Lewis Read: Big Fish Angler And Tackle Developer

The last thing I bought and loved was a Power Barrow. Dear God; it’s a revelation! To put it in some angling perspective, the east bank of the club lake has been like the Somme this winter, and consequently, has barely been fished. Well, last weekend I was dragged the length of it without needing a rub-down and oxygen afterwards! All those long walks on ‘Burger World’ will be far more doable, even on swift work-nights this year. Yes, I love it!

With time on my hands, perhaps I’d tie loads of rigs (or at least booms and end sections), ready for when I go ‘dangling’. I might even change my lines before the spools are half empty and the line’s ragged rotten too! In reality, with rigs, I will always do them on the bank, when and where they’re needed, which is probably a good thing as that way I can adapt rigs for specific spots. It’s a bit of a hard question to answer, as I do as much fishing as I want to, most of the time. The extremely understanding and very long-suffering wife allows me a fair bit of slack to shoot off down various ponds and lakes, so I go a lot when I’m on full-bore missions. If I had even more time, I know I would be a selfish prick and go fishing more, and honestly, I’m already right at the limit of what any sane person would consider reasonable. 

I don’t collect stuff, unless you include the bits I consider as ‘working’ fishing gear. Then again, I do have one set of ‘sentimental’ rods, my old original set of MK1 2.5lb TC Armalites, that I gave to my old man a few years before he passed. I took them back off Mum as a keepsake, even though Dad never got to use them in anger. Despite that, I still feel like they were his, so whenever I glance at the rod rack, I always think of him.

I’ve recently discovered my deep fascination with astronomy. I can watch How the Universe Works and stuff like that all day, every day. Thank the Lord that I work and go fishing a lot…

My favourite lake and swim is the End Swim on the Herts Club Lake. I just love it in there! Any kind of a breeze with the slightest bit of northerly blows down the length of the lake, funnelled by the contours of the valley itself. The bars, which largely all sit diagonally in a north-west–south-east direction, bring ‘traffic’ down into the swim’s water. The view is spectacular, and despite the lake losing a couple of its big old weeping willows to the ravages of time, it’s still a truly ‘bootiful’ vista that draws your eye along the length of this lovely old Colne Valley gravel pit. It’s heaven on earth.

In my bait bag you’ll always find various foody pop-ups, plastics, and there’s always a packet of ‘Rami’ (that’s out of date) floating about in there somewhere… To be honest, I’ve all but given up on carrying gaudy, flouro-coloured pop-ups, as I find that they have offered me only patchy results, even at the best of times. If I need a bright hookbait, I’ll put a paler food-based hookbait on as they offer both the visual and olfactory stimulus that has always worked so much better for me.

‘Plastic fantastic’ are a necessity these days, as it seems, thanks to the unfortunate proliferation of signals, to some degree or another, on every lake I currently fish. Wretched animals!

Bait-wise, I am not keen on swapping and changing boilie. I prefer to stick with one bait for all venues, adjusting the feed rate to suit the specific lake or time of year; good old Sticky The Krill does this admirably at the moment. Hmm, particles… am I even allowed to mention peanuts soaked and cooked in Thaumatin-B without the carp police getting all antsy?

The game-changing moment which altered everything for me was less a technical game-changer, and more a personal one. It was probably the first reasonable-sized carp that I caught as a nipper, a fish named the Nineteen from the Diana Lake in Bushy Park (near Hampton Court Palace). At the time it felt like a bit of a fluke, but it demonstrated to me that I could catch bigger carp by fishing waters that held them. Looking back, I was young and thoroughly naive. Up until then I really didn’t have any belief in the techniques, bait or approach I had used with slight success being applicable to the future angling I aspired to. In hindsight, I think that one capture spurred a higher level of enthusiasm and a little more belief that large carp were attainable. How foolish can a young carper be…?

The lake I somewhat fancied a return to is the former CEMEX venue, Papercourt. Whether that will ever happen, I don’t know, but I always loved it on there. In reality, with so many new lakes to visit, why step back in time? I prefer new frolics and angling adventures.

The one angler I’d love to fish with (dead or alive) if I could, is Tel. It will almost certainly always be Tel.

An indulgence I would never forgo is the winter speciality hot nip evening beverage: half and half Cadbury’s Instant Hot Chocolate and Horlicks (milk in before the hot water, obviously), topped up with whatever spirit you can sneak out of the drinks cabinet without ’er indoors spotting! The base also works well with a generous glug of Baileys instead of the milk.

A recent find is Camstiff from Thinking Anglers. It’s just right, not too soft and not too stiff. The other one is SBX (braid). It’s absolute toe rope that sinks like a brick… it’s so strong, I can’t imagine any reasonable circumstance when it will fail. When I knot-strength tested it, it was well over 40lb on standard knots, so that makes fishing on waters that are littered with obstacles that much safer (for the fish), as it goes back to a time when the (relative) weak link is probably the hook. ‘Manimal’ and utter confidence on a spool.

If I wasn’t doing what I do, I would most likely be poorer, sitting at home, barely robed in a heavily soiled string vest–Y-front combo, eating lots, and slowly becoming increasingly ‘portulent’. I’d certainly have to find something else to fill the huge void. I’ll stick with where I am please…