Icon: Terry Hearn Interview Part 2

Following on from part 1, Rich Stewart continues his fascinating insight into the life and times of Terry Hearn - one of the very best anglers there has ever been. From the carp he likes to target to his legendary 90s jumpers and right through to his friends and what the future holds - it’s all here and more besides…

Rich Stewart:______ Terry, let’s talk about the fish now. Are there any notable ones that slipped through the net?
Terry Hearn:______ “Ooooh, not many off the top of my head. Most of the ones I wanted to fish for, I did. Saying that, I’ve got a drawer full of old cuttings and I’m sure that if I went through that, I could find some that I’d have liked to have fished for but never did. I never struggled for targets though; there was always something to fish for!”

R.S.______ What makes a fish a worthy target for you now?
T.H.______ “Looks more than anything, more than size. Fish that feature in the sort of shots that you just can’t stop looking at. For a long while it was more about size, because there weren’t as many big fish around. At that time, so long as it was ‘proper’ I’d have fished for pretty much anything. Now that there’s more to choose from it’s become much more about looks; I’ve got to really, really want to catch a fish.

“I don’t want to name venues, but there are one or two well-known fish that I’ve had tickets for which, if the truth be known, I haven’t wanted as much as I’ve wanted other fish in the past. When you really want one, you’ve got a picture of it and you’re looking at it all the time. I’ve fished for a couple of very big fish that I didn’t even carry a shot of. It was a weight thing; I wanted to catch it because it weighed 55lb or something, but really, there are other fish that I’ve caught that are way smaller, that mean much more to me.”

Split Tail, Yateley Copse Lake

R.S.______ Was the prestige of a fish ever a big thing for you when you started out? In terms of the guys who’d caught them before, because we were talking a small pool of big fish then?
T.H.______ “Yes, yes. The previous anglers who’d caught them often enhanced those fish. Perhaps because I was younger and I looked up to them. Quite often, these days, if I’ve seen a fish in print a few too many times I’ll kind of go off it, it loses its impact. So in a way it’s switched around – I like the rarer ones now, they’re more of a pull.”

R.S.______ When your opinions were being formed, in terms of the fish that you’d like to catch, what were the shots that you looked at that must therefore have influenced you to this day?
T.H.______ “The Yateley fish were already an influence on me when I was fishing Bushy Park in the late eighties, very early nineties. Anglers like Paul Jakes, Paul Morris and Micky Gray, who used to stop off at the Diana Pond, had all fished at Yateley and they’d show me their shots. One of the Pauls, either Jakes or Morris, showed me a shot and it was all misty behind, mega, mega carp too, with withered fins and this little tail – it was one of the stumpy, leathery type ones you know? They stick in your mind. A lot of it was about the quality of photography, which is what prompted me to buy my first SLR and 50mm prime lens back in 91/92. Looking back that turned out to be one of the best moves I made.”

R.S.______ Your time at Yateley certainly provided some inspirational images for the next generation! The woolly jumpers for starters!
T.H.______ “I’ve got a collection of woolly jumpers going right the way back and I drag ‘em out every so often for old times sake…”

R.S.______ I think what we really need to see is the cardigan from the Dustbin shots!
T.H.______ “I’ve still got it! It’s in a bin-liner in my Dad’s loft! I tell you the other one; it’s a sweatshirt so not quite as carpy, but it’s the black ‘Big Carp’ sweater that’s in the Mary shots. My Dad’s a builder and probably ten or fifteen years after I caught Mary, I saw Dad wearing it all covered in cement! So that’s where the Mary top went. The cardigan’s still there though, that was obviously too scruffy for Dad to wear on a building site! (I pinched it from him in the first place as it goes, before it got scruffy…).”

It’s big out there

R.S.______ If you had any words of advice for a 26-year-old Terry, what would they be?
T.H.______ “Just do it for yourself and enjoy it. If I were talking to any of the younger anglers today then I’d say focus on your fishing. Do it for the fishing, not because you want to be known or sponsored, but because you love it. If a company wants to buy into that then everything else will follow. That said, if you do want to be sponsored, then bear three things in mind from the off: you need to be a tidy angler, know your way around a camera, and be able to write. It’s no good having the first bit, but not the last two.”

R.S.______ What about projects that you’re proud of? The DVD for instance, In Pursuit of the Largest?
T.H.______ “Yeah, that was old footage that we didn’t want lost. It wasn’t high quality or anything, but to us it was our memories and little bits and bobs. I’m glad that we did it.”

R.S.______ I’m guessing that you’d have watched Yateley Ya-Hoo?
T.H.______ “Yeah, funny enough I got one not so long ago from a car boot sale for £1! I thought, ‘I’m having that!’ It’s the music; do you remember the music?” (Laughing)

Match Lake mirror

A nice Oxfordshire mirror caught whilst filming with Len and Lee

R.S.______ And the books? You did them the way you wanted to do them?
T.H.______ “I’m proud of the books. More than anything, it’s like your life is there, recorded. How’s it go… ‘The best way to become immortal is by writing a book’.”

R.S.______ In leaving that legacy, it seems that you do want to share your experiences with others?
T.H.______ “Yeah I do! Definitely, I’ve always tried to help others, I enjoy it, but it’s become more of a balancing act. I think books are a good way of doing that, as I can write exactly as I want further down the line.”

Before DVDs...

Yateley Ya-Hoo

R.S.______ Any regrets? Fish that died before you could catch them or the like?
T.H.______ “No, not really, you just move onto the next thing. If there was ever going to be one, it would be the last fish that I fished for. It had only done one capture when I first started fishing for it, to Simon Hartop in ‘09. I can remember drooling over shots of it a couple of years after Si’s capture and thinking, ‘Damn, why didn’t I do that while it was there?’ because I was convinced it had gone at that point. That feeling was strong, that feeling of regret, because it was an old one, my kind of carp, and it was my manor, my area, you know; a neck of the woods that I’ve fished so much.

“When I eventually saw it in the water and it was still there, and barely anybody else knew – that was a MAJOR buzz! That year it was rumoured that it had been moved to another lake too, so I’d even bought a ticket for this other lake up the road and had actually been looking at that lake around the same time. Obviously, when I did set eyes on it, I wanted to talk about it, but I just couldn’t, apart from with Dad and close friends.”

R.S.______ How important have that group of friends been to you?
T.H.______ “Very. Nick often pops into wherever I’m fishing for a brew, always good for a chat. There’s Nige (Sharp) of course, who I’ve known since Yateley days. We both got our big fish heads on at the same time and so we’ve grown with the scene together; he’s a good friend that I can talk to about the fishing on the level, someone I can trust.

“There’s Lewis (Read), I’ve known Lew since I was fifteen, he e-mails most weeks, whilst he’s at work, looking forward to the coming night’s fishing. The amount of work overnighters he manages to squeeze in is truly impressive! Then there’s mad Jamie Smith, who I’m sure some of you will know from his hilarious YouTube clips (makes great carpy kettles too…). And of course, my mate Dave Swinchatt, who again I’ve fished with for thirty odd years - totally solid. It’s always difficult when talking friends, not to miss people out.

“My mate Graham Stevens is another that I’m regularly in touch with, keener than mustard, always buzzing, never down. You need to have people like that, friends that you can talk about your fishing with, bounce ideas off.

“Of course there’s plenty more, a lot of which I really should stay in more contact with (my bad), old mates like Steve Mogford, Andy Kidd, Hampshire Graham etc. Sometimes it’s not easy, it’s a 24hr thing, there’s not a shut off point at 5pm each day, and in-between the fishing I’m often rushing around getting everything sorted at home, the housework, gardening etc. It’s easy to let the fishing takeover when it’s your job.”

Yateley Copse Lake social. Left to right: me, Jamie Smith, Nigel Sharp, Guy Slater and Dave Crisp

R.S.______ Are you a sociable guy?
T.H.______ “Amongst friends, of course. Much of the time, on the bank, I’m just into the fishing and happy in my own company. I like my own space. I like to talk about fishing friend to friend, not friend to ‘friend plus every acquaintance’, it makes a difference. Once I gain that trust I’m just as sociable as the next guy.”

R.S.______ Does that make you a difficult guy to get to know?
T.H.______ “Possibly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sociable around people I’m comfortable with. Even that’s not strictly accurate, as I can stop a random dog walker and talk them to death! I’ve always met new friends whenever I’ve gone to new venues. Some waters it might take a little while to gel with the other anglers, whilst at other waters it’s instant.”

Carp matches have never really been my thing, but myself and Mark Cole did one for ESP one year. The mags labelled it ‘Clash of the Titans’

The yearly carp competitions were a bit of a drive back then too. Whoever designed that T-shirt needed shooting!

R.S.______…What do you think about when you’re out on your own then?
T.H.______ “The fishing! Life. I like to deal with any distractions before I go fishing. I don’t go knowing that there’s something to be dealt with, and if problems do pop up, it ruins it. I want to go and be able to focus, not be thinking about something else, like the fact that the boiler’s packed up!”

R.S.______ Will carp always be front and centre for you?
T.H.______ “Yeah, when I’m fishing for them, but I might take a couple of months out in the winter to fish for barbel, or perch maybe, and then they become front and centre and I’ll forget about the carp… well, kind of anyway… I’ll stop carp fishing, but I’ll still think about potential waters and chat to mates about it. It’s rare for me to flit between species; I’ll devote a chunk of time to each.”

R.S.______ Where is the future for Terry Hearn?
T.H.______ “Quiet waters and good-looking fish. Definitely the biggest thing that drives me is having a target. I could go to a lake with loads of lovely carp, but if there’s lots of them all similar, and no individual target then I’m not as keen, there has to be a goal. I caught my last target fish five or six weeks back and as always it’s like, ‘Closure, freedom, brilliant!’, I can be on the boat for the rest of the summer, doing some river carping, roaching or whatever, but you know what, after five weeks I’ve already had enough of that (for a bit…) and I need something to focus on. I need to have a goal again, that’s how it works with me. It’s probably taken me this long to realise how important that is.”

Perch on slide! Kingston-Upon-Thames. Carp are front and centre, but I still like to switch species from time to time