They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore!

The year is 1979 and a young Chris Ball is gazing longingly into the clear waters of what would become known as the Car Park Lake at Yateley. From his perch atop a tree on the causeway between the North Lake and the Car Park, Chris has spotted five fish lazing in the early summer sun, the biggest of which is a thickset powerhouse of a mirror that would go on to become known as Single Scale. 

“Len Arbery had told me that Yateley held some big tench,” Chris remembers, “but he’d also dropped in that there were a few fair-sized carp about too. In the group of fish that I was looking at were two leathers, one of which was probably Heather, and the other most likely the Bronze Leather.” 

So no Arfur at that stage but as Chris soon found out, the CP did hold some big surprises. Kenny Hodder and Pete Springate had been targeting the lake too and Kenny soon banked a fish that was to shake Dick Walker’s British Record, in the shape of a heavily spawn-bound scaly mirror of 42lb, which sadly died long before the season dawned in 1980.

Definitive records documenting the stocking of Yateley have proved nigh-on impossible to tie down and conjecture is rife, but what we do know is that in 1968 the Match Lake received a stocking of 200 carp, overseen by Ken Suter, while working for the Halls Angling Scheme. The Match Lake is key to our story, because it’s where the young mirror, which was later to be called Arfur Tail, was stocked into. Ten years after they were introduced, the young fish were doing well enough to be noticed by the likes of Chris Ball and his friends Jan Wenscka and Terry Gleboiska.

Now, when considering the ethics of this next chapter in Yateley history, it must be remembered that those involved were completely ignorant of the dangers of moving carp, as indeed were all anglers then!

“Jan and I were stalking in an area of the Match Lake called The Jungle, which you could fish back then,” Chris told us, “and Jan managed to catch at 20lb mirror, just as Terry Gleb came through the bushes and said, “Cor, that’s a cracker! There’s loads in here, but hardly any over the road,” and with that he wrapped the fish in a sack, popped it into his haversack and slung it over his shoulder with the tail flapping around his neck. That fish turned out to be the famous Chunky!”

Terry’s antics didn’t stop there either and a short time later he managed to convince Chris to move another Match Lake resident into the Car Park, a handsome, clean mirror that would become better known as the Big Orange later in life!

It wasn’t until 1984 that the fish at the centre of our tale took the same trip over the road onto the West side of the complex. Arfur was moved in a rucksack too, and it was during the short journey that he lost a portion of his tail, hence the name that was to stick forever more. 

Once in the Car Park, the fish flourished, along with the rest of his former Match Lake colleagues, but Arfur wasn’t destined to be a fish that saw the bank very often at all, quickly becoming an enigma. Captures by Terry Pethybridge, ‘Ginger’ Baker (at a whopping 38lb plus) and Bernie Loftus were kept relatively quiet because the anglers fishing the lake didn’t want it to be widely known that the Car Park now had another fish that had pushed well into the thirties. 

After Bernie’s capture (at a spawned-out 32lb) the fish went on the missing list for two and a half years, during which time the lake had attracted the attention of a new generation of big-carp man, whose number included Terry Hearn (for whom Arfur was to become a bit of a nemesis) and Nigel Sharp, who was the next angler to cross paths with Arfur on a sultry August night in 1995. After a concerted effort in the Islands swim, Nige had the spot rocking and a switch from a pop-up to a bottom bait fooled Arfur at 11:30 p.m. The fish was huge and topped 40lb for the first time, registering a weight of 41lb 4oz.

Amazingly, a mere four years later Woking angler Tom ??? landed Arfur at over 50lb for the very first time—the Yateley complex’s first 50lb carp. With its more famous compatriot, Heather the Leather also topping 50lb in the years that followed, the great and good of the carp world tried their hand at tripping up some of the most pressured big carp around—even Terry Hearn was tempted back for another crack at Arfur! 

It was Arfur’s territorial nature that made it a targetable carp for Tel and others, preferring the snaggy margins of the northerly end of the pit, particularly in an area aptly named Brute’s corner! As Nigel had proven, and others like Scott Karabowicz and James Davies cemented, the fish could be caught on her wanderings in swims such as the Islands, but she definitely preferred the area between the Bars and the Chair. This behaviour only wavered after Heather died, as Martin King from Yateley Angling Centre remembers. 

“It might sound mad, but I think once Heather was gone, Arfur became the dominant fish and started to get seen and caught in areas away from the top end of the lake. I even once saw Arfur turn up in the Gate snag in later years, a spot that she was very rarely ever seen in before.” 

Although Martin had fished Yateley since the 1980s, he wasn’t tempted to finally cast a rod into the most famous of all its lakes until 2006. 

“People used to come into the shop all the time and ask me why I wasn’t fishing up there, but it wasn’t until the 48hr rule was introduced by Ian Welch at CEMEX that I felt that I had a chance. Before that, it was rare to ever be able to get a swim along what we called the ‘Carp Bank’ (the lake’s west bank that housed swims such as the Islands, Bars, Curly Wurly, Snags and Dessie’s) because the full-time anglers had it locked down. 

“The first season I had a ticket was 2006, and that was the year that Single Scale, the one I wanted the most, died. I also became a dad around that time as well, so I didn’t begin my Car Park campaign for a couple of years.” 

When he did finally fish the lake, Martin set his sights on catching Arfur from the margins, a task that was to take him two seasons to complete. “I’d been baiting a margin spot between Dessie’s and the Islands swim all year. My steady trickle of bait had drawn the attention of several of the lake’s stock and I’d had fish feeding there practically all year! I’d seen my target, Arfur, feeding on the spot, but she didn’t like to feed with others, so I knew that I’d have to bide my time and wait for the right opportunity.

“After catching the Baby Orange from the spot back in the September, I was sure that I’d blown my chances because when I’d caught the Big Common at 38lb, it had taken me a month of baiting and not fishing to get Arfur confident on the spot again. I’d been watching the spot all day and I’d seen nothing, which was strange. However, I thought that should Arfur sneak in, I’d have a great chance of banking her because she’d be on her own. I’d noticed that Arfur seemed to be unsure of feeding on the spot after it had been fished and baited for so long, and I decided that it was probably the pellet that was unsettling her. I knew that she loved her hemp, so I’d been introducing some hemp, maggots and crushed tiger nuts instead. 

“I lowered my small PVA bag just 2ft out onto the spot. After settling the rod, I turned around to sort the rest of the kit out and the rod just melted off! Whatever was on the end must have sneaked in when my back was turned. The initial run was mental; it just wouldn’t stop. I managed to slow it and when it did turn, it just came in. I had seen a big, pale shape go in front but wasn’t sure if it was a dusting of silt. There was one point when I thought, ‘That could be Arfur’. . It was nerve-wracking, and I had to put the rod down at one point, to clear some weed that had built up on the top of the leadcore leader. With the net flat on the lakebed, I eased the fish towards me. She just started to waddle over the net and I scooped Arfur up!”

Martin’s capture of the great fish was among the last during her pomp, and as the next few years rolled by, she was to lose condition and develop a sore that simply wouldn’t heal on her flank. But all that considered, she still topped 40lb on occasion. As cautious as ever, right up until her demise in 2014, she will always be remembered as one the hardest of the hard in the famous Car Park!

Special thanks to Chris Ball, Martin King and Gaz Fareham for their information and images.