Carping Allegedly - April 23'

Old Haunts
I mentioned last month that I planned to throw a few leads around at Les Graviers again this year, and that is something I am certainly looking forward to enormously. I will also be returning to the lovely Echo Pool, near Limoges, a water I have fished on a couple of occasions on the past.

Echo Pool feels very much like a return to my youth. It’s small and quiet, and a really lovely place to waste a week of your life. Like so many small and intimate venues, though, it can’t half be frustrating!

Colin Cutts and I have had two trips to Echo Pool, and we’ve managed to get our string pulled a few times on each. A netful of serious ‘lumpage’, however, has so far eluded us. Here’s hoping our 2023 trip changes all that, although one thing’s for sure; we will enjoy our time there, irrespective of what happens.

The latter part of this summer will also see my long-awaited return to Andrew Bernard’s Priory Lake. I have fished Priory on several occasions in the past and have been fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of the lake’s big common on three separate occasions. The big mirrors, however, have always managed to avoid me. I live in hope that this might also change this year.

Priory Lake is testament to just what can be achieved through good fishery management and regular use of good-quality foodbaits. When I first went there in late May 2014, there were plenty of twenties and thirties, a handful of forties and the very occasional fifty. These days, the fish that swim there ensure the lake is right up there among the very best big-fish lakes in France.

An Accidental Tench
I know I am telling you what you already know when I say that carp are coarse fish, but we always categorise ourselves as carp anglers and not coarse anglers. This is entirely correct, of course, as after all, we are targeting one specific species, and not anything that happens to come along.

The downside of this is that those of you who have claimed other sizeable species whilst fishing for carp, should hang your heads in shame. They shouldn’t have been weighed and photographed, and they certainly shouldn’t have been counted! They should simply be carefully returned from whence they came and never spoken about again. Off the top of my head, my years of carp fishing have seen me ‘accidentally’ catch good-sized tench, bream, roach, catfish, pike and even black bass. None of them, however, have any place in my piscatorial portfolio.

A Year to Remember for the Dream Maker
I was skegging through the pages of CARPology 230 over Christmas and happened upon Tom Maker’s review of his 2022 season, which was another year’s fishing us mere mortals can only dream about. It is obvious that ‘the Dream Maker’ fishes a hell of a lot. He also has some great opportunities and is incredibly motivated, but even taking all that into account, the numbers make staggering reading: a seventy-pound common from Lake Zajarki in Croatia, a UK fifty, ten European fifties, four UK forties, twenty-six European forties and fifty-eight UK thirties! A few of those don’t count, obviously, on the grounds that they were caught on Zigs. Stick at it, though, Tom, as it will all come right in the end.

I also read—with considerable horror and dread—that our hero had 16 double takes and 3 triple takes. My God! I would rather get a ton of coal in! I just couldn’t cope with chaos like that, and wouldn’t hesitate to change tactics or wind a couple of rods in if I thought something like that was potentially on the cards. I suspect some of it can probably be put down to the current carp tigers’ trend of fishing all three rods at thirty-three wraps on one dinner plate-sized feeding spot. Not that I would want to, but my casting ability would no sooner allow me to do that than my ballet-dancing prowess would see me able to perform a faultless performance of Act Two of The Nutcracker! 

The Dream Maker’s 2022 stats also list another of his claims to fame, that he scoffed his way through over 40 McDonald’s in the year… he’s quite obviously lovin’ it!

You’ve Got it Easy!
Back in the late seventies and early eighties, when I was a fledgling carp tiger, I began fishing through the winters. In fact, the only thing that curtailed my efforts was the local waters freezing over to an extent that the ice couldn’t be broken. In those dark and distant days, we used to fish for the week armed with only a Wavelock brolly, supermarket sun lounger, five-quid sleeping bag and three Curly Wurlys!

These days, we carp angers have it easy. Heated blankets, heated sleeping bags and mattresses, heated cushions and USB-rechargeable heated clothing are available off the shelf from all good tackle shops—and some decidedly average ones!

It goes without saying that the vast majority of these products are aimed at the southern, shandy-drinking softies, but I do hear a few have been sold in the frozen North, too. Given also that bivvies and carpy clothing are much better than they have ever been, and that tackle companies have now reinvented the ever-faithful hot water bottle, the modern-day ‘carpist’ really has no excuse for ever getting a shiver on.

My old mate, Nick Elliott, who used to run Bankside Tackle in Sheffield, was an experienced mountain climber. I vividly remember him telling me that wearing a hat to prevent warmth from escaping from your body is something of an old wives’ tale, and that keeping your feet warm and dry at all times is far more important. Even though I am an avid flip-flop- and Croc-wearer during the summer months, I have always looked to take heed of Nick’s advice when the weather becomes a little more inclement.

Whilst on the subject of footwear and keeping your tootsies cozy, I cannot possibly move on without mentioning the current carping fashionistas’ trend of wearing white trainers on the bank. Gimme strength! I have always been a huge admirer of Roger Federer and have been lucky enough to see him play live on a couple of occasions. In addition to being one of the finest sportsman to have ever walked the Earth, he has always been a serious clothes horse.

On both the occasions I saw him, he was wearing an immaculate, white tracksuit top, pristine white shirt, shorts and socks, and matching white tennis shoes. Not once have I seen him in Korda Kombat boots, Nash Trails, or chesties with yellow braces. Why, therefore, do an increasing number of the carping community see fit to wander around muddy carp lakes in white trainers, footwear that is much more suited to Centre Court, Wimbledon? It’s not big, it’s not clever, and take my word for it, it’s not even remotely carpy. Sort yourselves out!