In a welcome respite from the day job, Horstmann East Midlands Area Sales Manager Jim Forbes took a group of installers, heating engineers and distributor staff away from it all for a tranquil spot of fishing.
The tranquillity was however upset by mother nature who intervened in dramatic style!
“We had an unexpectedly dramatic day courtesy of the weather and the daddy of all electric storms but in-between times the tranquil scenes associated with a spot of fishing were also in evidence,” advises Jim.
The location was Messingham Sands Fishery near Scunthorpe and in attendance was the familiar Horstmann ‘butty wagon’ and its operator Colin Dawson. The vehicle visits dozens of merchants in a year round touring programme to promote Horstmann central heating products to the installer and dispense early morning coffee and bacon rolls.
“The June event all started very tranquil and after drawing our peg’s we were all fishing in what you could say were perfect ‘fishing’ weather conditions - warm, overcast skies and hardly any wind at all” describes Jim. “But not for long. The heavens opened and we were greeted with a most spectacular thunder and lightning storm we have witnessed in some years; not what the average fisherman likes, particularly when holding a 12 metre pole in his hands!
“Needless to say we continued our fishing with pride and ended the day with brilliant sunshine and a total weight of approx 580lb of fish bagged between us. The overall winner for the June event was Gary Handsford of S&G Services in Grimsby weighing in at 120lb 8oz. The majority of fish caught were carp but everyone had mixed catches of silverfish, bream and tench.”
A second event in July was equally successful but this time blessed with rather better weather. The winning weight came from John Corke of H&E Plumbing of Grimsby with a weight of 96lb 10oz, followed very closely by Lee Prince of Connect Gas & Plumbing Specialists, Hull with 96lb 4oz.
