The Berkshire Pit and The Brute

I fell in love with The Pit, and although it was only a brief affair, it was a beautiful one

A beautiful dawn

Key point 1: Dreams and determination

When editor Joe first asked me to write this series I must admit I felt somewhat apprehensive.

When I actually look back at some of my big fish captures, I can’t help but feel there has almost always been a great big chunk of fortuity and luck involved of many of them over the years. Having to follow the likes of genuine big fish machines like Darrell Peck who has undoubtedly caught more forty and fifty pounders than I have had hot dinners, it almost seemed a bit fraudulent for me to be writing in a similar vein, but when I thought about it, it did occur to me that I actually probably have a lot in common with the majority of the average readership and maybe that would be a good thing to read. I generally get to fish a night or two a week at best, balance my angling with a hectic 9-5 and have a busy life outside of fishing as well, so consequently my angling has usually had to fit in wherever it can. To be honest, I wouldn’t really want it any different, I look forward to each and every night I get to spend on the bank and put my all into the short spells I do get – I’m definitely not always successful either, in fact I reckon over the last few years I have actually probably been the least successful angler out of my entire local friend group from the Ringwood area, 99% of whom you will have never heard of because they are just working lads with wives, girlfriends, families and jobs who graft away doing the weekends and don’t write about what they do.

I have always had a massive admiration for lads like that, the ‘working weekenders’, and see them as the glue that holds the carp scene together, they’re not in it for anything other than love and an escape from the realities of work and daily life and I love that. I almost feel like this series could have been re-titled for me, ‘No Bullsh*t, Just An Average Guy’s Angling’! I guess the media feels like it needs to make people out as somehow being ‘better’ than the masses, that premise is maybe what they think sells DVDs and magazines: ‘Here, watch this, it will make you a better angler!’ but one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I’m no better than anyone I know, in fact, I am lagging well behind a substantial number of them and why I find writing with conviction about tactics as opposed to just telling stories makes me a tad uncomfortable and a little embarrassed at times when I’m in the company of the likes of Scott Karabowicz, or Jester, or the Grahams to name just a couple… Those boys are leagues ahead of almost anyone I know, or have ever met.

All that said, if you can take anything from this, it is that with some belief, and determination, you can catch the carp of your dreams, because as I see it, all I have ever done is set my heart on something, and pushed for it, and that is something anyone can do.

Each week on my way and way back from the Berkshire Pit, I’d drop into the Swindon Park and give them three or four of these

Key point 2: Fate and fortuity

Once again, it seems fate played a big hand in my captures from the ‘Berkshire Pit’ as we will call it out of respect for my mates and the other lads that still fish there.

At the time I was somewhere between my Fine Art degree and my teaching training PGCE degree, and had a bit of time to play with, so I was fishing more during this spell than I ever had before. I lived in Manchester but the time I had available meant I could realistically look at fishing further afield and so my thoughts had drifted towards some of the open access Southern pits. I don’t know why, but I’ve never been one of those guys that have their names on twenty waiting lists and are continually looking to work their way into waters. Maybe it is a lack of foresight, but I have always just drifted along season to season, fishing wherever takes my fancy and on whatever ticket I can get hold of when I need one.

We are fairly lucky in the UK in so much as there are a wealth of great club tickets out there, and it is these I have more often than not relied on: Prince Albert AC, Northwich, Ringwood, Christchurch, Ashton Keynes, Reading AC… The spring I fished the Berkshire Pit I had no real intentions to, it was a chance afternoon round my mate Rob Gillespie’s house spent talking carp that sparked it. Rob had a copy of Big Carp with Nathan Bailey on the cover with the Jockey, it was an immense cover shot, the Jockey looked incredible and typically of me, I just decided I’d have a go. I tried to persuade Rob to join me but he had already fallen in love with Stoneacres and Choco and so once again I was left to chase my dreams on my own.

Our mate Gav from Redesmere had been travelling down there to fish and had caught the Jockey, and whilst to me the Southern pits still held an aura and mystique I still found pretty intimidating, I knew if a northern lad like Gav could rock up there and catch it on a brazil, then I might even half a chance myself.

As it happens, I didn’t fish it that year, the Jockey died and it was the following spring before my thoughts drifted back there. I’d been fishing the Swindon Park Lake and actually, more than anything, needed a ‘gap filler’ for the close season. I also reasoned that with a minor diversion, I could drop in to the Swindon Park on the way, and way home from Reading each trip to have a look and bait up. I was hell bent on catching The Resident that year and had big plans for the close season baiting, this way I’d get a spring on a new pit, and get to bait the park twice a week too.

As it happens, due to a last minute surf trip and some mechanical issues with my tired old Astra estate, it ended up being May before I even set foot on the banks of the Berkshire Pit, almost two months later than hoped. With the main big target sadly gone from the Berkshire Pit, the buzz and attention seemed to have drifted away too, and for some reason the back-up stock almost seemed to be forgotten. For me, I was just happy to be angling somewhere new, and really was hoping for just one or two bites at best for the remainder of my spring ticket, which ran out on June 15th, just over a month after I had bought it… On the bright side, I did get a discount ticket as it only had five weeks left on it!

Savage spring storms in The Nettles, the evening before a capture of one of the other mirrors, the Broken Lin

Key point 3: What works elsewhere, means nothing...

One thing that I did learn quite quickly on the Berkshire Pit was that what you have learnt elsewhere doesn’t necessarily count for anything.

And that each pit and new water often presents an entirely new set of problems. In this instance, I’d just come off the back of a pretty good run of fish from the Swindon Park Lake, I felt like I was fishing really well, had a few tactics, rigs and an approach that was working nicely for me, and I stupidly assumed I could take that to Berkshire with me. I’d been fishing mobile, basing almost all my angling on watching for shows and staying on my toes. It was a tactic I had learnt from some of the best of the North West anglers on Redesmere and had stood me in good stead on a lot of waters in the past.

That spring, the Berkshire Pit was gin clear and relatively weed-free in comparison to how I now know it can be at times. That in itself boded well for being able to chase them around, presenting Choddies or balanced pop-ups over the top of the light weed and trying to nick bites as and where I could. It was quiet enough to do it as well because I was often only sharing the pit with one or two others, on paper the dream situation.

What seemed to happen in reality, was that I’d see a few show, chase them round there, plop out a couple of Choddies and then often see no more shows, only to find them showing elsewhere the following morning. It seemed they were just really flighty that spring, whether that was down to the clarity and the lack of weed making them a bit more nervy than usual, or the lack of angler pressure meaning they always had pressure-free zones to drift into, I’m not sure, but after a few weeks of trying and more than a few moves and wasted nights, I decided it just wasn’t working for me, and the bites seemed to be coming to the lads sitting it out over bait, to be honest, a tactic that was fairly foreign to me at the time.

Within a couple of weeks I had changed tack, and based on the weather, and what I was seeing on the first day, making a decision and plotting up over bait. It worked, to a point, and I started to catch most trips, although I didn’t really get into any of the better mirrors and was catching a fair few commons and cricket bats.

Whether or not that was down to the areas I was fishing, I’m not sure. I had virtually no knowledge of the lake, the good areas for the big mirrors or past history as I knew very few people in that area at the time, so I was just fishing purely off the basis of what I was seeing. When I look back now at where the captures of the bigger mirrors like Pecs, Silt Pit, Pearly and The Brute did come from that spring, they were from the historic and known good zones out in the middle of the pond: Motorway Point, The Lawn, Slipway… Those swims were often occupied during my trips, and so I concentrated elsewhere, but in hindsight it does show the potential power and importance of knowing the water, especially on the busy, circuit type lakes that see a lot of bait and pressure and where the big bait orientated mirrors know where to go to find it.

I only fished the pit for five weeks in the end, so felt like I barely got to grips with it at all whereas I think these days, with extended friend groups and ease of communication, finding out information about waters is just so much easier, I actually feel like I know more about the lake now than I did when I was fishing it, ten years later.

The Container offered a good vantage point, and a good interception point for any fish moving from end to end. It also offered access to some interesting shallow bar systems which given the weather was something I felt was another advantage

Key point 4: Sitting on your hands is no bad thing

When my last trip of the spring rolled around all too quickly, I was gutted it was over so soon.

Although I had been baiting the Swindon Park Lake every week, and had been seeing the two big girls on a regular basis shovelling down my bait, I had fallen in love with the atmosphere of the Berkshire Pit, the pristine clear water, rich habitat and observation opportunities, having watched The Brute and a few of the bigger mirrors on a number of occasions and having just about started to get my head around how to get bites from there. I was sad to be leaving, so much so that I was contemplating renewing my ticket and saving The Park for later in the year, telling myself that The Resident would always look better in the winter anyway. That said, I had invested a whole lot of extra miles and bait in The Park that close season, and so decided I’d be mad not to at least fish the ‘off’ and give it a couple of weeks, even just to make the most of my baiting efforts if nothing else.

Perched in the canopy of the snags, watching the bulk of The Brute swaggering around over the yellow gravel just feet below me, suddenly the thought of sitting on the concrete dam wall amongst the bird life and mewling kids with ice creams didn’t seem so attractive as it once did!

That last trip in the second week of June the weather was scorching, I’d spent a morning trying my luck with the Zigs with a group in the Car Park Corner but to no avail, and had been baiting a few spots in an area known as The Container so I’d decided to drop back in there, give it a big hit of bait, and hope they got on it. Very little happened for the first two nights and I saw virtually nothing anywhere on the pit, but then on the last morning there was a big show in front of the Middle Container, just to my right. I sat and watched as what was clearly a good few big fish wallowed out just thirty-yards out, sheeting up as they ploughed back into the bottom. I was so close to putting a rig out into them, but knew how flighty they had been that spring so decided to sit on my hands and do one extra night.

I sat and watched until the morning spell had passed, every minute and every show being torn between flicking a little light lead out at them, or biding my time, especially as it was my last trip it was a hard decision to make, and of course there were absolutely no guarantees they would turn up again the following morning, after all, I had never seen them there before and I’d never seen anyone fishing the area either, so guessed it was a pretty unfancied zone.

In the end, I somehow staved off the devil on my shoulder, and decided to sit on my hands. At about 11 o’clock, well after the activity had all dried up I flicked out a light lead beyond where they’d shown. It landed soft, but after a few plucks, dropped with a thud onto clean bottom, revealing what appeared to be a freshly turned over spot about the size of a couple of golf umbrellas I reasoned, exactly where they’d been showing and sheeting up that morning. It was surrounded by short, fresh Canadian and couldn’t have possibly felt any more perfect. I popped up a little marker, put a few kilos of bait on it, clipped up my angling rod and then left the lines out for the day, only flicking it back out with a fresh rig and bait just before dark. The idea being to allow the area as much time as possible with no lines in it to settle, something I did know from my experiences on the park that seemed to make a real difference.

The rod was set-up on a single stick, with a brick for a back rest and I just hoped they returned, although if I’m honest, it almost seemed like an empty gesture, too little too late so to speak and my thoughts had already turned to the June 16th opening on The Park that was now just a few days ahead of me. It turned out to be my last hurrah…

The following morning, they did turn back up, and I sat behind my single rod of destiny as they shuffled out in the glassy calm water just thirty-yards out, right on top of the spot. My heart was in my mouth when the take eventually came, and you literally couldn’t have scripted a more fairy tale ending, but it was the big girl, The Brute, that wallowed into my net that fateful morning, and at just under 47lb, was the biggest she’d ever been too. I was completely blown away, my first real big ‘un from a Southern gravel pit, and on my last trip and night of the ticket. I was so blown away, I just couldn’t face going home, so I drove to the nearest supermarket and bought a BBQ, some steak, fresh bread and trimmings and a few beers to wash it down with. I’ve still got one of the ‘lucky’ Sol caps in my rig wallet to this day. I don’t even think I cast out that night, I just soaked it up, and trundled off home the next morning with a bloody great big grin on my face, literally having to tell myself I hadn’t just imagined it all!

Would I have caught her had I cast at the shows the previous morning? I’ll never know of course, but I doubt it, and that chain of events is something I do think back to now and again when I’m thinking about casting at shows – sometimes it does pay to just bide your time and sit on your hands. I definitely wasn’t in the running for a capture, I wasn’t really especially in-tune with the water or The Brute’s whereabouts that spring, having only seen her a couple of times, but it was just one of those occasions when my name was on it, and as I have to struggle and work for almost all the big ‘uns I catch, occasionally an ‘easy’ one is no bad thing!