I remember I had just sat down with a coffee and was trying to put the mountain of work I had to wade through in some order of priority when the phone rang expecting another customer, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Tel’s voice."All right mate" he began and I knew instantly why he had rung."Bloody hell" I replied "News sure travels fast!".The whooping and a hollering that came blasting back at me had me grinning from ear to ear. It also trashed the chance of any work getting done as I sat there in a warm glow, reliving the events of the previous day. But I had first heard about the lake and its potential nearly three years previous..........................
I'd joined a small angling club so as to fish for chub and barbel on a river they also ran, and it was while drowning a piece of paste one cold, frosty November night I met a chap who told me mouth watering tales of a monster carp that lived in the lake, supposedly!!.Of course he had not actually seen the fish, or actually knew anyone who had caught it, but a friend of a friend, etc etc...
Shortly after this I visited the place but was far from impressed. The colour of tea, but still gin clear, the empty water seemed barren of all aquatic life. I paid a few more visits but apart from the bird life saw very little. I went back to the barbel and put the place at the back of my mind.
For some reason it never occurred to me that, it being the depths of winter, the lake was hardly going to look its best.
I did however check the clubs guide book and noted that a 38lb mirror carp was listed as the official
best.
Mid-summer the following year and I was driving along in the same area as the lake. My intention for the day was to join a new river syndicate for the coming autumn. I was parked at a set of lights, when none other than Tel [Terry Hearn] himself pulled up behind me.
It turned out he was on a bit of a "wander" and was planning a visit to the lake. As I had a key to the official car park, we decided to go together and it wasn’t long before we were strolling around the banks. What immediately struck me as we surveyed the place was the complete transformation from the bleak and forlorn view I had beheld a few months earlier. In full summer garb the place is one of the most stunning, beautiful places I have ever fished.
We had traversed most of the lake and were scanning a very nice tree lined bay, Tel, as he likes to do, was up a very rickety tree - while I was having a look around the margins.
As if from nowhere a lightly scaled mirror came drifting along."Mid to upper twenty" we both agreed. Tel went further round the bay to play in some more trees, while I found my attention drawn to a little overgrown island some fifteen feet from where I stood. The margins did not look to deep so, stripping of my trousers and shoes, I waded across.
I had taken half a dozen steps onto dry land, staring intently at a small set of pads that had been invisible from the main bank, when I spotted a carp lying, sunning itself amongst them. I eased myself back to where I had waded ashore and beckoned Tel to join me. By the time he joined me the fish had dropped down from clear view but the knocking and trembling pads kept us transfixed for ages.
Later, walking back to the cars, I was still numb from the afternoon’s events. I knew that, for my-self, the place was bewitching."Stuff the barbel" I thought to myself and went to sleep that night dreaming of uncaught monsters.
I started to visit the lake on a regular basis and found myself completely bewitched. I also found it was a place with extreme mood swings. Some days the background noise of the wildlife was incredible. So many species of birds(including peacocks that call out hauntingly as darkness falls),thousands of rabbits and the margins teeming with all manner of bugs, worms and snails. There was even a herd of ponies that would wander around at will.
And on other visits a strange atmospheric "hush" would de-send and everything would go quiet. It
would completely transfix and absorb me as I sat there staring out across that vast, dark, open expanse of water. Hour after hour would slip by but I was unable to tear my gaze away for fear of missing some huge fish slip out, hang on the horizon for a moment, and then crash back in, sending high bow waves rocking back towards me in the darkness.
She never did though!
Eventually though I decided on a plan. I had only seen one other "carper" in all my visits so decided to put all my eggs in one basket. One Sunday saw me wading across to the island with the small pads. By the evening, with my hands covered with blisters, I had "dragged" clear two spots of very thick weed and made two ambush spots. I loaded up each with groundbait, hemp and maggots to encourage anything with fins to move in and "tidy up". Next visit I put in the same but with boilies and some tigers, and the next was all boilies. I was doing this three times a week and thought it wouldn’t be long before I would be presenting a hookbait.
But it was while wading out on a "bait up" that I discovered a major flaw in my plans. It had never happened before but as I got near the island margins the place exploded in noise as untold coots, moorhens, tuffties, geese and swans took off, in a blind panic, in all directions. Needless to say, nothing much showed that morning, and it continued to happen.
It was just impossible to tell in the early morning and because of the shrubbery how populated the island was each visit. Sometimes deserted and sometimes I might as well have had a brass band announce my arrival.
As well as the bird problem threatening to ruin any "early start" session there was also a sudden, but thankfully short lived, flurry of anglers. Because of prying eyes I'd been forced to abandon some of the bait ups and so had stopped baiting up on a regular basis. So I was down there one evening looking for a plan "B" when I found a lovely spot in one corner of the lake. As I had pulled back the marker rod expecting to hit weed, the lead had rattled and bounced around like something possessed. Further exploration revealed one of the most prominent and promising features I had "found" so far. In fact the swim as a whole seemed "pukka". The only disadvantage I could see was that it was a bit convenient and an obvious choice for any visitor. What finally convinced me to take a chance though was the way both south-westerly and westerly winds blew into the area.
And it was a strong westerly I was looking at a couple of evenings later when, "bosh", a carp jumped out right on the money. I put out a couple of kilos of bait for the trip next day.
A very early start and I soon had both rods sorted and fishing. The steady westerly breeze began to grow in strength so that by mid afternoon it was blowing a real hooligan, sending high, white crested, foamy waves smashing into the margins on my left. And then the carp really began to show!.
Late afternoon and a fish shot straight out like a dolphin some twenty yards behind the rods. Then it rolled again just behind the spot. That sight alone was spectacular enough but what really got me going was the colouration. It was a common, and a big one at that!.By now it was getting dark and for some time nothing happened. Then a fish rolled just behind one of the rods, then, seconds later, between the two.
Out of the blue I had half a dozen bleeps and I shot up out of the chair nearly wetting myself. A liner perhaps..? I checked the time and was amazed to see it was nearly half eleven. The club rules meant that I had to be off the venue by twelve but I wasn't keen to go. I bent the rules as much as I dared, winding in about half one. As I swung my bag up to leave a fish rolled again."I shall see you tomorrow" I called out after it and went home.
I seemed to have real trouble getting back down and it wasn’t until late afternoon I pulled into the car park. My excitement was dampened a bit as I could see the wind had died down and was now just a breeze. I left the gear in the car and nipped along to check things out. As soon as I walked into the swim I could tell something was amiss. Broken rushes, bits of weed and a distinct wet stain in the middle of the pitch greeted my eyes. With my head in complete turmoil I began to make my way back to the car trying to figure out what had occurred and whether to fish or not.
Almost there and I caught sight of the "other" carper heading my way so I took a couple of steps into the nearest swim. I tried to shrug off my concerns and adopt my best know nothing, seen nothing attitude. We had been stood there for about ten minutes or so when I spotted another angler, travelling light and fairly hurtling along the footpath. He'd almost gone straight past when he spied us and skidded to a stop.
"Hello" he said, "any good?"
I could tell by his whole demeanour he was a very happy chap."No I’m just having a look" I lied, dreading in my bones what I could feel was about to come.
"Well" he began, "me and my mate had a blinding session it that corner swim this morning, he lost one, but I caught (inside my mind I began to scream Noooooooo!!!)...a 31lb common. I smiled weakly through gritted teeth and went home.
It was, by now, a bit late in the year for a plan ‘C’, and although I did a couple more sessions more time was spent "plumbing" than actual fishing. As the winter began to set in, and the lake grew more bleak and inhospitable my enthusiasm waned and I turned my attention back to the rivers and barbel.
By the beginning of March the following year my thoughts began to turn to the lake again.
When the close season began on the rivers I began visiting the place in earnest and also started baiting up several areas that I had
The set of still wet tyre tracks leading from the car park, glinting in the moonlight, did confuse me though. Someone had been to my lake
found the previous year. At that time my plan was to bait up right through the close season. But it was at this time that I dropped round a friend’s house and received some news that changed everything.
Almost as soon as I walked through the door the friend Paul, (Paul Bidmead) informed me that another mutual friend Nig, (Nigel Sharp) had just been on the phone. Apparently, "Tel and Ev" had been fishing "my" lake that very day. And they had caught one, a twenty eight pound mirror! I was gobsmacked!.
Then I thought "Hang on a minute, its the close season, they can’t be fishing!. Nige is winding me up! (Unbeknown to me at that time the club had changed the rules and had done away with the close season, but had sent my notification to the wrong address!)
"Definitely a Sharpy wind up!"I said to Paul. I even jokingly accused him of being in on the wind up. But I couldn’t resist stopping by the lake later on my way home. The set of still wet tyre tracks leading from the car park, glinting in the moonlight, did confuse me though. Someone had been to "my lake".
As it happened, Tel rang in the morning and confirmed events. He had been trying to get hold of me to let me know he was giving it a go. He was going to be there the next day so I arranged to nip down there and have a natter and a cup of tea.
Sitting there the next day, we both studied the well thumbed press cutting he had of a fish caught in the same area a couple of years before. Tel was beginning to doubt whether this lake was the carp’s home. The bank in the background of the picture looked the same, but it was hard to tell for sure. It also seemed odd somehow that we kept seeing the same few individual carp on a regular basis, but neither of us had seen anything remotely resembling the fish in the photo and we had both looked - a lot.. Had she died? Or been stolen? Was she ever in the lake in the first place? The best carp we had seen had to be the first one we ever saw. Tel was also pretty sure it was this same fish his friend Ev had caught the other day. The high natural food levels, dense weed beds and acres of water to hide in made the lake hard work and a gamble at best. And with only very few carp in nearly forty odd acres?.I did begin to wonder myself.
"It would be nice to know for sure even if someone else caught her" I thought to myself, glancing sidelong at Tel as I did so. Then, as the day began to brighten up a bit a decent fish jumped in front of us. What should have been a sight to gladden the heart was twinged with disappointment, it was an upper twenty mirror.
"Bloody Ev's fish again I expect" said Tel and we both laughed at the sheer lunacy of it all.
TO BE CONTINUED...