Hooking a tench with a Labour MP

Martin Salter, MP for Reading West, is on a mission.

In recent months, Salter has campaigned on behalf of John Bercow, the new speaker of the House of Commons, and for the beleaguered gurkha soldiers. Today, his ambition is more personal. “I’m on a quest for a double-figure tench,” he says.

It’s early morning, and we’re making our way through the trees to a lake that he hopes will provide the longed-for 10lb fish. That the Labour MP is willing to get up before dawn to go fishing is no surprise: as well as looking after his constituents, he is parliament’s angling spokesman.

Bob Sherwood (left) and Martin Salter

When I heard Salter was fishing at a lake at Burghfield, Reading, near where I grew up, I was eager to join him. This was a trip back to my childhood summers. Though it is more than two decades since I fished these waters as a boy, every path and clearing is still familiar. I also knew how difficult the fishing was – in only 100 acres of water, there lurk a few huge tench and carp. Finding them is a problem.

Salter remains grounded in his constituency (he has no second home), and reels off his favourite fishing spots and the exact number of minutes it takes him to drive to them. “Reading is one of the best places in the country to be an angler because there are rivers and lakes everywhere,” he says.

Salter and his friend Richard have been baiting this small bay – almost a separate lake connected to the main body of water by a narrow channel – for days in an attempt to draw in the fish. They plan to fish here intensively in the coming weeks.

“The reason it isn’t packed with people is because it’s bloody hard,” he says. Richard, who has fished through the night, has already hooked and then lost a large tench this morning, just as it neared his net. The near-miss is a source of both hope and disappointment.

Groundbait flavoured with maggots

Salter sets to work casting bait out to an adjacent area. Groundbait flavoured with molasses, maggots, hempseed and sweetcorn is laid some 30 yards out. He then measures two fishing lines precisely, so that his hookbaits are fishing exactly over the groundbait.

Tench are early risers in the summer, feeding from dawn to midday, so time is of the essence. As the sun lifts above the trees that enclose us, Salter wipes his hands on a rag made from a pair of his old underpants. We settle down to wait.

There is a disturbance across the bay, and Richard is on his feet playing a heavy fish. By the time I reach him, it is in the net. He parts the folds of mesh to reveal a carp that pulls his scales down to 22lb 8oz. As he unhooks it, his hands are shaking. We go back to waiting.

Fishing was one of the influences that drew Salter to Reading – and to politics – 25 years ago. He used the redundancy money from a job as a Heathrow cargo worker to put a deposit on a house in Reading. It backed on to the river Kennet, so that he could fish for barbel from his garden.

He was soon involved in a fight to overturn the local authority’s ban on angling on Reading’s promenade along the Thames. He then found himself standing for the council.

A bleep from an electronic bite indicator interrupts Salter’s reminiscences. It means there are fish moving in the area, though the movement was probably caused by a tench brushing the line rather than mouthing the bait. We stare at the indicator bobbin, willing it to move. “Come on, baby…” Salter murmurs to himself.

As parliament’s angling voice, Salter has tried to show that Labour is not against the sport. “There was never this left-wing conspiracy to ban angling,” he snorts. “That was always bollocks.”

But angling has not been the easiest pursuit to represent, given a lack of co-ordinated leadership. “Fishing has never punched its weight [politically],” Salter says. However, he is optimistic following the creation of the Angling Trust as the sport’s new unified representative body in January. “There is more public money going into fishing than ever before,” he says.

As the wait goes on, I stroll around the lake, remembering fishing days from my youth. I pass the spot where my friend Nick caught a 17lb pike, a bigger fish than we had ever dreamed of, when we were 14. I am surprised how little has changed – and Salter bears some responsibility for that. He has just led a successful fight against the building of 7,500 houses on this floodplain. “This spot would have been covered in concrete,” he says.

The conversation pauses as we both scan for signs of fish – tench often betray their presence by sending up streams of tiny bubbles. “Hello, we’ve got some bubbles,” Salter says. “We’ve got fish moving out there.”

However, just at that moment, a young bailiff arrives to check Salter’s permit. Recognising him, he grills the MP for the latest news on the housing development plan.

“I have a slight problem being the MP for the area because everybody talks to me while I’m fishing,” he grins sardonically. “That’s why I’ve just bought a boat, because then they can’t get to you.”

He plans to spend more time exploring the Thames in his new boat after he stands down from parliament at the next election – a decision taken long before the rush of expenses-driven departures in recent months. At 56, he appears to have more fishing ambitions left than political ones: “If I had a choice between being a member of the cabinet and catching a 3lb roach, I’d probably take the roach.” I don’t think he’s joking.

Richard is on his feet across the lake again, playing what looks like a good tench. But again, agonisingly, it slips free. Salter shrugs, knowing he will return repeatedly until he lands the tench he is chasing.

For all his evident desire for a memorable catch, fishing offers him more than the thrill of capture. It is the antithesis of the glare and hustle of public life. “Fishing teaches you to be happy in your own company,” he says, “and it gives you space to think.”

As we pack up, I find a link with my childhood home unexpectedly rekindled, and I am suddenly keen to return to the simpler fishing style of my youth. Salter has inspired me. How many MPs can you say that about?

pursuits@ft.com

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The details

Permits for Burghfield lake are controlled by Cemex Angling, www.cemexangling.co.uk.

Martin Salter’s campaigns and fishing pictures can be seen at www.martinsalter.com