I received an e-mail last night informing me of the sad demise of an angling legend, Eric Hodson. Co-founder of the BCSG, and leader of a number of Specimen Groups in the South Yorkshire area, notably the Rockingham group, back in the 1980's - 1990's.

Each of the folk that met him will no doubt have a tale to tell, and here is mine:-

I met Eric a few times back in the 90's.
On one memorable occasion he was fishing with a pal of mine, and another specimen hunting legend, Dr Rex Elgood.
It was a relaxed occasion, with much banter and chat going on, interrupted when Eric got a screamer of a run.
The only difficulty was that he was using a new outfit which included a type of baitrunner (a D.A.M. Quick I think), that couldn't be adjusted for tension, it was locked up, or completely free spool, nothing in between.
Anyway away went the fish, the spool blurring spectacularly, his alarm was giving a single tone scream, but Eric still hadn't managed to reach his rods, when it all went horribly pear shaped.
Somehow or other a loop of line had been trapped on the reel, and this flicked itself round either the handle or the bail arm, and the reel stopped. But not for long!
Suddenly the rod lurched forward on the pod, dragging it over and depositing the other rods on top of the still connected one.
With a clatter it all shot across the front of the swim dragging the pod and the other rods with it. It was these that Eric managed to stop from disappearing into Drax's weedy depths, alas however not the rod attached to the fish.
The outfit was never seen again, despite much casting around, and it is still in there as far as I know.

So if anyone wants a memento of Eric, its someplace near peg 30 to this day, as far as I know.

Goodbye Eric, God bless.

BOF ;)