There's always someone who does everything bigger and better

There can be nothing more interes-ting in life than the people we meet along whatever journey we have set out upon. Some will become friends; some will become mates that we bump into every now and again, whilst others will have varying degrees of influence on our existence. A few, however, will have a completely negative effect and very often leave you simply shaking your head in pure wonderment how this person had actually got so far in his or her own journey.

Recently I have come across a few that defy belief, and have unfortunately been added to an increasing list of individuals that I would never want to have anything to do with ever again. I have little doubt that we have all come across what I affectionally refer to as “the tee-shirt man”. You know the kind of guy I mean: been there, done that, he will say, when nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever you have done, no matter how fast or how big, he will have done it bigger and a whole lot faster. You recognise the sort: if you had had a wonderful summer holiday in Tenerife then his holiday would have been so much hotter and more wonderful in Elevenerife! One can only wonder at just how boring and sedentary their lives must be, if they have to make up about 90 per cent of it. There is also the fact they seem to have missed the point of doing something they profess to enjoy in the first place!

Now, I am not suggesting that carp fishing is any different to other walks of life; it will attract the most fervent of bullsh*tters and is actually a very rich environment for them to ply their ‘tee-shirt’ collecting stories.

A 1994 capture around the time that Tee-Shirt met Keith Jenkins – I didn’t laugh much, honest!

Back in the early nineties I had little to do with the civilian population, indeed the two waters I was concentrating on at the time were fished by very few people and I could (quite consciously) minimise my contact with anyone. That was until 1994 when I bumped into a fellow by the name of Keith Jenkins. I didn’t read magazines much back then, so didn’t realise that Keith had been writing in the mags for some time. He was also a very good friend of a guy called Dave Lane, and I would have to have been living on another planet if I wasn’t aware of what he was getting up to in carp fishing at the time (and continues to do so). Along with a couple of his other mates, they had all got a ticket for one of my local lakes, and I relished the opportunity to talk of waters such as Wraysbury and Horton. Heady times indeed, but it seemed that they were even more dizzying for others.

One extremely low life moron tried to get Keith and I banned by saying that Keith had drug paraphernalia in his bivvy. It was actually Jenks’ salt and pepper pots that he was referring to, and very ornate they were too! Drugs are something neither of us has ever done, and that is when I realised just how much damage people like that can do. Drug testing in the Army is a very real thing, and my career could have been in doubt if this sort of thing was believed. Vengeance, as the saying goes, was served as a cold dish with regards to that particular incident!

One other chap, who incidentally became known as ‘Tee-Shirt’, gave me the best laugh though. I was fishing very close to Keith one day, but so eager was this guy to tell me a tale on hearing that I had been fishing with Keith, he didn’t have a clue who my neighbour was. He stood in front of my brolly whilst Keith constructed breakfast, and told me at great length how he and Keith Jenkins had fished Darenth (Keith had never been near the place) and how much he had taught Keith, especially, and rather oddly, about fishing with peanuts. The story was in full bullsh*t flow when Keith came out of his bivvy and I said to Tee-Shirt, meet my mate Keith Jenkins. They had never met of course, and I will never forget his embarrassment as he searched for a hole to disappear into. Priceless!

Fishing is all about the anticipation of what might be… or at least it should be!

And, it seems, that attitude still prevails today just as strongly as it did back then. I can only talk from personal experience of course, but I have heard countless stories and many of them revolve around my mates, that are total rubbish and quite simply underline the fact that some have forgotten what fishing is all about in the first place. I have helped a few local lads get into carp fishing, and most continue to be very happy and grateful for my help. But you always get the odd one, don’t you?

No names, no pack drill of course, but I was shocked the other day to hear one such person was holding court in a local pub about his carp fishing prowess. Chilly was nothing in carp fishing (not that he ever wanted to be), and he was the man to speak to if you wanted to know anything. Chilly was giving up writing and he was taking over his duties. He was now a consultant for Fox, which he isn’t and never will be, and a major reel manufacturer was ready to sign him up. He had landed all The Car Park Lake fish, which shows how remarkable he is because when they were alive he wasn’t even an angler! He’s even caught fish to 55lb in this country when his personal best is a little over thirty. And why would anyone want to be ashamed, because he must be, of a fish that size? That doesn’t even take into consideration the fact that the local tackle shop apparently gives him free bait.

There are no problems being caused by this, because locally everyone knows how much rubbish he speaks, it’s just that I feel incredibly sorry for him. That may sound a little strange, but isn’t fishing something to be enjoyed and used as a release from the pressures of everyday life? There actually aren’t that many people that get to share their spare time with nature, watching the sunrise on a misty spring morning, witnessing the countryside and its inhabitants waking up. And also gazing at the sun as it sets, looking across a beautiful lake full of anticipation for the night ahead. It’s what might be, that makes fishing so exciting, not the fact that you made it all up before it’s even happened. Only my opinion of course.