A Man Of Many Talents - Part 1

That familiar intro to the Fox Challenge videos bills Mark Pitchers—in his own words—as a wader-wearing, tea-drinking, beard-trimming carp freak. But he’s so much more than that. A former England youth international match angler and tackle shop owner, Mark is a hugely accomplished fisherman with an entrepreneurial flair. Sitting beside his own lakes on the edge of the North York Moors in the early spring sunshine, you wonder just how often he’s able to reflect on everything he’s achieved. Luckily, we had time to do just that… 

Are you aware of how different your life is compared to most people’s?
“Yes it is, and yes, I’m quite aware of that. It’s different every day as well and I don’t have any sort of routine. There’s the angling-consultancy part of my job, which involves going fishing and filming; then I have the fishery-owner part of my job; and I have my new business as well: the competitions. Every day is very, very different, but they do all sort of merge into one, which makes things a little hectic at times. For many people, it might be their dream to go fishing for a living. The reality is, though, that I don’t think you can make a living from just fishing. There has to be other things, but yes, I am aware of how different my own life is.”

You say that every day is different, but do you have a master plan, or a vision of where you want to be in, say, a year’s time or five years’ time?
“I think things will change. My wife is moving to England and so now I do have to start to think of the long-term. I have plans for the fishery and things I’d like to do on the competition-side of things. In terms of my angling, though, I just want to keep going, and enjoying it for as long as I possibly can.”

What are your thoughts on fame and celebrities in angling? A lot of the old-school anglers dislike it, but do you see it as a good, or a bad thing?
“I don’t think there is such a thing as fame, or that there are celebrities within angling. I would certainly never think of myself as famous, or as a celebrity. No, I just wouldn’t think like that. I don’t know, do other anglers see themselves like that? I’m not sure…”

From the outside looking in, you’ve probably inspired just as many youngsters as Matt Hayes and John Wilson did when they were on the telly. Does that thought ever stop you in your tracks?
“I don’t know whether it’s a lack of belief or self-confidence, but I don’t really think like that. I don’t know. I find it a little hard to take that in, if I’m honest.”

You’re always very generous with your time at shows, and you’ll always pose for photos. Whether you like it or not, you have that personality, and youngsters especially will watch episodes of The Challenge time and time again. They obsess over those like previous generations might’ve done A Passion For Angling, and it’s not too much of a leap, surely, to say that…
“If that’s the case, then I’d be very honoured to think that I can inspire people to go fishing. My main role model when I was growing up was John Wilson. It sounds silly, but that’s who I wanted to be, and I almost pretended to be him. [laughing] That’s what I wanted to be, and I don’t compare myself to someone like that now, not for a second, but it would be nice if I have inspired people to go fishing, and even perhaps, inspired them to make a career from it.” 

When The Challenge first started, presumably you and Harry Charrington didn’t think that it would go on to be one of the most successful online carp-fishing series ever? Did it seem like just another job, or did you think, Hang on, this could be really good! 
“The series was never meant to be how it’s become. It was just a case of Harry filming everything and then putting things in that I didn’t think would ever make it onto the film. I used to think, Nah, you can’t put that in… you can’t ’ave me saying that. It’s not that I’m any different off camera, and that’s the thing, you can’t maintain an act on film. It’s impossible, and I’ve always just been myself. But as I say, I wasn’t sure about some of the things that went in.

“I remember the first film, and Lewis Porter—I hope he doesn’t mind me mentioning his name—saying, ‘What’s this?’ and ‘Why are you mentioning that?’ or ‘You can’t talk about that, it’s got nothing to do with fishing…’ Then I thought about how little we actually talk about fishing, when we’re fishing. If you talked about fishing all the time, it’d be boring, wouldn’t it? Can you imagine spending two days on the bank talking about nothing but fishing? It couldn’t happen, and it doesn’t happen, surely?”

Did Harry have to fight to keep those bits in?
“No, it was only after the filming that Lewis became unsure about them, and I think for a couple of episodes he came along to keep us in check! Then, before the fourth episode he said, ‘I’m not going to come anymore, because you just do what you want to do anyway… there’s no point in me being there.’” [laughing]

Did you think, then, that you’d just do a couple of episodes, they’d go on YouTube and they’d get whatever number of views they’d get? Or was it a case of when the video went online, did you keenly monitor the comments to see how the films were received?
“In those days, I would always read the comments. I would take some of them to heart, but I was looking to see what people thought of the first film, and wanted to take on board some of the criticisms. Not all of them, though, were constructive, and back then they did play on my mind a bit. Now, I couldn’t care less.”

Were you aware of those comments when you filmed later episodes, and did you question yourselves, remembering what you’d been criticised for earlier in the series? Or did you shrug them off and perhaps do certain things even more?
“Back then, I might’ve curbed it. Now, I would definitely do more.” [laughing] 

As you said, you couldn’t do those things if you were putting on an act…
“Now, negative comments don’t bother me at all. If you’ve seen any of my recent Instagram posts, some are there to prod people a little bit. [laughing] The odd thing is, I even set them up like that, but not everyone takes the hint that I’m deliberately prodding to get a reaction.”

You feature ‘Mark’s Musings’ in the films; is that your natural self, and have you always had that playful side to your personality? Presumably, those pieces aren’t contrived for the films at all…?
“No. Harry’s really the only person I’ve been out filming with, and the camera’s rolling pretty much all the time—it must all be a nightmare to edit. Like I say, it’s impossible to keep up any kind of act for, say, a 48-hour session. There are times, then, when stuff’ll be picked up, unlike what you’d get if someone suddenly poked a camera in your face and said, ‘Action! Go!’ I think the fact that the camera’s always on has made it so natural.”

What was your relationship with Harry like before you filmed The Challenge? 
“Obviously we got on well before we started filming the series. I’m not sure, but I believe it was around 2012 when Harry joined Fox, and I’d gone to them a little bit before him. We got on really well. I think, though, that filming the series cemented our friendship. We had a great working relationship, and a great friendship developed as well.”

And things sprang from that, like In Pursuit of Carpiness? 
“Yes.”

You chose to put that out on DVD, and you sold shedloads. Were you surprised by the film’s success, especially given the format?
“We sold quite a lot. I was surprised, yes, and I remember launching the first In Pursuit of Carpiness at the Northern Angling Show. It was absolutely ridiculous! The queue of people wanting to buy a DVD was like a snake, and it went all round the hall. They all waited patiently, though—some for over an hour. I was completely blown away by it all. We ordered nowhere near enough DVDs and I think we sold out within a couple of weeks.”

Has it been reprinted, then?
“Yes. I believe we had two or three reprints of the first one. When we brought out the second film, though, we’d moved on a few years and everything was digital, pretty much, rather than hard copies of DVDs.”

You had pictures on your Instagram page of all the DVDs ready to post, around Christmas…
“Yeah, our local post office actually kicked us out! We had sacks and sacks and sacks, and I’d even forewarned them. I said, ‘Look, in a few days’ time, I’ll have loads to post,’ but on the second or third visit, when I got to the door, the sub-postmaster literally chased me out… he saw me coming, and he chased me out!” [laughing]

That’s a sign of success, surely?
“Maybe, yeah.”

Where were they all going? What parts of the world did you send them to?
“All over Europe… it was a crazy response. I’d love to do another one, but I’m not sure we ever will. I’d like to do another, just to round it all off with a big finale. As the title says, we are ‘in pursuit of carpiness’, and we haven’t found it yet. There has to be an ending, somewhere.”

That was an independently made film, wasn’t it, not a Fox production?
“Yes, it was Harry’s and my project. It was totally self-funded and completely self-produced.”

There was some risk involved, then?
“Yes, some risk, and there was a huge initial outlay. It was a project we’d toyed with for a while, and we were quite nervous, having considered the logistics and how we’d have to post tackle to various destinations. Then there was the cost of the flights, so the initial outlay was thousands of pounds of our own money, which we wondered whether we’d ever see again.”

Did that play on your mind during your fishing?
“Oh yes, totally. For the first In Pursuit of Carpiness we’d planned ten days of filming, but we extended that to fourteen and headed off to another destination. We thought we had ten days to film the most epic carp movie ever made, and if we didn’t, we’d have wasted thousands of pounds. If it had been crap, it wouldn’t have seen the light of day. We were 100 per cent committed to making something that hadn’t been done before. That’s what we wanted, and at that time, in the style that we made it, I don’t think it had been done before.

“We made In Pursuit of Carpiness 2 two or three years later, and we went literally to the other side of the world. We started off in Norway, and from there we went to Kazakhstan. Then, from Kazakhstan we went to Germany. It was good, but we didn’t feel as though we had enough to put it on a par with the first film. We did it again, and we made it an even longer and bigger adventure.”

Do you have footage that has never been aired, then?
“It would still have been a good film if we’d have left it as it was, but having initially wrapped it up in the summer, we then went back the following spring on another little adventure, so it was two road trips and we filmed both, obviously.

“At the end of the first trip, I lost a really big fish. We were at this park-type lake, and we’d been feeding a mid-fifty with pieces of bread. It was the greediest fish we’d ever seen, and it was shoulder-barging other carp out of the way to get to the bread. Nothing else got a look-in, and it was like, ‘How could we fail?’ We had only the bread with us, so I legged it back to the van and returned with a rod, a reel, and a net. By then though, about 50 geese had eaten everything!” [laughing]

During your early fishing, which venues did you travel to? In order to get material into magazines that might appeal to a wider audience, given that the North East was then a little barren as far as carp waters were concerned, where did you visit?
“I didn’t venture too far, initially. I fished Selby 3 Lakes quite a lot. That was a day-ticket venue at the time, and had only just changed from being a syndicate. I did pretty well on there for a couple of years. I think it was an hour-and-half drive then, and I was even doing overnighters there, between workdays. I’d opened a tackle shop, called Carp Crazy.”

Is the shop still there?
“It’s moved, but yes, Carp Crazy is still going today. Originally it was in Stokesley, not too far from Middlesbrough. I opened the shop in 1999, and yeah, I was fishing overnighters whilst I was there, and even going down for evening sessions. I spent a couple of years on Selby 3 Lakes, and then Bluebell was the first venue I really travelled to, as such.

“I wasn’t on Bluebell long enough, unfortunately. I caught the fish I wanted on only my third session, and I just sort flitted about after that. I started writing for carp magazines pretty much straight away. Even though I was a relative newcomer, I had a writing background from my match fishing, and because I’d fished at quite a high level, I think I had some different perspectives, or different approaches. Perhaps it was that I had a different writing style? I’m not sure, but there was something there that the magazines liked. When I submitted pieces, the magazines wanted to run with them almost straight away.

“It’s a bit different perhaps, an angler coming from quite a high level of coarse competitions into carp fishing. I guess some were wondering how I’d fare. I think, though, that I did well from the off.”

Read part two by tapping here!