How Martin Locke nearly broke the British record

Great, winter’s here again! Never ending nights, damp, gloomy, lonely, cold, traffic jams everywhere and everyone’s got the hump about everything! On the upside, the carp are getting bigger and in tiptop condition, so what’s to moan about?! With less anglers about and action getting thin on the ground, the rewards are potentially huge for those putting in the hours in the conditions, and this is the story of one such capture.

It was the first week of December and I would again be concentrating on the Herts Club Water, as it was known, from early November until the end of the season in mid-March. A beautiful, day-only fishery of some 40+-acres and some 700-800yds long section of mostly shallow, feature-filled lake, with a low stock of big fish that moved quickly and often!

With around 10-12 over 40lb and a very slim possibility of the biggest resident, Chopped Dorsal being over the almost unheard of ‘50’ (the fish had reached 48lb the previous winter), that was more than enough reason I needed to put all my effort and determination into fishing there through the winter months. I was permanently buzzing at the thought of what might be…

Great, winter’s here again! Never ending nights, damp, gloomy, lonely, cold, traffic jams everywhere and everyone’s got the hump about everything! On the upside, the carp are getting bigger and in tiptop condition, so what’s to moan about?! With less anglers about and action getting thin on the ground, the rewards are potentially huge for those putting in the hours in the conditions, and this is the story of one such capture.

It was the first week of December and I would again be concentrating on the Herts Club Water, as it was known, from early November until the end of the season in mid-March. A beautiful, day-only fishery of some 40+-acres and some 700-800yds long section of mostly shallow, feature-filled lake, with a low stock of big fish that moved quickly and often!

With around 10-12 over 40lb and a very slim possibility of the biggest resident, Chopped Dorsal being over the almost unheard of ‘50’ (the fish had reached 48lb the previous winter), that was more than enough reason I needed to put all my effort and determination into fishing there through the winter months. I was permanently buzzing at the thought of what might be…

There are times when it just feels right and there are times when you just know it’s not going to happen

Working as a team

Packing up and being off the water at 9pm sharp, then setting up again at 6am after sleeping outside in my little white Astra van in various lay-bys didn’t result in the easiest of fishing, but a combination of a large helping of determination and confidence meant that these inconveniences were no more than an occupational hazard between me and those magnificent chocolatey brown mirrors that inhabited the big Colne Valley pit.

I had semi ‘teamed up’ with Mr. F - aka Paul Forward. I say ‘semi’ as we rarely fished together as such, but we shared any and all information, however insignificant the detail seemed to be; everything down to the smallest line bite was noteworthy! In so doing we had built up a picture of how, what, where and who had been fishing and what (if anything) had been happening on the water. Any snippet of information could be used to our advantage, if we thought hard enough about it!

We had both been very successful on that and other waters in previous years, so it was with that in mind that we put together a bait with what we considered to be the best of Paul’s bait, together with the best of my bait… And the Club Mix was born. It proved so good that we were the only anglers catching anything at that time of year. The previous Saturday I had a 46lber, Paul a 36 a few days prior to that, so the bait was doing the job and confidence was extremely high. This next trip was to be an ‘evening session’ to gain clues about where best to set-up for the following day’s fishing.

I arrived mid-afternoon, setting up at the far end in an area where I could see a large part of the lake to watch for any activity. There was a strong Southwesterly wind blowing in the opposite direction, ‘perfect’ textbook winter fishing conditions. The excitement levels were at the max… But needless to say nothing happened and no clues were spotted!

I packed up 10 minutes or so earlier than normal, by 8:30, and the barrow was loaded and the long push had begun. The plan was to stop and have a look at the ‘islands and bays end’ of the lake before loading the van. The wind was piling into the bay; surely they had to be there. I pulled out the catty and plopped in a kilo or two of boilies, spread as far and wide as I could, with a view to wherever the fish were, they would bump into the baits and still be on the hunt when I returned in the morning.

A change of plan

After another less-than-pleasant night in the lay-by, the alarm didn’t have to sound for long before I was up and at it for the short drive back to the gates for the 6am sharp start. I had arranged to have a guest with me for the day, Warren, and he pulled up bang-on time to discover we were the only two anglers there. After a brief chat we soon had the barrows loaded and headed off for the bay. Being December, it was still dark and the wind was still pushing S/W. Warren was quickly setting up, but for some reason I decided to wait and look. As light drew in, I could make out the sound and sight of the coots being attacked by the gulls, in that all too familiar act of nicking boilies from their beaks. This was going on all over the bay, which gave me the clue that I was after…

“Pack up mate, they’re not here, if they were, there wouldn’t have been any bait left, but the coots are getting them every dive; we’re out of here!”

Moving sides meant re-loading the gear and driving to the opposite car park, but as there was no one about we popped to the café for a breakfast before we did so; it set us up for the day and armed with cakes, biscuits and good things to eat, we were soon back and set-up in the famous Lawn swim, which, with the wind hammering past us from left to right, only looked good from my past captures from that swim in just such conditions. The big ones just HAD to be out there.

“There he is mate, Chopped Dorsal, we might just have got us a 50!”

You just know

I’d had the 46lber from the swim a few days prior to this trip, so convinced that the big ones were in the area, I put the remaining 500-600 baits in as I packed up. Because of that, I opted to just ‘top up’ the area, and rather than overdo things I pinged out just 40 or 50 baits to the 90-100yds. The rigs were simple, just a single bottom bait attached to 12” of Dacron hooklink and a running 3oz lead: simple but very effective, and when combined with THE bait, it surely was all over bar the fight…?!

Because mine and Mr. F’s ideas were often the same, we tried to fish alternately, so as not to tread on each other’s toes so to speak. It’s cold, damp and slow on those short days, with many hours of darkness to sit through, but with the mobile phone (which were still a bit of a luxury back then), at least I had contact with the outside world. We often would call each other from the lake, usually mid-afternoon, to draw some shreds of information, hoping to gain that clue for a touch of extra confidence to make all the difference. Today felt different…

I cast out the first rod and it landed with the most perfect ‘donk’ I’d ever had. I called Paul the second the two ‘V’s in the line met on the surface! “Morning mate, just called to let you know not to bother coming up tomorrow cos I’m gonna catch him today! In fact, if I don’t catch him today, I’ll never catch him, but I will… and he’ll be over 5-0. Catch ya later.” I did of course put the other rod out, but I just had ‘that’ feeling for that first rod.

That was around 9am. It was the strangest of days, the expectation and excitement, together with a knowing calmness just added to the atmosphere and tension in the air. My confidence was at bursting point. The rain had come and gone, the cloud was thick and the wind was still pushing up the lake. Several of the local lads had arrived mid-afternoon, most of whom had set-up in the windy bay at the other end of the lake.

Darkness drew in all too soon, but evenings were the best chance. It was just after 6pm and that’s when it happened: the indicator tightened steadily in unison with the bleeps from the alarm. The clip pulled out and the take slowly started to speed up. I was sitting up on the bedchair and in the sleeping bag keeping warm and in the couple of seconds it took to swing around and pull the ‘lucky’ brown Derriboots on, the fish was absolutely tearing line from the spool and it was getting even faster as I picked the rod up and tightened into it. This will be him then is all I needed to say.

The take is only the start of your problems on this water. With the numbers of sharp bars between me and ‘it’ means being prepared for several heart-stopping moments as the line pings off each bar, all of which can and often do serious damage to your line or often just cut your line clean off!

After three such moments and 10 minutes or so, I hadn’t made much progress between me and the 100yds or so that stood between me and what was attached at the far end. The fight was slow, heavy and dogged. My legs were quivering, my hands were shaking and all the time telling myself to calm down and that if my name was on it, nothing would go wrong…

After what seemed like an eternity, the almost downward curve of the rod told us that it wasn’t far out and time for the net to go in. With torches off and only affluent light to go by, the rod was slowly lifted as the fish reluctantly came up from the bottom and Warren carefully slid the net under it. I turned the torch on and the beam lit the dorsal fin… It was him!

“There he is mate, Chopped Dorsal, we might just have got us a 50! I told you it was him!”

It made the cover of the Angling Times

Mind-blowing

There was overwhelming feelings of adrenaline but calmness, all-round ‘chuffedness’ and of course a huge responsibility for what lay in the net. We arranged the mat, scales and all the necessaries before lifting the bulging net from the water. Remember: a 20 was the norm in those days; 30s were starting to show up more, with a 40 being big news, so this was absolutely mind-blowing.

Somehow we got the fish from the net to a sling and when we opened the mesh to reveal him, we could hardly speak; it was like a carp, only much bigger! The golden flanks shone up at us, the sheer size of which we’d never dreamed of seeing let alone catching! It was the sort of moment that leaves you lost for words.

With a small tree in the swim, we put the landing net handle into its perfectly formed ‘V’, and slid the scales along the handle, with a shoulder at the other end and the two of us wondering as we carefully lifted the fish from the mat. For me, seeing the needle pulling round with a big ‘un in the sling is one of the greatest things in carp fishing (and something that I will NEVER substitute for digital scales for that reason). It just kept pulling round, going into unchartered territory before coming to a complete standstill at an incredible 50lb 4oz. The hairs on the back of my neck and arms are standing up even now as I recall that moment on that dark, damp, December evening in 1994.

Carefully we lowered the fish back onto the mat and into the awaiting black carp sack (remember them?!) and placed him carefully back in the water for recovery time for both the fish and me. I’m not one to shout loudly on a lake, even in these circumstances, so I didn’t. I gathered my thoughts, called my mate Steve ‘The football photographer’ Lindsell to come and do the pics if he was free. He asked and I told him what was sitting peacefully in the margin in front of me. He didn’t need any more information, he was on his way!

Warren kept an eye on the fish and I went to let the other lads know what I’d had, as I did so the phone rang with Mr. Forward on the other end… “Well?” he enquired. Before he had a chance to say another word I said to him, “Told you not to bother coming tomorrow… I’ve got him!”

The lads all packed up and came around to see the fish and share the moment, which made things all the better as we celebrated one of my ‘chufftest’ ever captures.

It was later pointed out that Choppy was indeed the biggest carp in the UK at that time; the British record was still Chris Yates’ 51lb 8oz from Redmire but that fish had since passed away. I remember that Dave Lane had Mary at 49lb 15oz from Wraysbury the following February - now there’s a story that needs telling again mate. Enjoy the winter, boys…