Keith Mott

Holiday Breakaway (Part 1) 

The month of August saw ten of us drive down the M4 Motorway, for a weeks family holiday in the Cotswold. Our family is getting bigger and bigger and with the recent arrival of baby Sophia, we now have four grand children, in the form of Sasha, Katie and Ryan. Betty and I, normal have a week away in the summer with all the kids, staying in a caravan and try to fly away some where abroad to get some winter sun on our own, after Christmas.

The family is getting so big now, we had to have two caravans this year! All the elder grand children love the pigeons and always hand feed my young birds on the loft floor, when they come over at the weekends. The eldest is Sasha, aged six, and she is a natural with animals and she has a wonderful repour with the pigeons, just like her mother had when she was a youngster. My daughter, Caroline, was my pigeon partner when she was a girl and judged on her own at many shows, including a couple times at the R.P.R.A. Southern Region Show. She was a great judge and a wonderful handler of pigeons, but my son, Mark, was never interested in pigeons. Mark has followed in his ol’ man’s foot steps and is a first class carpenter / joiner by trade, and has always been very keen on football and fishing. When he was ten years old, he caught a 10lb. Pike and unhooked it, and returned it by him self. I’ve got an old photo of him holding the Pike and it was nearly as long as him! It’s true to say that young Sasha would not hurt a fly; she loves all animals and is very keen on gardening, growing her own seeds in pots on her flat balcony. She had her own three latebred squeakers, in her own 4ft. rabbit hutch this season and soon had them tame and eating out of her hand. All the kids picked out a blue pied hen in the main young bird team this season, bred by my good friend Tommy Gilbertson of Carlisle, and called it, ‘White Top’, and in her three races was never out of the first three birds home, being the first bird on the clock once. I hope to take Sasha with me judging this winter!

Where we stayed on holiday in South Cerney near Cirencester, it is well known for being a ‘Mecca’ of coarse fishing, with it’s hundreds of premier quality fisheries. We are pretty keen on a bit of angling and normally set a side a couple days of the holiday for drowning a few maggots. At that time the Cotswold fishing was ‘off form’ and we didn’t do much, being very disappointed with what we had a go at. We are members of the Woking & District Angling Association and on the weekend of our return from holiday we decided to have a go at one of our local club lakes at Send, to offset the disappointment of the holiday fishing. Just picture the situation, it’s mid-day on Sunday, I‘ve left it to late to get bate, as the three local tackle shops close at 12 o’clock and I’ve promised Betty that I would take her fishing! I wasn’t to keen on going in the end, with no real bate, but I promised, so off we went down the A3, armed with two tins of sweet corn and about three handfuls of ground bait, which was about two years old. Being a very good fishery, there were a lot of anglers there enjoying the sunny weather and their Sunday afternoon sport, but we managed to get two swims side by side and mine was 60% covered in water lilies.

A really hard swim to work, that’s why on one was on it when we arrived on site! Second cast and I had a 2lb. Tench on the bank and I started to think to my self, ‘this is not all bad’. About an hour after we arrived, the young lad on the next swim packed up, because he hadn’t caught much and he gave me his left over maggots, so the bait situation improved a little bit. It just goes to show you, a bad swim, very little bait and it turned out to be the best five hours fishing I’ve had in a long time! I finished up catching seven Crucian Carp, loads of Perch (biggest 1lb.), loads of good Roach (including two at 1lb), a 1lb. Bream and two nice Tench (2lb. and 1lb.). Not bad for an ol’ boy with a bit of string and a safety pin! They say, ‘when it’s your day, it’s your day’, and it was my day, I couldn’t do anything wrong. The swim I was on, was very high on the bank and had to return the bigger fish by using the landing net. I returned one of the 1lb. Roach using the net and when I pulled it back out of the water it had a Crucian Carp in it. I just couldn’t go wrong! Betty caught some nice Crucian Carp, Bream and Tench, but apart from our wonderful haul, not much else came out of the lake that afternoon. Fishing is very much like pigeon racing, it is a waiting game which needs a lot of patience. Some times fancier send pigeon to races and are not confident of getting success, and then win the race. Angling can be very much the same!

I’ve had a long standing arrangement with my good friend, Bill Harris of Elton, that if I was ever in his area I would stop off at his home and visit him. Well, where we were staying in the Cotswold, is only a few miles from his Gloucestershire home, so he arranged two loft visits, so we could have a pigeon day out together in Wales. Bill and I served together on the National Flying Club committee together, when he was President and since that time we have been good friends. The Wednesday saw me breakaway from the family unit for the pigeon day out and I must say, Bill, did us proud, arranging visits to two of the very best lofts in Wales, in the form of John & Ann Rake and Wilf & Janet Reed. I will be doing reports on these two long distance lofts over the next two weeks. This week let’s have a little feature on Bill Harris, to kick off our ‘Holiday breakaway’ series!

BILL HARRIS

of Elton

Bill Harris was born in Chatham, Kent, and when he was two years old, moved house and was brought up in Portchester in Hampshire. His late father, Bill senior, raced pigeons, as does his brother, David, who lives In Gosport and races as Mr & Mrs D. Harris. Bill says he can't remember a time when pigeons weren't around. He joined the Portchester Boys' Club as a nine year old and remembers with affection those days in the early 1960s, as he and David followed in their father's footsteps. Bill remarked to me, 'You could say pigeons were in our family's blood!' His first birds were bred out of his father's race team and were no particular bloodlines or strain. Bill senior was a very good friend of Cyril Lowe of Guernsey and Cyril sent birds over every year for Bill senior to try out. Bill can't remember his first winner but a good performance he recalls was when he was about 12 years of age and this was with a white cock bird from the La Rochelle race. Scrubbs & Laurel Harvey had the only bird on the day and Bill got up early next morning to see if any thing had arrived home. At about 7am he had to go and deliver papers on his regular round for a local newsagent. Halfway around he saw his only entry, the white cock, coming out of the west, heading for home. Bill threw the papers in to a hedge, raced off home about 2 miles away, got the pigeon in the loft, took off the rubber and then had to cycle 3 miles to Laurel's house to clock in his arrival, He didn't have his own clock in those days and took 2nd. club in the La Rochelle race. After clocking in he went back and completed the paper round, with a few I people moaning that their Sunday morning papers were late. The young Bill was very keen on football and thought he was quite good as a centre forward, but sadly the local clubs didn't see his potential, He tells me that, despite that, he still supports the best football club on the south coast, Portsmouth. . In the early days, Bill remembers the late Jack Inch of Portchester putting up some brilliant performances. One memory Bill has was when he was about 8 years old, seeing the late Ran Mitcheison of Winchester at the N.F.C. Oxford marking station. He says he will never forget him with his lumberjack style shirt sleeves rolled up over his biceps, a most formidable man and brilliant fancier. Bill started racing in 1960, joining the Portchester Boys' Club, formed a partnership with his dad in 1965 and flew as W. Harris & Son. Brother David I took over the 'Son' role in 1969, when the young Bill got the bug for the other type of non-feathered birds. Bill got lucky and married his wonderful wife, Julie, in 1970, but didn't keep pigeons of his own at this stage, but visited his dad's loft on race days. He started up again in 1987 and joined the NFC in that year. He classes his novice days as when he started up in 1987; prior to that he was serving his apprenticeship under his father.

Bill's present loft at Elton is 24ft long, 8ft wide, split into three sections and is of wooden construction, with a tiled roof. He has open-door trapping, maintaining it can't be beaten, but has stall traps for the young birds to steady them down. One section has nest boxes for pairing up, the second parting is for the young birds and the third is for the hens when they are on the roundabout system. He tends to use deep litter in the winter months; this is usually barley and straw and is just for his convenience, because of the short days and, with his work commitments, not having much time to clean out. He thinks a loft has got to be practical and has to be constructed to fit in with your system and lifestyle. It has to be dry and well ventilated. The loft also has to be of a standard where neighbours see it as part of the garden and not an eyesore. Bill uses the roundabout method to race his old birds. He has 15 nest boxes, so keeps up to 30 old birds for racing and pairs up early to mid-February, when he can have a few days off work to be there in case of any problems. They rear a youngster each and some are under laid from other pairs. When they have gone down on their second round and sitting about 10 days, the hens are taken away to let the cocks sit for as long as they want. Usually after 2 or 3 days the cocks desert the eggs and that's when the system starts. The flying time around the loft is increased and training starts. At their peak his birds fly for an hour easily, morning and evening. The hens are usually better than the cocks and a couple of training tosses anywhere during the week sets them up to start the season. He feeds a good mixture during the racing season and has no preference of brand, but it must be dust free. Motivation is the key to his system. Bill maintains that a bird can be the fittest in the loft but if the motivation is not there you might as well save your money and not send it, because it won't win. He tries all weird and wonderful ways of motivating his birds. One off-beat method that Bill used ended up with him winning 1st club, 1st Berkshire Federation, 1st Open UBI Combine (3,000 birds) from Sartilly. He says that, for this, he must thank Gerry Mason of Amcotts in Lincolnshire, who told him what, when and how to do it. Bill trains the birds during the racing season, with a couple of tosses during the week, and likes single-up training. He quite regularly drives down to Portsmouth early in the morning, leaving at about 4am and leaves his birds with his good friend, Cyril Hallett, who singles them up for Bill, this being about a 100-mile fly to the Elton loft.

Bill loves long-distance racing and says he wants to win every race he enters, but is always prepared to shake the hand of the winner. Sportsmanship is something that he feels is lacking within our hobby. He likes Classic and especially the NFC racing and, with the way the National races were set up for 2002 and previous years, his birds go to Nantes and Pau on the roundabout system and are then re-paired for the Saintes National. He prefers Nantes, Saintes and then Pau. The reason for this is that it's a natural stepping-stone for the ultimate race, the NFC Grand National event. In Bill's case, it's 318 miles, 428 miles and then Pau, which is 593 miles. He says it is like a marathon runner; they build up for the big race, with smaller runs before entering the main event. All his birds go to the first and last races; that doesn't mean he sends every week but he picks out the races for them and they must fly certain distances before being entered in any of the Classic or National races.

Bill says he has been lucky enough to win some good positions over the years including: 1st Open UBI Combine Sartilly; 1st NW Section, 144th Open CSCFC Rennes; 8th Open NFC Saintes; 9th Open NFC Saintes; 1st Section G, 21st. Open NFC Guernsey (old hens); 1st Old Hens Championship; 2nd NW Section, 3rd Open CSCFC Bergerac, with the only bird flying over 500 miles on the day, plus many other premier positions. A good team performance was when he sent 25 birds to Saintes, 428 miles, with the NFC, got 22 home on the day, clocked 18 birds and recorded 12 of them in the National result. He says that was a good day! Bill smiled when he told me that his most thrilling experience was in 1989 when he timed in his good slatey hen, ‘Wilma’, bred by his dad in 1987, to win 1st NW Section, 13th Open

CSCFC Pau. This was the year when Avis & Son won the race with their good pigeon, ‘Maddy’. The birds were held over until. the Sunday, with a late liberation, and there was a strong north-east wind on the birds faces. Bill was working in the garden and saw her coming from a long way off, clocking the game hen at 9.40am on the Monday. Bill says he still gets excited when he thinks of that day. He keeps about six pairs of stock birds and usually obtains a couple of birds each year from a winning loft. Bill will breed from these birds and underlay the eggs under the race birds to get a few extra youngsters off them to try out. He usually pairs the stock birds up around mid-January and generally gives the first round away to his friends. Bill breeds approximately 40 young birds each year and tries to bring in half a dozen from a good racing loft each to try out. The darkness system has never been tried for no other reason than he hasn't got the set-up for it. His youngsters are trained well and only lightly raced but he splits them and races on a form of roundabout system. The following year they are expected to fly Saintes, 428 miles.

That’s it for this week’s article! Next week we will be featuring one of the very best long distance set ups in Wales, in the form of John & Ann Rake. Anyone wanting tips on fishing please ring me on: 01372 463480. HA! HA! Only joking! See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.