Record Breaker

"Around the beginning of August 2008, the fish in Conningbrook started gathering up one end of the lake en masse. They seemed to stay there for weeks, seemingly not moving, staying tight to a large weedbed. There were about four swims which commanded that bay area of The Brook and those swims were getting hammered.

“Despite this, the fish were continually showing up there and not many were getting caught. I did a few nights myself, but was still trickling in the bait at the other end. Then, on a walk back up to the other end around the 8th August, I saw a really big disturbance in a weedbed. I quickly shinned up a tree just in time to see Two-Tone disappearing into an area called Perfume Bay where I had been baiting down the opposite end of the lake.

“That was it, this was my break, from then on I knew I had to leave the others to it and do my own thing by moving away from the pressure and back to my little spot. I could only hope it was visiting my area, enjoying the lack of angling pressure
and was about to slip up to the trap I’d worked so hard to create, install and protect during the months leading up to this moment.

Oz works in the service industry and is by no means a full time angler, fitting in 48hrs a week on the bank at the most. Yet he’s managed some truly special results including holding the current British record with Two-Tone from Conningbrook at 67lb 8oz.

Oz has been fishing since he was four-years-old, when his grandfather took him to the local rivers and lakes. He explains that he was always fascinated by the underwater environment and remembers looking off a boating platform at some perch and then falling in!

This fired up Oz’s excitement for the mysterious underwater world. He started off by catching perch and bream but then, when his grandfather passed away, it made things a bit difficult, as no one else in the family was a fisherman. Luckily, the father of school friend took him along and he soon found his way into a really good local club in Canterbury where he met some great like-minded people. It was from this point on that his fishing really progressed.

Oz started carp fishing in 1987 at the age of 15. One of his local lakes was a real hot bed for carp angling at the time and had some really good anglers fishing it. A local bailiff, Roger, helped him out a lot and he scraped some tackle together. As Oz explains, back then “what was learnt, you earned!” and it was hard to extract anything from anyone. He sourced a few books and eventually got a second-hand copy of Carp Fever by Kevin Maddocks, the arch technician of carp fishing at the time. It just so happened that on the front cover was a picture of a big Kent fish from a local lake.

Being the cheeky chap he is, Oz managed to procure himself a junior club ticket for all of 12 pounds and used to go over on the train and have a look around the lake known as the School Pool.

The School Pool lies in-between a school playing field, factory and council estate and that became the birth place for young Ozzy’s carp fishing where he learnt his craft and caught his first 20lber and first thirty in the shape of Cluster.

Oz’s first 30: Cluster from School Pool

“What do you consider to be the highlights of your angling life so far and what are your favourite venues?”
“Obviously I spent most of my early carp fishing in the Kent valley of the Stour, around Fordwich. This holds a lot of happy memories for me - your first serious water will always hold a special place in the heart.

“Conningbrook was obviously a special place to be, with so many well-known anglers treading its banks and the history involved there, which I was lucky enough to have been a part of right from the beginning.”

“A mate, Paul, really pioneered the lake and got me to come over and have a look, this gave me a nice affinity with it to begin with. As I was still very young then, it seemed a very difficult lake to get to grips with and I kind of dabbled on it and then went back to the other waters that would produce fish for me at the time. Then, when I went back on there seriously and got my head into it, it became a very special venue and ultimately produced the record fish. To be able to do that is obviously a one-off and the highlight of my career.”

A record capture

“How many nights did you put in before you had Two-Tone?”
“The signing-in book at Conningbrook shows I did 104 nights over 18 months on that campaign at Conningbrook. In the first year I fished between April and the end of October and the next year I started fishing in March and fished through until August. I actually managed to get some video footage of my target fish a few weeks before I caught it, as the fish started to shoal up at the bay end of the lake. They were nearly all there and it was almost as if Two-Tone was holding court right in the middle! It was just after this period, as the fish shoaled up and the swims in that area became a conveyor belt of anglers, in and out, that my opportunity came. After noticing a disturbance, I saw the big ‘un heading into Perfume Bay and knew I had to make a move. In the coming weeks I had The Friendly Common followed by The Bullet Hole Common and I knew the jigsaw was coming together perfectly.”

First blood at Conningbrook: The Dolphin

“When you hit the rod, did you know it was Two-Tone? What was the fight like?”
“I got the take at half past seven in the morning on the 16th August. The night before a really big fish showed itself over the spot and the displacement of water was so great that it could have only been one of two fish, so I was really hoping it was the one! As soon as I hit the rod it stripped off about 30-40yds of line and bow-waved out of the bay. I actually thought it was a fish called The Long Common, which would match those characteristics. The power behind it was immense. It soon found sanctuary in a weedbed and everything locked up solid, so we got the boat. With my mate Marshy onboard, we set sail to, fingers crossed, free it.”

“What ran through your mind when out in the boat trying to get that fish out of the weed?”
“As we drifted over the area, I could see a huge plome of silt which had been stirred up from the take and we followed the line across to a larger weedbed. As we got over the top of it, I applied some pressure with the rod and got some movement. At the time the lake was absolutely crystal clear and as we were looking down into about 10ft of water, I gradually saw the weedbed break up and through the bits of weed this tail appeared. I knew then that tail could only belong to one fish and that was the big one! I turned round to Marshy and said, “Mate, it’s Two-Tone” and from that moment on I don’t think Marshy said a single word to me and I just proceeded to bark orders at him for the next very stressful 20 minutes or so.

“It was a mad scary fight, as the fish powered off dragging us along in the boat right into an underwater jungle of Canadian. It suddenly disappeared, like it had gone into a black hole, so the game began again, trying to extract him from the weedbed, but this time I was shaking twice as much knowing what was on the end. All the time Marshy was trying to keep the boat steady with the new southwesterly wind trying to push us sideways.

“The boat was old and rough and was badly chipped and frayed. All I could think about was that if the line touched the edge of the boat it was all going to be over. I went into that zone when you’re completely in tune with what’s happening and I wasn’t going to let anything go wrong. Put it this way, it was a serious tense battle!”

A very special moment

“What was it like to hold up Two-Tone knowing it was the new British record?”
“It was really surreal. At the time of landing the fish after the battle and the emotion of it being the end to a campaign which I’d been through the highs and lows of, to eventually have it in the net, it just blew me away. I remember not being able to even unhook the fish as I was shaking so much, being so in awe of it. I think in the end Billy Dawson unhooked it and promptly pocketed my rig, which I managed to get back off him an hour or so later!

“It’s a massive fish to hold up. It’s as wide as the distance from your bicep to your fingertips. The best bit for me, though, was getting in the water with him and holding it in the water, just looking at its size and then letting the fish swim away. I think that moment will stay with me forever.”

“The reaction from the angling media wasn’t exactly brilliant – not what you’d expect for a new British record. What were your thoughts on this?”
“I felt a bit saddened by it all really. If I’m honest with you, I’d never really been involved with the media side of angling before, but seeing as it was a record fish I thought it was pertinent to send it into the weekly papers. It was a bit of a shame to get a backlash from a record fish; I think that was a bit childish. These things should be celebrated and not picked apart with negativity. I didn’t set out to catch a record, I set out to catch Two-Tone and it just happened to be of a record weight when I caught it. I can see some people get bored of the same fish being caught time and time again, but at the end of the day that’s the way it is.”

Celebrations at The Brook. From the right: Marshy, Little John and the Conningbrook bailiff, Dave Padgham who is sadly no longer with us

“Did you celebrate hard?!”
“Ha, ha, yeah of course! We got together the following weekend down at the lake and Gary Rochester did a big BBQ and we all brought along a few boxes of beer and some Champagne. One of the lads even brought a nice bottle of Bollinger in a camouflage ice bucket which he nicked out of his wedding collection! So that got fired into the lake and we proceeded to celebrate and have a very good night!”

“How did you feel when you heard she had passed away?”
“Obviously it’s upsetting. I saw that fish when it was mid-thirties, when it was first caught by Phil Loyd during those early years. I then saw it grow into this leviathan of a fish. I was lucky enough to catch it and then it got caught a couple more times before it sadly passed away. Dark days, especially when it happened in the middle of a really bad patch when a lot of old history fish started leaving us. I really feel for all the guys that put in so much effort on that lake over the years and never got a chance to catch it. Seeing them not knowing what to do next, when everything revolved around that lake and that fish, I can only imagine how tough it would have been.”

“What was your view on the media attention in the national press generated when he died?”
“Well, I think we learnt a good lesson here. I don’t think we can ever expect the general population of the country to appreciate what we do and how we do it and exactly how much respect we give these fish. I just don’t think it’s relevant in most people’s lives, especially with the more important global events occurring in the news at the time such as troops dying in Afghanistan. I don’t think it’s fair to push the death of a fish into the media and it was a disaster waiting to happen. In the future, all news of this sort should stay in-house and inside the carp media blanket. Let other people get on with their lives. That whole period became a terrible circus and wasn’t good for our sport. Lesson learnt!”

On to pastures new: Oz on his new venue

“Where do you see the next British record coming from and will it be a proper English fish or a large imported one?”
“Obviously I’d love to see a big unknown fish from a lightly fished water come through and some lucky angler find it, keep it quiet and one day catch a new record. The way things are going, the chances of that happening are always more and more remote, but I’d love to think there are guys out there who have got that kind of lake going and that’s magical, so good luck to them!

“I’m obviously not really in agreement with importing fish or hand-feeding fish to large weights, it’s not in alignment with my style of fishing. I think that big fish need to be in a proper environment where they can grow on and be fished for fairly, gaining knowledge as they go. I guess I hope that the next new ‘biggie’ comes from a large windswept pit where it’s had time to come on and learn to be wise as we, as anglers, have to learn how to outsmart it. Hopefully it won’t be a fed up pet or imported fish that goes straight in and gets caught quickly without coming on up through the weights and gaining some history along the way, as that makes these captures even more special.

“Also, I think a fish like that would spark such a media debate it would be a nightmare for the angler, so I hope it’s a fish no-one can debate or squabble over.”

It’s not just the carp that need to worry!

The Holness household

“You’re by no means a full time angler with the wife and work, how do you find time to fit in your fishing?”
“It’s swings and roundabouts, ducking and diving to get in my two nights a week, but with enough planning I normally get them in by hook or by crook. Careful planning for me is the main thing and by fitting everything in, within the working week. I guess organisation in anything is the key for maximizing your time. What with my job and the training involved, it keeps me pretty sharp and I keep my kit very organised so when I can get to the lake everything’s ready and prepared. All the chores are done after work or whenever I have a spare five minutes, so when it’s time to go fishing I can go with a clear mind and with the say so of my long suffering wife, who seems to still put up with me to my amazement.”

“With limited time available what do you attribute your success to?”
“I go to great lengths to make sure my kit’s in tip-top condition. If it means spooling up some new line in my lunch break or changing the batteries in my alarm, I use all the time available to me to get it done. This means when I’m down at the lake I only have to focus on one consideration and that’s finding the fish. Location is key and then everything else comes into play around it. Being prepared at the lake, knowing all your spots in given areas is crucial, for instance, doing a tour of the lake with a leading rod and getting an idea of what’s there will hold you in good stead for the future. When I move onto a new lake I want to explore all the areas and that’s never a waste of fishing time.”

The signing in book with Oz’s last entry. N.B. He got the year wrong!

“What’s the best tip you can give to someone in the same boat so to speak, starting off a campaign with limited time?”
“Choice of venue is the number one factor, being close enough to home for you to fish somewhere which is within your limitations is crucial. If you’re not willing to spend lots of time waiting and not getting a bite, then maybe pick somewhere that will produce a few more bites and isn’t rock hard. If you have chosen a place you want to start on, spend a few weeks walking the water and pre-preparing yourself for the campaign with an idea of the bottom topography. Always use really good bait you have confidence in and can stick to, then use your watercraft to find the fish.”

“Do you like the balance in your life or would you secretly love to spend every night on the bank?”
“I absolutely love the rich balance in my life and other forms of fishing. I’m a fairly accomplished fly fisherman and I love a bit of pike fishing in the winter from my boat. I love my surfing as well, which takes me to different countries and that gives me a nice balance. Obviously the more time you can spend on the water, the more in tune you are with it. For me, I love going home as much as I love getting to the lake.”