WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PHIL THOMPSON, OSPREY AND OTHERS!

Llyn Y Gors
SIZE: The Old Carp Lake is 4.5-acres.
FISHED THERE: Rob Hughes, Simon Crow, Matt Hayes, Mick Brown, Colin Davidson.
CLAIM TO FAME: A popular holiday venue and day-ticket site on the isle of Anglesey.
OVERVIEW: Founded as a single-lake venue in the 1970s, Llyn Y Gors grew to encompass fives lakes catering for match, pleasure and specimen anglers. The Old Carp Lake is the biggest of the waters and was expanded from two acres to more than four acres in the summer of 1994, the same year it appeared in Simon Crow and Rob Hughes’ Day Ticket series in Carpworld.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LAKE? Long-time owner Kevin Coe died suddenly in November 2012, and his wife Karen six months later. Llyn Y Gors was put up for sale in 2013 with a guide price of £1.5m. The carp lake is now run as a syndicate and has received an injection of fish stocks from the likes of VS, Priory and Mark Simmonds. Kevin Coe was a former IBM executive, and Llyn Y Gors was also the physical home of the pioneering online tackle shop (and accompanying forum) Fishing Warehouse, fronted by top carper Paul Selman. That store name lives on under the current fishery ownership.
WHAT’S IT LIKE NOW? Still a popular holiday complex with on-site tackle shop, Llyn Y Gors remains a thriving fishing spot. The carp lake, which was otter-fenced in 2019, contains some great-looking fish but its syndicate status means it’s not quite so well known nationally these days. 

Phil Thompson
WHO: Surrey big-fish man who chronicled his exploits in a cult book.
VENUES HE FISHED: Classic big-carp waters like Yateley, Horton, Wraysbury, Rodney Meadow and the Mere, to name a few.
RENOWNED FOR: Phil’s book Waiting for Waddle was published in 1995 (the same year Chris Yates penned Casting at the Sun) and has gained mythical status among sections of the carping fraternity. Subtitled ‘a carp fishing odyssey’, the tome was not an instant hit and legend has it the author dumped hundreds of copies in a skip. Perhaps that accounts for its current scarcity and accompanied asking prices of around £400. Waiting for Waddle (Waddle was a huge carp seen in the depths of Wraysbury) formed part of a 1990s golden era of carping memoirs from the likes of Hearn, Lane, Selman and Maylin. The book came out a year before Tel’s record capture of Mary from Wraysbury—a truly defining moment in modern carp angling—so perhaps it was just slightly ahead of its
time and took time to gain wider appreciation.
WHAT HE DOES NOW: No longer chasing carp on the gravel pits around the M25, Phil has moved to Thailand. 

Osprey
FAMOUS FOR: See-through glass leads, glowing bobbins and alloy throwing sticks.
NAMED ANGLERS: Lee Jackson, Bernie Stamp and magazine editor Tim Hodges.
STAND-OUT PRODUCTS: A real blast from the past, it’s easy to forget that Osprey had bold ambitions and launched a range of terminal tackle including hooks (under the Sabre Point name) and plenty of rubber rig bits. The Airstick throwing sticks (curved or straight) were made from ‘aircraft-grade alloy’, featured lots of cut-out sections to save weight and were painted in a fetching pale blue colour. But it was the Tactical Weights most people will remember. These clear glass ‘leads’ were said to disappear underwater and were briefly very popular. Osprey also launched Kryptonite bobbins which glowed in the dark without the need for slot-in isotopes.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM? The company was launched in early 2006 but shut up shop halfway through 2012.

Canadian Carp Club on the St Lawrence
SIZE: The whole river is 310 miles long.
WHO FISHED THERE: The St Lawrence on the US side first hosted the World Carp Cup in 2005 and again in 2011. Plenty of Brits like Lee Jackson, Tony Davies-Patrick, Ian Chillcott and more have fished the waterway over the years.
CLAIM TO FAME: The St Lawrence River came to prominence in the early part of the 21st century and Canadian Carp Club were the people to book through for a package tour.
OVERVIEW: Turbo-charged commons to well over 40lb and 30 fish in a day on simple tactics: what’s not to love? The St Lawrence was a hot venue in the early 2000s. The Canadian Carp Club offered accommodation, bait and tackle on a wide expanse of the river at Long Sault in Eastern Ontario and many British anglers took advantage of their packages and local know-how.
WHAT HAPPENED? The popular tours were run by experienced carper Jeff Vaughan, who owned a motel beside the river, but he has since sold the Canadian Carp Club brand, which continues to operate as an online tackle shop as far as we can tell.  
WHAT’S IT LIKE NOW? The St Lawrence on both the US and Canadian sides continues to throw up big carp and host carp matches.