'Hold On Tight, Brace Yourself!'

Every so often you go through a period when you’ve seriously got the bug, and you’re really, really into your fishing. I often think back to certain past years and past purple patches, looking upon them as benchmarks, peak ‘in the zone’ spells if you like. Happy times, reminders for how kind carp fishing can be when you’re truly focused and prepared. When luck is on your side, and when everything is running smoothly and to plan. Sometimes, those intensely focused spells last weeks, other times months, but when you’ve a memory bank of fishing to draw from, across all seasons and across a variety of venues, you kind of get to recognise when you’re slipping back into the zone reserved for the truly obsessed. I live for those highs.

Nothing but carp fishing is interesting at the moment. My TV has barely been on all year. Even for the short periods I’ve been at home, I still struggle to switch myself off. I’d rather prepare my kit, or zone out staring at pictures of mega carp, or aerial images of possible future venues. I’m not normally much of a TV watcher anyway, and besides, it was fast turning into some kind of strange, sinister, social engineering box, and I’m not up for that. Truth be told, I’m probably one of the last remaining people in the country with a dusty VHS recorder and a DVD player sat beneath it. The damned thing was already a distraction when it didn’t used to make my blood boil, so I’m sure not going to watch it now! And that’s really what this opener is all about: distractions, as it seems to me that the modern world is full of them. If you’re not careful they’re going to have a detrimental effect on your fishing, and we really can’t have that.

One of my most memorable years, one that has really stuck in the memory banks as different, was back in 2007. I’ve been obsessed with carp fishing for 35 years, but that year was one of those ‘super into it’ years. That year, like most years, I couldn’t get enough of the fishing. I started off fishing the winter on a big pit fairly local to my Surrey home, the Ellis, before venturing off to sunny Oxfordshire, fishing Stoneacres, the Big S, and a reserve pit through the spring, before then heading off to the carp fishing Mecca, Dinton Pastures in Berkshire for the summer, and then it was back to the Ellis for the winter again. I’m not going to go into the fishing, but it was a great spell, with plenty of good memories and plenty a prize on the mat. It’s one of those personal benchmark spells that I mentioned earlier, and I understand now better than ever that so much of that year’s success was down to being super focused on my fishing.

Relative to today, it was pretty much pre-internet, or at least it was in my world. My second book had just been published, and I’d not long bought and settled into my own house, before the responsibilities of actually running a home had truly sunk in, and I was at a stage where I felt ahead on life with zero distractions. It was all about big carp, there was nothing else. I won’t talk too much about the head high grass in my garden that summer, the gutters full of leaves, or anything else that got abandoned. None of that mattered and it could all be caught up with. I’ve often looked back at that year with a tinge of longing. Of course there’s been plenty of memorable spells either side, but I’ve enough years under my belt to remember, and to recognise that particular spell as one of those that was different, special, both in terms of enjoyment, and understanding and being into my game. In a way, it felt like a peak.

Having at last completed my third book towards the end of last year, I went into this year in the same frame of mind as I had way back in 2007. Everything that needed doing had been done, everything from the book, to doing all the jobs around the house and garden, and with plenty of help from my dad and Uncle Ray, we’d even trailered the boat home, where I knew it was safe and I didn’t need to check up on or worry about it, something that for the previous twelve years had been a regular bind when it was exposed to all weathers on its Thames moorings. 

I could feel it coming. A clear mind, plenty of carpy inspiration in the way of good venues, and a determination to make the most of every day. Eleven months, several adventures and plenty of luck later, and I’m exactly where I want to be. Right now, it’s 2007 again. I’ve made it so, and I don’t ever want to go ‘back’ to the madness of 2020!

Most good years start with an early boost, and this year it was with a brace of February big ’uns from Frimley, including my biggest ever common at 48lb 7oz. In my eyes, the Burghfield Common will always be my PB common, for obvious reasons, regardless of pounds and ounces. Even so, it was a good fish, and to have winkled out my heaviest ever common on February 23rd, incredibly on the very same date that I caught my biggest ever mirror, the Parrot, back in 2017, was a great early result and enough to send me into the spring buzzing.

Next stop was the Blue Lagoon in Bedfordshire, somewhere I’d already had a little taster of the previous summer. The film has been out for a while now and so I won’t go over it again, but luck was on my side, and the big scaly mirror known as Apples paid me a visit on my second trip back. Out of the edge too, my favourite way of carp fishing, close enough for me to see its eyes swivel before sucking in my caster cluster. It served as another confidence booster for the casters, another special one nabbed from an opportunity where regular baits were certain to fail, and already I had another venue or two in mind where, so long as I got the timing right, I felt sure I could put them to good use.

I’m not going to make this piece all about casters or you’ll end up thinking that they’re all I use, and so I’m going to skip forward to late summer, when I managed to get access to an old water local to home, and there it was all about boilies—loads of them!

I’ve seen plenty of change in the carp scene in recent years. Whereas the sponsorship side of things always used to be more about writing, photography, talks, and slideshows, nowadays the filming appears to have taken over. From my end, I love it. It’s given the whole thing a new lease of life. My films with ESP are shot over time, generally months, and so I’m still able to fish for my kind of carp at my kind of waters. If we only had a few days to put a film together, then they’d have to be done at very different venues, and that just wouldn’t be me. The tricky part comes when you’re fishing places that you’re trying to protect. Loosely written articles were relatively easy to do without instantly giving away locations, but with the filming that’s not as easy, and so careful consideration has to be given to whether or not it’s a suitable venue. All this has given me reason to search in the places I might have previously missed.

Any carper local to Surrey will know of Twynersh. It’s a lovely fishery in a leafy setting, but with most of the lakes fishable on a day ticket, I’d always imagined it as too busy, and so I’d shied away. I’d long had an interest in Pit 3 though, which is only fishable on a season ticket, and I’d often looked at shots of the residents, in particular the big common known as Nina. A lot of the big ones we fish for today are relatively young in comparison to the greats of the past, but Nina is one of the old breed, a 40lber going way back to 2005. When you get thinking about it, there aren’t many big ’uns we fish for today that have already been that size for fifteen years plus, a giant from a time when 40lb commons were far scarcer than they are today.

Nina was a mega prize, but the carp which really sparked my interest was a lovely old linear in the mid-thirties. I’d seen a picture of that carp somewhere or other online and captured a screen shot back in 2017—one for the ‘local special ‘uns’ folder on my iPad. It was being held by a young lad, a returner, and it was instantly recognisable as ‘proper’. Clearly aged, and with a classic, sloping head, a carp from another era. I’ll apologise, as I can’t remember the lad’s name now, but whilst fishing in the same area, on the Tunnels Lake only the following summer, I actually bumped into and had a little chat with him. You know who you are.

Carp fishing has already taught me how small a world it is, and trust me, it gets even smaller as you age, but even so, I never expected my window of opportunity for a lake in Surrey to come from all the way up in Bedfordshire! I’ve already introduced the fishery manager of the Blue Lagoon, Jay, in the last film. It was Jay who took the phone clip of me playing Apples. Anyway, it was whilst talking with Jay that he happened to mention that he knew the owner of Twynersh. It went to the back of the mind until late this summer, and then a quick enquiry to Jay ended in a bit of a result. All I was really hoping for was a chance to have a walk around Pit 3 with the floater kit, but as it happened I was a bit more fortunate with my timing. I believe Pit 3 would normally only be fishable on a Platinum Season membership, but it turned out that it had been taken off the books for a few weeks, with only the occasional member and friends of the owner allowed to fish. I was welcome to have a go myself, and so what started as a stopgap, somewhere local for a bit of stalking, soon turned into a full on campaign for Nina.

I best not go into too much detail as we’ve a film coming out on it for Christmas, but it was all about the kind of fishing I enjoy most, with most of it going on just a rod length or two from the bank. They liked a bit of bait, too, and from the off I found myself choosing, fishing and baiting three or four different swims around the lake. The fishing was great, and when things went to plan I’d get lucky enough to winkle one or two out from one of the plots more suited to the nights, and then I’d move round and fish another bank which gave me a much better chance of daytime action. It was late summer, a time when there’s normally a bit of a lull in the fishing, especially on the busier waters, and so I was enjoying myself fishing somewhere quiet with plenty of carp crossing the mat. 

It’s amazing how some carp just seem to get away with it. Nina has always been one of those that for whatever reason doesn’t come out too often. One thing for sure, it’s not because she’s wary of bait. In fact, of all the carp I watched, she was amongst the greediest, regularly eating more than her fair share. Time and time again she did me over. I can’t tell you how many times I had the camera rolling on my one rod lowered in off the tip, certain that it was about to go off any minute with that lovely old common on the end. Then, come nightfall, once the chance was gone and the carp had melted away, I’d have to go through the camera, deleting the day’s video files of a motionless rod, all ready for the next day, when invariably the same thing would happen all over again! 

During my first few opening trips I’d generally move for the hours of darkness, and then I’d be back on the ‘daytime bank’ for the following morning, but after walking in a little earlier than usual one day, and seeing Nina feeding on one of my edge spots much earlier than I’d been expecting, it soon became very tunnel vision like. 

My fishing at Twynersh happened over a two month period, and for the second half of it I was scared to leave that daytime bank, as every time that I got itchy feet, I’d stroll back round to check on my margin spots and see Nina close by. There were times when it was clear that the bulk of the stock was on the opposite bank, a good head of carp too, with action far more likely, but then I’d spot two or three carp on my bank, and nine times out of ten, Nina would be amongst them. It was like a test, and although there were plenty of times when I doubted myself for holding tight, all the while I just knew that I was in the right place to catch her. 

There was a feeling of time running out, too. Rich, the fishery bailiff, couldn’t have been more welcoming, and he made it clear that I was free to fish there for as long as I wanted, which was hugely appreciated. I won’t make a secret of it, I’d had a right result, a quiet bit of fishing that I was grabbing with both hands. Of course, there was still the odd angler about, in fact one weekend there were half a dozen on, but for the most part, whilst I was fishing, I had it to myself, and I knew that couldn’t last forever. Now was the time.

Approach-wise, fishing somewhere quiet gave me the opportunity to prep and bait swims, and much of that involved raking beforehand. It’s an old lake, dug way back in the 70’s and with a build up of silt to suit. All but one of the spots I caught from had been well raked beforehand. As well as ensuring decent presentation, the raking also proved to be of great interest to the carp, but the rudd loved the disturbed ground too, and this meant that much of my fishing was with boilies, generally bottom baits fished hard on the deck. 

I still caught a few on pop-ups, fished on the softer ground to the spots sides. In fact, the lovely linear that I mentioned earlier eventually fell to a pop-up, but in the back of my mind I knew that old Nina was a tricky one, and there were a couple of occasions where I just know that she ate every boilie down there, all but mine positioned an inch and a half off the deck. Even using baits straight from the bag, exactly the same as my freebies, she still cleared me out over and over again. She was obviously a slippery one, and the more I dug into her past captures, the more reports I heard of other anglers having the same experience.

I won’t say anymore as I don’t want to give too much of the film away, but it was a lovely bit of fishing in an area that’s always been so kind to me. Just on the other side of the River Bourne, which runs alongside the fishery, is the old CEMEX Chertsey venue that I wrote about in my last book, and just beyond that on the other side of the motorway is Thorpe Park. You can just about see the tips of one or two of the roller coaster rides when you look from the riverbank. Every day, I’d hear a distant voice come over the loudspeaker, “Hold on tight, brace yourselves”, soon followed by the screams of youngsters with their hearts in their mouths. It still makes me chuckle now!

Keep catching ‘em.