Martin Locke: No bullsh*t, just good solid angling

The Plan Was Hatched

Dave Whibley and I were sitting on the Darenth Tip Lake with Zenon Bojko, chatting about this and that, as you do, and I can’t quite remember how it came about but one of us, I think it was Zen, suggested that we should have a go at Savay, with its veritable who’s who of carp and carp anglers. Dave and me, being quiet, shy lads felt quite intimidated at the merest thought of gatecrashing the elite Savay party, but we agreed to go as Zen’s mates. He was way more famous than us and had plenty more to say, so we hoped that hanging on to his shirt tails, and name-dropping if required, might help us to be accepted. Monies sent off and season tickets received meant that we could fish days only, any or all of them if we wished, from 6am until 9pm. However, gaining a place on the night syndicate was our ultimate goal. This comprised 50 members split into two rotas, fishing alternate weeks.

Peter Broxup was running Savay at the time. Now, if you were lucky enough to have known Peter I’m sure you’ll agree that ‘legend’ really isn’t anywhere near a big enough word to describe him. Anyhow, as the ‘new kids on the block’, our best chance of getting into the syndicate was to get down there and show our faces by fishing the days. Many people didn’t want to do this because they couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of packing up every evening, but if Peter saw you were keen, and you were the ones in the cars waiting patiently outside the gate, keeping your head down and not causing any trouble, then there was every chance of getting one of the precious night syndicate tickets. Not that you ever saw or heard of a waiting list, but it was likely to be your names that came up when Peter came to choosing new syndicate members.

Although we’d all fished some serious waters for some big fish, the reputation Savay had was something else. All the lads we’d heard and read about were on there, and we had no idea what our reception would be like, but we figured we just had to get over there and give it a go. I’d fished over at Longfield (Fox Pool) just after Ritchie MacDonald had turned it over and Ian Booker, Kevin Maddocks and the like were fishing there at the time. I got on really well in their company, so I wouldn’t be too badly intimidated by fishing with the Savay celebs, I hoped!

Carping in the early 80s

There She Was, The Mighty Savay... We Were Scared!

We arrived at the gates in the early hours of a July morning and, I fumbled nervously with the key in the padlock, trying not to interrupt the songs of the birds singing their dawn chorus, with the clanking of chain links and squeaking gates. We drove cautiously into the car park and tiptoed into the Cottage Bay, not wanting to disturb any syndicate members who may be set-up in there. It was all so new to us. There were so many little paths going in all directions, it was easy to get lost!

The first ‘proper’ swims that we came to were The Boards and the adjacent Rat Hole, and suddenly, there she was, in all her splendour, a sight that simply took our breath away. I can feel a shiver running through me now as I recall that moment. The mighty Savay was in front of us and I remember pinching myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming.

We crept around the overgrown paths, each leading back to the other as if they were made to confuse the naďve, first time rookies that we were. Eventually, we found our way back to the car park, and like excited boy scouts on their first ever field trip, decided to head off in the direction of what we hoped was the Canal Bank. A few minutes later, the path turned left and the most intimidating piece of water that I had ever laid eyes on appeared. Holy sh*t! All we could see was lake; over half a mile of it stretching away into the distance, almost disappearing with the curvature of the earth it seemed! We looked at each other in shock, each glancing up at the expanse in front of us. No words were needed or could be found. I couldn’t help myself smiling as I broke the silence. “Well then, best we get the gear, eh boys!’ We strolled back to the car park, scared!

We were yet to meet any of the syndicate boys so we thought it best to set-up in the Cottage Bay and to ease our way in gently by fishing a manageable piece of water, although, with the sight of the awesome Canal Bank still fresh in our minds, it was more like going through the motions than anything else. And so it turned out, for that and the first few sessions.

Biggest influence: Roger leaning into one

History In The Making

Back then, there was very little carp fishing done on waters of that size. There were big waters about, but none with the stock of fish to warrant this many anglers making the efforts to catch them. Roger used to reckon there were about 100 fish in the 70-odd acres, but there were plenty of times that you felt there wasn’t a fish within half-a-mile of your plot. The character of Savay offered everything from fishing under the rod tips, to fishing as far out as you could chuck, and further. Consequently, the developments that were taking place on the banks were so far ahead of anything else, not from any business-minded point of view, but purely from trying to catch more fish, from further out and from trickier areas. As far as I was aware, some of the first 12ft and 13ft rods appeared on its banks, with bass-fishing blanks as I remember. Anti-tangle tube was first used there, by Zen as I recall; monkey climbers evolved into hangers, birdfood baits came along, all manner of things that we now take for granted these days, pretty much evolved from the banks of Savay. The boundaries were being pushed.

I have to admit, I thought that Savay, being what it was, would all be a bit ‘secret squirrel’, especially to those outside the syndicate clique but, in fact, it was the opposite. No one had anything to prove as they’d all been around the block and caught more than their share of big fish from all over the country, (French and other foreign fishing still hadn’t been ‘invented’ in those days!) so everyone was in it together to help each other out and there was a genuine camaraderie on the banks.

Back then, the baits and rigs were still being developed and the consensus was that it was much better to have half-a-dozen anglers using a rig or bait, as opposed to just trying to work things out for yourself, because the action on a water like Savay was generally so thin on the ground. That way we all got so much more feedback and things developed so much faster than if we’d all been secretive about it. Even with the best rig and bait in the world, on a water that hard it would take a long time to try to prove something was working conclusively, so with everyone’s input, it gave us all so much more inspiration as to whether we were on the right lines with our thinking. It was a really exciting period. Looking back to how we fish these days, it was history in the making.

Carry Your Bags, Sir

After that first trip, we fished around a bit more, soon venturing up the Canal Bank. Midday was ‘café time’ when the syndicate boys came past; a veritable ‘who’s who’ of carp fishing including Hutchie, Albert Romp, Bob Baker and Roger Smith to name but a few. Rog, being the wise man he is, would come into the swim, take a look at your lines and work out from the direction, exactly what spots you were fishing. “I’d move your left-hand rod a little bit further out to fish on the gravelly spot if I were you.” He knew the score and could pinpoint most things at a glance, just by noting the angle and how much line was missing from your spool!

That first season, as we were just doing the days, we didn’t do the café thing as we were keen to spend as much time as we could on the water but despite all our best efforts, surprise, surprise, we didn’t catch anything! We only actually saw one fish on the bank, a 14-pounder, but we had a great time of it all the same, and were keener than ever in our determination to land a Savay carp.

Thankfully, at the end of that first year, there were five people that dropped their tickets. So, in the summer of 1985, Dave, Zen and I all got into the syndicate. An amusing tale of Zen’s involved Ritchie MacDonald. That first year, Zen would always be crawling around Ritchie, doing anything he could to help. If Ritchie fancied a move then Zen would be there to assist with the bag carrying, and there were no barrows in those days so the extra hands were always welcome. It was a big pit and Ritchie was always more than happy to take the offers. “Thanks very much, son. Very kind of you!’ he’d say, chirpily. Over the next few months, Zen would often help Richie.
The following year, Ritchie was getting his gear out in the car park and said to Zen, “I’m off around the Colne Bank, give us hand with this lot would you?”

Zen replied with, “You can carry your own f*cking gear, I’m in the syndicate now!” It was all in good humour and all part of the scene, and Ritchie knew it as he played it so well himself.

During that first season on the syndicate, I still couldn’t drive so Dave and I just agreed to get there as much as work would allow, (this was pre-Solar days when I had a proper job!) All I really wanted was one Savay carp. It didn’t even matter how big or which one it was. I just wanted one. In my perfect world, one of those big, long, lean, classic fish would’ve been nice; the ones with the big underslung mouths, but really any Savay carp would’ve done.

Dave with Popeye’s Mate

Hutchie Just Knew... No Pressure Dave!

Well, that first trip proper we decided to take the hike around the Colne Bank where Hutchie was just packing up. He’d seen some fish in the Little Bonfire swim but hadn’t caught. “One of you should get yourself in here. You’ll get one between 3 and 5 o’clock.”

Dave set himself up feeling a certain amount of pressure! He was on the fish, and in Rod’s swim no less! Sure enough, just like the man said, at 4pm on the dot, Dave found himself attached to one! Oh my God! It was a surreal moment to see that rod arcing over. The fish was coaxed slowly to the margins and with a huge weight lifted from our shoulders it eventually rolled into the net. It was one of the famous Savay Italian strain fish, Popeye’s Mate at 30lb 8oz! It was one of those priceless moments that only we carp anglers understand.

Our Thursday arrival, on the following rota, saw us back on the Colne Bank. No one had been round there and nothing had been out from anywhere else so I set-up in one of the most famous swims on the lake, namely The Daisies. My plan was to set the alarm to go off at least 30 minutes or so before light, so that I could have a good look to see if anything was about in the swim, and if not, a move would be in order.

I awoke on that Friday morning, with the expanse of Savay flat calm and sunny, to three fish sticking their heads out over the rod cast under a tree on the Long Island 80 or so yards out. Surely, it would go… then, in a blink of an eye, the line was yanked from the clip, the indicator smashed into the rod and line poured from the open bail armed spool! The emotions I felt in the next 15 minutes or so were extreme, and one of the reasons that we go carp fishing. She lay there at the bottom of the mesh and weighed in at 27lb, one of the long, lean ones, almost a leather. To catch that fish was just the biggest buzz and there really was nothing like it. Both Dave and I felt that we had finally arrived. We had a spring in our step now, and were becoming wise to the Savay ways. Not that wise though, and I only managed to land two more fish that first year. It was tough!

However, things were on the up, that’s for sure. Now I’d started to get among them, I started to think more and more about the particular characters I wanted to catch. There were quite a few well known big ‘uns in Savay back then: The Beast, Popeye, Popeye’s Mate, The Thick Head Fish, as well as the two big commons, Sally’s Mate and, of course, Sally The Carp, the jewel in the crown, just about the biggest common in the country.

Of course there were lots of others but they were a few that stuck in my mind as ‘most wanted’. Remember, these were in times when most of us didn’t even know someone who’d had a 30, let alone caught one ourselves!

Kerry ‘The Carp Angler’ with a big common

Teamwork Was The Way Forward

The learning process in those first couple of years was incredibly slow, so in conscious effort and in desperation to force more action, we found ourselves pooling all the information, whether it be about fish movement, rigs, bait, tackle, whatever, to try to get the jump on the fish. The following year was better and I landed seven fish, including a brute of a mirror at 33lb 12oz, so things were still going in the right direction.

By the start of the ‘87/’88 season, I had passed my driving test and started Solar. In those days, carp fishing was very much a cottage industry so I planned to work myself into the ground off rota, and fish Sunday to Sunday every other week. I could do this, presuming I had everything in stock, with my Mum looking after the orders in my absence, because I worked from home in those days!

There were plenty of times that year when it came to the Sunday afternoons, when Roger, Kerry Barringer and I would be the only ones there, and as strange as it sounds, we’d be hoping for someone else to turn up. The grass is always greener, as they say, and Savay was no different, especially as it was split into four distinct areas: The North Bay, The Cottage Bay, The Colne and the Canal Bank. No matter how hard we tried, the three of us couldn’t keep an eye on all four areas, and it wasn’t just that. Pre-empting the weather was a big part of the fishing on Savay. The fish were constantly on the move and were often in shoals, so trying to work out their speed and movements to get the jump on them, and the anglers, made it a very exciting place to be. There was a constant game of cat and mouse between anglers and fish, all trying to psyche each other out. Albert Romp, in particular, used to pull the wool over people’s eyes all the time. I would end up being conned into moving before I should have done, and no sooner had my decision been made for me, than he would be pushing his banksticks into my freshly vacated holes! Albert was playing mind games with everyone, and fishing with him taught me the crafty and rarely mentioned skill of angler manipulation!

Lockie with a near leather

Wise Old Roger

Often, I get asked who has been my biggest influence on my fishing, and without a doubt it is Roger Smith. With his sheer wealth of experience in life and fishing, and his memory for detail in the never-ending stories, Rog is one of those characters that you can’t help but admire. Some called him a silly old git, but I knew different. I spent an awful lot of time talking an awful lot of rubbish with Smithy, but occasionally he would come out a gem, like the one he told me and Dave while we were at Wembley, queuing for Madonna tickets!

There was one time, during the winter of our first season ticket year, when he and Bob Jones were fishing in 2nd Down and 3rd Down on the Colne Bank. Dave and me had never ventured through to the hallowed ground that was syndicate only, so we jumped at the offer of popping round for a cup of tea. The swims were 50yds apart, and the boys knew them like the backs of their hands. Bob called that he was ready to cast and Roger lined up with the pylon and cast the 40-50yds to his left, sinking the lead down on a tight line. Bob immediately cast to his right, into the centre of the ‘rings’ and also sunk on a tight line. Just an hour later, he was away, but unfortunately the hook pulled out on that one. Believe me when I say that those boys were the first to feel the lead down. Everyone, and I mean everyone, just cast out then pulled the lead along the bottom to straighten everything out. When I asked Smithy why he cast first, he said that Bob didn’t have a pylon to aim at to line up the spot. We learned something that evening. Sinking on a tight line started with those boys (doubt if that’ll catch on!)

Looking back on it, Roger and I fished so differently to each other, yet I learned loads from him. He used very little bait and didn’t move about because he knew where the fish would end up, and I used lots of bait and moved about all the time. However, by my third season I was catching roughly the same numbers as him, so I couldn’t have been happier, it was just that I was exhausted doing it! Roger just smiled as I charged about. That’s where the phrase ‘catch ‘em on your own terms’ came from.

‘Catch ‘em on your own terms’

The Glorious 16th

Anyway, back to the story. There was the usual June 15th excitement as one by one we arrived in the car park. I set-up on the middle of the Canal Bank, in The Logs swim. Roger was to my left in the Gravelly, Rob Maylin in The Brambles and Keith the Tooth in Andy’s, Dave Whibley, Bob Jones, Albert, Phil Harper, Steve Allcott, Dynamo, Curly, Kerry the Carp Angler and Mr Dougal, to name but a few, were dotted around the lake covering all bases.

The ‘Looney Rota,’ as we were known, together with lots of other Colne Valley anglers, then converged on the world famous Horse and Barge pub and then on to the Harefield Indian restaurant to ‘ring in’ the new season! This era has become a huge part of carp fishing folklore and it’s really difficult to put into words quite how special these times were. I am truly privileged to have been part of them, and I’m sure that I speak for all the other lads, who each contributed to making those times what they were.

After all that, we made it back to the lake shortly after midnight, cast out and went to sleep! Well, the old faithful ‘pub cast’ had come up trumps again, as at 5:30am I woke up, and played a fish which turned out to be a mirror of 19lb 8oz; most unexpected and very welcome!

Apart from that, the lake was very quiet, so even though the Colne Bank never really fished well for the first part of the season I still felt the need for a wander. Passing Mr. Maylin on the way, he joined me for a look. John ‘Fred Flintstone’ Yeatman was already parked in The Daisies, but had nothing to report. No sooner had we spoken to him than, just to his left in The Hump swim, a fish threw itself from the lake. “That’ll do for me, I’m off to get my toys.”

Taking everything but the bare minimum from the trusty old seat box left me loads of room for the important stuff, namely bait, and lots of it! I used to roll my bait on the bank, and apart from giving me something to do in the afternoons, it meant that I could roll them to the size that the swim required. The further the distance, the bigger they were rolled and vice versa, simple!

Absolutely the bollocks!

The Looney Extension Rig

All the tea gear and other unnecessary tackle and clutter was left with Roger, to be collected later that evening and half-a-mile later I was set-up, with Rob moving to my left and John to the right. Several more fish had rolled as the afternoon went on, and so my plan was to bait up with most of the 8-10 kilos around the ‘hump’ feature that was situated around 80yds out and slightly left, a nice catapult range for five or six at a time in the pouch! Because the baits were mostly between 25 and 30mm, I felt the need to adjust my rigs to suit, so after poking around in the dusty corners of my tackle box for the ‘I’d better just keep that, I might need it one day’ odds and ends, I found just the piece of tubing that I was after, like you do. To keep the advantages of the smallish hook that I was using and combine it with the advantages of a big hook, a short piece of tubing was added to the shank of the size 10 Gamakatsu. This looked to be in perfect proportion to the bait, springy yet delicate, with a savage claw effect. In fact, if I say so myself, it looked absolutely the bollocks! So I tied all three rods the same and smiled as I lightly hooked each one in the butt ring and laid the rods against the bushes. The ‘Looney Extension Rig’ was born!

The season was rung in, in style…

Swim Resting With Tina Turner

Once the swim had been bombarded, my thoughts were to ‘swim rest’ - and Tina Turner was on 20 minutes or so down the road at Wembley that night, so that was that! Weather conditions had now taken a serious turn for the worse. It was absolutely smashing down with rain and blowing a gale. It was one of those nights where you hope you’ve knocked your bivvy pegs in hard enough. Worrying that your house and toys are in the same place that you left them is obviously the downside to leaving them in the first place. So began the usual procession of head torches bobbing through the darkness, gradually lessening in numbers as, swim-by-swim, bivvies were arrived at. Good job the three of us only had a mile and a half to walk! To add to the misery, I had left my waterproofs, wellies and spare clothes, that had now become very necessary, in Roger’s bivvy, half a mile around the lake with the ‘unnecessarys’.

We rounded the sluices turn, with the home straight a quarter of a mile to go, the rain still hammered down and water was pouring from the trees. The narrow paths we knew so well were all but invisible due to being covered by rain-sodden stinging nettles falling across them and covering the slippery, black, sludge-filled puddles. John fell over.

“This is bollocks. How much f*ckin’ further is it?”

He moaned every step of the way, and then for reasons unknown, blurted out that surely one of us deserved to catch Sally tonight for going through all this grief. It sounds odd, but that stuck in my mind. She had never been caught from the Colne Bank, so it was an unusual thing to say and it had never crossed our minds that there was even a possibility of it actually happening.

Home At Last

Finally, the silhouette of a bivvy appeared as we reached the Daisies. It had been a mission, and at that moment the rain stopped.

“Well, that’s just f*ckin typical!” said John, shaking his head as we looked up at the now star-filled sky!

Fifty-yards or so further on, there it was, my bivvy with all the toys still intact, much to my relief. Soaked through, I made a pile of wet clothes and scratched the numerous stinging nettle wounds. I was grumpy and I could hear Roger saying, ‘Never mind, you get wet and then you get dry again. That’s what happens in life. It’s one of the rules’.

I reminded myself of the story so far: The bait was in, the weather had fired them up to feed, I hoped, the rods were sorted and each had the new, but as yet untried, deadly rigs attached, all baited with the awesome birdfood baits, the Savay Seed Mixes… How could I fail? I was less grumpy now.

It was getting on for 1am, so I figured I had best get the baits out. The hump is more of a bar, around 20-30yds long, so each rod in turn was cast to the left, middle and right-hand side of the feature. The gap between the splash and the ‘donk’ on the leads told me that I was in the deeper water, just in front and bang on the baited area; perfect! Bedtime at last, alarm clock not set.

The Pride of the Valley

Little Did I Know, This Was No Tench

I was woken at 4am, just as dawn was breaking, by the alarm on the right-hand rod. Quickly, I sprang up and into my boots hoping to see the rod pulling over, but the opposite happened, it was a drop back. The monkey climber fell down the needle slowly and came to rest on the deck. ‘That’s all I need! Mrs. Tench at this time of day!’ The swim had a very steep, slippery clay slope. I bet the hook will be impossible to get out.’ I pondered the best way to get things sorted without falling into the 10ft deep margin. I was also in desperate need of a tiddle! That done, I noticed that the line was now lying slack, very slack. I picked up the rod and started winding, and winding, and winding, getting more and more excited as I reckoned that no tench could ever move a lead as far as this. It must be a carp after all. ‘I hope it’s a biggun,’ I thought. So, the line that was originally cast slightly to my right, was now ripping along the margin to my left. At last, I tightened into the fish, feeling that unmistakable steady ‘plod’ on the rod tip.

My next worry was Rob’s lines. I prayed that I was underneath them, as he was still fast asleep. The worst noise in the world now would be his alarm. Thankfully, this didn’t happen and the line angle eventually started to come back round. It was now in front and my heart rate increased. Then I saw her. From left to right, the huge, silvery side passed in front of me. OH. MY. GOD. IT’S SALLY! I felt my poor old ticker bang against my ribcage and leap to the back of my throat in an effort to break free. ‘Stay where you are, boy. This is definitely not the time to desert me!’

Very carefully, I eased my way down the slope with the net, keeping the pressure on and telling myself that all would end well. My name was on her, but what would happen if the hook came out? It was a job holding myself together. She plodded about, up and down that margin, never letting me catch another glimpse. Every time the rod tip started rising, I thought I had her beaten, only for the tip to pull back down. Time and time again it happened, until at last, there she lay. Slowly, I slid the net out to meet her and finally, she was mine!

'Sally Was In My Net! I'd Better Go And Get The Boys!

Reaching for a bankstick to push through the spreader block, I made sure she couldn’t escape while I went to wake the boys.

“John, get yourself up mate, lively!”

“Why? Have you got one ?”

“Have I ever, mate! I’ve got THE one. I’ve got me Sally the Carp! Hurry along, I’ll go and get Rob”

“How big is she?” he asked as I scampered off.

“F*ck knows, she’s still in the net, too big to lift her up the bank!”

I gave Rob the same news and he gave me the wry smile that only those who know him can picture. “You crafty old boy, Lockey!” He knew the score. We grabbed his scales and got the cameras sorted. Carefully, we lifted her up and onto the dew-covered mat (correction, unhooking mats hadn’t been ‘invented’ back then, I laid her in the long grass). Her majesty left us speechless, with her perfectly proportioned, huge, golden, yet silvery, scales and the unmistakable nick in her tail, her eye looking back at me knowingly. I felt very, very humbled. The Pride of the Valley, indeed, hooked two-inches back inside the mouth, middle of the bottom lip. There was no way the hook would ever have pulled out, my name was on her. The Looney Extension Rig had worked perfectly!

At 39lb, she equalled her own lake record but the weight was completely irrelevant, other than to let us know she was still doing well. We did the photos and slipped her gently back, watching in awe as she swam back to the depths of Savay. I had a surreal shiver go through me in respect for a true legend from that legendary water.

All three of us knew that we had witnessed a piece of carp fishing history. We sucked in the atmosphere of that amazing morning and laughed at the events of the previous evening. Then, in unison and with our arms in the air, we let out the shout that I never dreamed I would ever do, SALLY! rang out across the lake.

I see her every day as the ‘O’ in the Solar logo, making Sally the most reprinted carp in history… I remember our meeting as if it were yesterday. When all had settled and I was in the bivvy alone and taking in what had happened, there were tears of pride and joy.
Uncaught and unseen since that morning of 19th June, 1989, Sally remains immortal. God bless her forever!