Photo : Star cast - Robson demonstrates perfect technique at Clapham Common Pond.
Luke Leitch and his hero Robson Green go in search of the elusive Clapham Common carp.
Sharks in Senegal, stingrays in South Australia, sardines in Sri Lanka, salmon in Siberia – and those are just the S’s.
In the company of Robson Green, I’ve seen some of the world’s most beautiful rivers and coastlines, and chased some incredible fish along the way.
Of course only Green was physically there: rod in hand and effervescent with the unadulterated enthusiasm for piscine pursuit that makes him such an engaging vicarious fishing companion. I, meanwhile, was sitting on my sofa, enraptured by Extreme Fishing With Robson Green.
This is a show that combines the fish-flavoured cosmology of Izaak Walton with the derring-do of John Buchan via the knowingly-knockabout howay delivery of its presenter. As you might have gathered, I’m a fan. And today I really am fishing with Robson Green.
Unfortunately, Robson has a meeting with ITV at midday. I have fashion pages to proof. So time is of the essence. Yet the nearest sailfish (“they’re 250 pounds, they go at seventy miles an hour: they’re hydrodynamically perfect”) is flashing through the briny somewhere off Costa Rica.
Extreme Fishing is extremely hard to find in central London – so this morning we are fishing for carp on Clapham Common.
We are here because after five years broadcasting 'Extreme Fishing’, Channel 5 has unfathomably allowed this whopper of a show, its most entertaining by far, to get away.
Blessedly, the Discovery Network has swooped like a seagull chasing a chip and commissioned Green to make a slightly tweaked version called “Extreme Fisherman” – which is currently being broadcast in the UK on Quest TV.
Beggars can’t be choosers, and yet Green confesses as we approach the pond that he is unsure about carp fishing.
It’s not the fish – “I’ve eaten carp in India, Thailand, China ... oh, they were massive, big-eyed carp in China. Huge ! Beautiful ! The quality of the water is fantastic ! ” - but more the people who fish for them.
Some catch-and-release anglers have criticised his catch-and-consume penchant for game fishing.
Green, though, insists “if you are fishing with rod and line you are not putting a dent into numbers – we are not pillaging the oceans. If anything it is the anglers who care for the rivers and oceans. We are the ones who pay our rod licences and who check the environment is intact and healthy ... but that feeling when you get when the float goes on the line !
A huge rush goes through your body. I swear it is your forefathers calling – that is the hunter-gatherer in you. By design we are meant to eat fish, they taste bloody good and they are superb for you.”
At the pond our prospects seem bleak. The sun is already high in the sky – it’s definitely not carp o’clock. But the locals are enchanting. Dr Iain Boulton, the park’s officer, a 22-year-old named Jack Moss who has been fishing here for years and who keeps the pond clean, and anglers Paul Tubby and Andrew Pearson are almost as eager to lend us their tackle as they are to take selfies with Green.
The flushed proprietress of a nearby sandwich van gives him a free cup of tea. As we circle the pond in search of effective camera angles, Green casts effortlessly. With his direction I try one, left-handed – my first cast in over a decade – and try not to look too chuffed as the line arcs towards Clapham North.
Green was taught to fish from the age of seven by his uncle, Matheson.
“He had a beautiful ballet-like action, fantastic. Fly fishing is about feel, and he got me into that. Once you catch a fish on the fly it is very difficult to go and use a different method.”
Green duly passed Matheson’s lessons “to 'think fish’, and understand the light, and the water temperature” on to his son Taylor (there is a family tradition of using surnames as givens). Taylor used to fish quite a bit but, at “14 going on 15”, understandably has other interests at the moment.
As an actor, Green has had a highly successful career most often playing handsomely approachable heroes after the template of Soldier Soldier. There was also the pop career with Jerome Flynn, that saw Robson and Jerome’s cover of Unchained Melody become the biggest selling single of 1995.
Between casts, one of the Clapham anglers matily (with an undertow of something less so) inquires when their next release will be – “you could do Fog On The Tyne !” - and Green winces. “That,” he says: “was my Vietnam.”
Extreme Fishing – now Extreme Fisherman – started when a producer named Hamish Barber read an interview conducted with Green while on location in Texas, in which he mentioned in passing his love of fly fishing.
“The Texan thought I meant catching flies,” but Barber thought Green should do a fishing show. Green demurred, but Barber explained the concept – travelling to incredible places in search of incredible fish – and the actor was (sorry) hooked.
Robson Green Extreme Fisherman, Luke Leitch, 10/08/2014