If you’ve got a TV, you’ve probably never even thought about chicken fishing.
However it’s a major past time ‘oop here, and, I understand, about to become a major spectator sport on the TV sets of the south.
This traditional sport has its roots running back to the Norman Conquest, when the French invaders imposed a poultry curfew across the north of England following the Buff Orpington uprising of Kirkby Lonsdale.
Any poultry found on the streets after sun down would be put to the sword, but a kindly Norman knight took to saving the slower birds of the North by getting them into their housing. Whilst his intentions were good, being of Norman descent, the birds refused to trust him and he often had immense difficulty in getting the birds into their housing.
To overcome this the Knight dressed himself in a 6′ 6″ chicken costume and this seemed to work, allowing him to get closer enough to the hens in order to pick them up.
Over the years this story became transmogrified into the celebratory sport of Chicken Fishing. In Chicken Fishing, you have to catch one chicken in one hand and then use this cheicken as bait in order to attract a second chicken which you then grab in your other hand, after which you deposit both birds in the hen house to score maximum points (the scoring is a bit like sheep dog trials). Obviously the requirement for a bird in each hand means it’s a sport generally practised with chicks.
So it was that I found myself recently playing Chicken Fishing for the first time. Kate and I had allowed the chicks to have the run of the garden during the day, but wanted to have them enclosed at night – we’ve had no problems with predation but we’d rather be safe than sorry.
Hence my requirement to turn my hand to Chicken Fishing – I managed to grab the Light Sussex chick and found myself able to use it as bait in order to catch the potential Buff Sussex chick. Surprising how fast they can run at that size, but fortunately the use of hen bait gives man the edge.
Both birds in the shed inside 5 minutes.