick that would ultimately draw fish uptide to the other side of the jetty first.
Unfortunately, with fish population numbers for a whole range of reasons being prone to fluctuations, particularly Whiting right now (2012), even if the jetty was still here, catches may well have down on what they were in the past. Dabs on the other hand are currently reasonably abundant once again. But certainly Whiting numbers, along with Codling, are not what they were in the 1980's and 90's, and it was these fish, along with the Dabs, that were the bread and butter of all three of Blackpool's piers. So in that regard, it's not as hard to take the demise of the jetty, allowing us to maintain the nostalgic notion of what a good mark this actually was. That said, the North Pier didn't only provide access to an endless stream of Whiting and Dabs with a few bonus Codling thrown in if you were lucky. There were some particularly notable catches too, and it was and still is, if you fish from a small boat where the jetty used to be, for some inexplicable reason, a concentrating point in settled summer weather for reliable shoals of Mackerel.
If I could guarantee to catch half a dozen Mackerel just as I as about to head home every trip, I would probably not take or eat any other species of fish. So for that reason alone, when we are fishing in the vicinity, we always call in to the area where the jetty was for Mackerel for supper, and on the way out too to stock up on fresh bait. But one particular North Pier encounter sticks very firmly in my mind. We had just installed a Lowrance HDS structure scan on the boat which, amongst other functions, has a side scanning sonar facility. And to have a play with it and take a look at how it brought up submerged objects, we decided to run in right up to the end of North Pier for a mooch about. Because we were running slow, Charlie Pitchers decided to put down a set of feathers to see if there was anything about, and immediately got into Mackerel. This in turn grabbed the attention of people looking over the end of the pier, who from their high vantage point, could see the Mackerel shoal and would guide us to it. Amazingly, what the fish were doing was sheltering underneath the pier itself, then rushing out to investigate potential sources of food, including as it turned out, Charlies feathers.
Some very good Cod, occasionally up in the 20 pound bracket would also pick up baits lobbed out from the jetty, particularly during 1970's and 80's when the famed Fylde Coast jumbo Cod era was underway. But unfortunately, because it was predominantly a Whiting and Dab venue, most people would not be geared up to suddenly have to cope with such a big fish, and as such, more often than not they would be lost. But not all of them. I certainly remember a 27 pounder finding its way onto the gratings. A fabulous fish. But not a patch on the surprise Peter Lowton got one summers day when he brought up a 13½ pound Turbot. Small Tope, Rays, Dogs, Gurnards and even Plaice have all been caught there, plus a Coalfish of 6½ pounds by Ralf Ball, and a Thick Lipped Grey Mullet of 4½ pounds by Dean Ottery. Mackerel fishing was always popular too on settled summer days. But while doing that, you always ran the risk of picking up Weevers which many will have encountered and in some cases even been stung by.
The end came for the North Pier jetty on Christmas Eve 1997 when a severe pounding left it in such bad shape that the owners felt forced to demolish it, saving their maintenance pot for the up-keep of listed structure main section. Understandable in some ways I suppose. But at the same time, a great shame and in-calculable loss, particularly that as a result, it left sea anglers with three piers, now sadly all controlled by clubs, none of which had a jetty. No more simply turning up on a nice winters evening, paying at the entrance, picking up a bit of bait from the shop, then settling down for a session with the Tilley lamp for light and warmth for what would invariably be both an enjoyable as well as fruitful experience. There was a camaraderie there too. And on a good sized tide after dark once the illuminations had finished, there would be evenings when you would struggle even to find yourself a vacant peg. Where are all of those people now. Where too are all those fish we used to catch. And finally, where is the freedom to turn up, pay, and walk out so far over the sea that we all used to enjoy.