A Man Of Many Talents - Part 2

Talk us through your experiences at Bluebell, and your capture of Benson…
“I remember my very first session, which was a bit of a recce. They’d recently had a big flood and I went, really, just for a look around. All the lakes had merged into one, more or less, and the mud was awful. I spent 24hrs there, though, and had a good look at the place.

“Later, I went back for my first proper session, but I used it purely to learn more about the venue, but I caught quite a few fish as well. I started with one tactic and caught a couple. I think there was still quite a bit of the match angler in me, at the time. I’ll probably never do the same again, but I caught on one tactic and then changed, just to see if another approach would bring me more, or a better stamp of fish. That’s very ‘match angler’, and as I say, I wouldn’t do it now. [laughing]

“That was on Kingfisher, in October, and I think I had about five fish, which for that lake was quite good. I remember spending more time talking to people than I did actually fishing. I spoke to anglers who’d previously caught Benson, which was the fish I really wanted to catch. I took notes, and I asked them when they’d caught it. I spoke with Tony, the owner, and made notes about all the previous captures. I remember even asking them how long they’d been fishing when they caught Benson, and a number told me that they’d had the fish on their second or third night. It was good information to have—perhaps I should do it more often!

“Anyway, when I went back on, having looked at Benson’s previous captures, more often than not, it had come out on a new moon. As I say, it had also been caught by anglers on their second or third night in. At the time, I could get cover from the shop only every other week. So all I could manage was 48hrs on the bank every other week, or two 48hr sessions a month. The shop was really busy and I couldn’t take any more time off. That, though, is very typical of what anglers are faced with nowadays, and like them, I wanted to make the most of the little time I had. The times I could go fishing, however, didn’t fall on the right moon phase, so I skipped a week and went when the moon was right.”

Did you have confidence fishing to the moon phases, then?
“I don’t know how much difference they make; it’s more about the regularity and the pattern of them. I don’t know whether the moon, as such, has any effect; it’s just that every four weeks, or every eight weeks, whatever it might be, that fish seemed to come out. As I say, whether the moon had any influence on that, I don’t know and I can’t say. It was just a bit of information I used, and I timed my session to fall on that particular phase.

“I arrived on the Sunday evening. Remembering that several anglers had caught Benson on their second or third night, I’d taken lake water home with me and had had my baits soaking for two days before I arrived. I’d also soaked my pellets, and they were basically just mush. I was using a bait boat at the time, and I sent out my washed-out bait and pellet, dropped it all, and four hours later, I caught Benson.”

Washed-out baits? This was what, 20 years ago?
“Nineteen years ago, yeah.”

Washed-out baits weren’t used much then, so was that something you stumbled across yourself?
“I don’t remember anyone telling me about washed-out baits. I’m not saying that no one used them, because obviously other anglers were. I just thought that if this fish was getting caught two or three days into sessions, then I wanted my baits to look like they’d been in the water for that period of time.”

And you used lake water, specifically?
“Yes.”

Nowadays, it’s a known tactic, obviously?
“Yes. Again, I’m not saying that it hadn’t been done. I don’t remember, though, seeing washed-out baits being used, or recall reading about them.”

And what was the bite, the fight and the moment like?
“I remember it all so vividly, like it was yesterday. The bite was just the bobbin lifting and the line tightening. I think, on my session before, I’d had a bream, perhaps two, and I remember picking up the rod wondering whether I was snagged, as it wasn’t moving or doing anything. It was just solid. Then, it started to move, very slowly, but it felt like a bin bag. Every now and then, though, I felt a very faint head-shake. I thought I might have either a big ball of weed or a branch with a bream on, as that’s what it felt like. I had my waders on, and as the fish came in, I walked out into the water as far as I could, and it just popped up in front of me. It didn’t fight at all, and I had it on for no more than two minutes with me thinking I was pulling in a branch with a bream. Then, when it popped up in the beam of my head torch, it turned out to be Benson.

“I think it was something like one in the morning, but I phoned or messaged everyone! There was a bailiff fishing at the time, and another bailiff had said to me during a previous session that if I caught it, I should retain it, and that we’d be able to do the pictures in the morning, so that’s what I did. I weighed it, at 56lb 8oz, and I put it in the retainer, or rather a sack, as we didn’t have retainers then. I waded out as far as I could and pushed the storm pole in as far as it would go, and the fish was secured.

“At that point, the guy in the next swim walked round and asked, ‘Have you had one?’ but I didn’t really want him to know what I’d just caught, as I didn’t know who he was.

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I’ve had one.’

‘Oh, what was it?’ he asked.

‘It was Benson,’ I replied, and at that point, he became almost hysterical!

‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’m phoning Tony… I’m phoning Tony… he needs to come down ’ere… we need to…’

I said, ‘It’s in the sack, out there.’

‘Right, get it out,’ he said, ‘get it out! We need to phone Tony… he needs to come down and we need to weigh it. We need to photograph it, and all this needs to happen now!’

“I’m thinking to myself, Mate, just chill out and give me a minute! I’ve only just caught it. Just let me relax for a minute. Then, I thought, Hang on, this must be the bailiff! He’s on the phone to Tony, the owner, telling him what to do and bossing him around! Tony then came down.

‘Well, where is it?’ Tony asked.

‘It’s sacked. It’s out there,’ I replied.

‘Right out there? Well, we can leave it until the morning, then.’

‘No, you’re here now Tony,’ the other guy piped up, ‘we need to photograph it now!’

“As I say, this was like one o’clock in the morning. I’d bought a new camera just before the session as well, and you know what’s coming, don’t you? I’d bought the camera specifically, and this guy took it from me and started farting about with all the settings. It wasn’t a digital camera, either, it was a film model—I think digital models were just coming out, in 2003, and they weren’t that good. Tony’s there, and I’m holding the fish and being told not to lift it too high… its belly was more or less touching the ground and this guy’s saying, ‘Don’t lift it any higher!’ I’m thinking, Hang on, I’ve hardly picked it up! [laughing] I could hear the shutter speed as this guy rattled off the shots and I’m thinking, That’s a low shutter speed… that’s really, really low! 

‘Could you pass me my camera?’ I said, ‘it’s on the wrong settings…’

‘No,’ he says, ‘the fish needs to go back,’ and back it went. I’m standing there thinking, It’s back… what even happened? I didn’t really get to see it, let alone appreciate it.

“I couldn’t sleep after that, and first thing in the morning I took the film to a shop with a one-hour service and had it developed and the photos printed. There was nothing… just light flares. The photos were just black, with swirls and flashes of light from head torches, that was it. There was just one photo, though. I think I’d managed to get the camera off him, had quickly set it to Auto and I believe he took one more shot before the fish went back, and that was the only photo I got.”

You’ve posted that photo on Instagram and you’ve told the story online before. Photos are a key part of captures, perhaps, so does it tarnish your memory a bit?
“It did, yes. Now, though, I have a kind of cool story to tell about what was one of the most iconic carp of its day, in many ways.”

It made the front page of The Times when it died, and it was known beyond fishing…
“Yes, it was an iconic carp—it was the biggest common carp in the country, I think. I have just one photo, and it’s a naff, terrible photo, but it is a photo.

“From there, I wanted to catch two fifty-pound commons. There were only two in the country back then, and no one had caught two fifty-pounders. I then ventured further afield, to Kent. There was a fish between fifty-one and fifty-three in Strawberry Fields, and it was a tricky little pond. It’s tiny, perhaps an acre and a half, from memory…”

We recently did an interview with Dave Farmer, and he’s fished it. He said that it shouldn’t be underestimated…
“Those carp are riggy fish. Their feeding areas are mega-isolated and you have to be ultra-precise. I set up in a corner one evening, in the general area of the fish, and I had one during the night, a low-thirty. I was fishing close to snags so had to almost bully them, and that one came in really easily. I was just starting to pack up and was doing the closing piece to camera to wrap up the movie. I was literally about to drive home and that was it, the rod rattled off. The second I picked it up, I said to Harry, ‘It’s that fish!’ It came away from the snags really easily, once again, but I felt the weight of it all the way in. It got to within two or three rod-lengths of the bank, and it did me in a snag. I thought, We can’t end the film like that, we just can’t. If it had gone into the net, it would’ve been a case of job done, but we had to go back and do it all again.”

You live these adventures with Harry, and what we see on film is an edited version because you have thousands of gigabytes of footage. You must put a lot of trust in Harry to create the atmosphere on the trips?
“Oh yeah, and he’s amazing at his job. I don’t know anything about editing. I just go fishing, mostly. What he does, I don’t think anyone else could do. We know each other well, though, and we know the mood and the atmosphere better than anyone, too. I think only he, however, could put that across in a production.”

Do you ever watch over his shoulder, or does he show you rough first edits, perhaps?
“I trust him completely. We’ll watch bits together, though, and it’s not like I don’t get to see footage before it suddenly appears. Occasionally I will suggest changes, but he’s pretty much bang on every time.”

What have been the key moments that have brought you to where you are now? Looking back, where were your forks in the road, so to speak?
“I do know the answer, I’m just wondering whether I can say it… [laughing]

Of course you can!
“I can’t, I just can’t. Actually, no, I’ll give a diplomatic answer…

“I’m not bothered about comments on YouTube, but I did have to laugh at one the other week, when someone had called me a wannabe. [laughing] I mean, I’ve been involved in the industry as such, for quite a long time. I guess, then, there have been several key moments in my fishing career—and I use that term loosely. One could’ve been when I fished for England, in the youth team. This was proper match fishing, shall we say, not carp competitions.”

When you had long hair…
“Yeah, I did.” [laughing]

Some readers might not know that you were a match angler, and one of some calibre, too…
“Yeah, I fished two World Coarse Championships, and a Home International. I won a gold and a bronze medal, so pretty high level, really. That got my foot in the door in the industry and I started writing for magazines. I’ve been writing for magazines pretty much since 1994, so quite a long time… well, nearly 30 years in fact!”

Did you fish your Home International at Holme Pierrepont?
“No, mine was at Woodland View, Droitwich. It’s a commercial carp venue, as such, and we won team gold. I did pretty well, and from there I went on to fish the World Championships in Turin, Italy, the following year. The year after I was in the squad for Carouche, Portugal. I fished a few invitation matches for the youth team as well, like the ACA Masters. That all got my foot in the door with writing, as I say—I was always quite good at writing, right from school.

“Then I had a bit of a nightmare match. Because of where I lived, in the Middlesbrough area, I felt that I wouldn’t ever make the senior squad. There was no commercial match scene like there is now, and there weren’t the venues to fish that would get me noticed enough. I wasn’t fishing in the right circles to put me in a position to push for a place in the senior team. I felt that I’d probably progressed as far as I could, even though I was only around 20 years old. I felt that I just couldn’t progress further in match-fishing terms.

“I say all that, but I used to fish down south once a month, but that was also a learning thing. I used to travel to Gold Valley and Willow Park, places like that. Once a month I’d be fishing alongside the likes of Will Raison and Steve Gardener. There were a lot of match-carp venues in the region, including one I can’t recall the name of. That sort of fishing was just beginning to take off, and I felt that I was doing all right.

“In one match, though, there was a guy in the peg next door, and every time he hooked a fish, it would spend more time in my swim than his, and it ruined my peg. I was doing okay, but I’d catch maybe three or four fish and then he’d hook one and it would come through my swim and wipe it out.”

Did he do it deliberately?
“No, he just didn’t know how to play carp on the pole! [laughing] This was before puller bungs and the like. I watched Will Raison shipping his pole back really low to the water before handlining the fish in by the elastic. Using that technique, you could land a double-figure carp in under 30 seconds; they’d just swim towards you, like they were in a trance. I’d do the same, and would get the three or four fish in without disturbing the swim. Then the guy next to me would hook one and it would trash my swim. I got halfway through the match and thought to myself, D’you know what? I’m sick of this. I packed up, drove to the tackle shop and said that I wanted the lot gone. I sold all my gear that day.”

So it wasn’t over a period of time, then, just one moment?
“Yep, one moment, and if it wasn’t for the guy next door, I’d have been on for a win. I was doing everything right, but someone in the next peg was ruining my fishing. I just thought, I’ve had enough of this. As I say, I drove straight to the tackle shop and told them I wanted everything gone. I said, ‘Get as much money for it all as you can, and I want carp gear.

“I had carp-fished before then, though. I used to fish for carp and fish matches, and I did pretty well in the matches. As a schoolboy, I would win money every weekend. The club that hosted the matches offered good prize money, but the competitions were also sponsored by a tackle shop. I’d win money, but I’d also pick up groundbait and floats. I’d have bait for my next match, and so with my prize money, I’d buy carp gear.”

The two ran parallel, then, and did you have an interest in fishing for big carp?
“Yes, but when I was picked for the England youth squad, I sold my carp gear. I loved my carp fishing, but I felt that it was too much of a distraction when I was fishing for England. It was four or five years later that I went to the tackle shop and offloaded all my match gear.”

Clearly, you were a talented match angler. Did you hit the ground running when you started targeting specimen carp?
“I did pretty well from the off, yeah. There weren’t many carp waters in the North East, and what we did have, were fairly tough. They were all quite small, and I think small-water carp are harder to catch than those in big waters. they’re certainly more wary. They’re more aware of the presence of anglers, and of rigs. I think I cut my teeth on venues that were quite tricky… not tricky in terms of long-range casting and things like that, but in terms of rig placement and rig mechanics. It was a good learning curve.”

Do you still call upon your match-fishing tactics today, perhaps in respect of finesse, or making little changes?
“I used to, perhaps, but less so now. One thing I have carried with me is the work ethic. One thing I will say is that I’m never, ever content.

“I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but I see a lot of carp anglers… hmm, how can I put this…? Okay, here’s a prime example… and we’re back to those YouTube comments! [laughing]

“I did this video about people using mallets and ruining their swim. One guy commented that he’d been to a lake and had caught four fish, and that he’d used a mallet. I guess he was happy, having had his four fish, whereas I’d think, Okay, I caught four fish, but how could I have caught five? What could I have done to have caught five fish? Firstly, don’t ****ing use a mallet! [laughing] That’s how I think after every single session, wherever I am.

“Another good example is an amazing session I had on Stanwick Lakes. I think it was around ten years ago, and I had ten fish, I believe, which for there is pretty good going. I was on Elsons, I’d had ten fish, including the biggest in the lake—although it was spawned out. I thought, How could I have caught eleven. What could I have done to have caught one more fish? That might be the one session where I couldn’t think of anything that might’ve helped me catch more fish. I had a hook-pull as well, and that was the only thing I could think of.”

Sometimes it’s nice to reflect on what we’ve caught, so does that mean you don’t ever bask in your glory, so to speak? Do you ever have to remind yourself to look back and be pleased with what you’ve achieved?
“It’s not to say that I’m not pleased, but I always ask myself what I could’ve done to put more fish on the bank. When I say that I’m never satisfied, I don’t mean that, say, after catching a big fish that I return home unhappy. I’m just very critical of my own performance.”

You just strive to be better each time, and you’re looking to learn from each session, perhaps?
“Yes, definitely. I think that every single time you go fishing, you should be able to take something away, and you should be able to learn something from it. I think that a lot of people who’ve fished for quite a long time can turn up at a new lake and relate to other similar waters. The venue might have similar depths, and the conditions might be similar, too. Your approach comes from almost like a sixth sense, in a way, and that’s just through experience. I’m very lucky in that I’m by water almost every day of the year. The more time you can spend beside water, the better.”

Is all that information stored in your head, or are you a note-keeper?
“No, I don’t make any notes, I’m not that organised!”

So you don’t have angling diaries going back decades, then?
“No. I think I’ve got a good memory, though, but others might disagree!” [laughing]

Read part one by tapping here!