Not sure where to start, at the beginning, it would be a great
shame if....some parts of carp angling were lost because it was
not put in print, I've been a carper since the early 80's and there
are a lot on here could add at least another 10 years to that,
(oldgeezer etc) I think it would be a big seller if all the old carpers
could write a section for a complete history book, not the every
day stories we all know but the ones like how the beach caster
was developed, how did you tie your first hair rig, there must be
loads of stories untold, in the early years there was no internet
and not a lot of secret stuff went into the mags, so, can it be done?

In reply to Post #1
I think that would be a lovely thing to do..

Myself,there was only one other proper carp angler in my area,and I watched the Cornish carp angling scene,grow and grow..of course I'm talking Nth Cornwall,

Of course,the South Coast and clay Country would be a massive influence,Ken and the Southwest memories posts come to mind,I have in my home literally hundreds of 35mm pics all documenting the birth and demise of fisheries,some defunct, otterrd or other ,they should not be forgotten,neither should ol Tom Stone of Egloskerry..and his tales of the Mohan stocking and three wheeler man and his early morning sex exploits,all good stuff..in his 70s and his 40 yr old girl friend..in a three wheeler..ha,ha..!!

I get asked a lot to write a book ...

In reply to Post #2
I get asked a lot to write a book ...

Well, before its too late....just write a chapter to start
with, small incidents that only you and some mates
know about, something like....I got matey with a guy
who started carping like me, we struggled a lot at first,
then I heard if a small water in Guilford where you were
bound to catch, we agreed to meet there , he would be
late and asked where I would be (no mobiles then), I
said when you get there you will know, ok, when I set up
I tied a lot of balloons on the brolly, he never showed,
the locals must have thought I was on whatever was
the going drug at that time

In reply to Post #3
OK...it won't be in order,life never is..!

So..I started fishing when I was about five,my grandfather, father and three uncles all fished,mainly course fishing except for my grandad,who I have a picture of sea fishing out in the Pacific ,off rocks whilst serving on board HMS Victorius .in the 2nd world war

Now this all seems jolly hockey sticks,but life isn't like that,see I was given some old books Mr Crabtree fishing in all waters and another by Fred j Taylor .I spent a lot of time reading those books thinking I was Peter,but in reality it was quite different..

See I'd read those books by torchlight under my bedclothes,pretending that what I was hearing wasn't really happening,as yet again mum and dad had fallen out ,..there was a lot of unhappiness, but those books became my crutch,and I learnt to switch off from bad things..later in life,angling was my saviour..and still is..!
I still have those books..
I was,and still is fascinated by water,this fascination,nearly cost my life,on the river Wandle,hence my nickname,the Thames at Sonning by the French horn pub,and in my village,Boscastle under queen's head,in the harbour,three times fishing near cost me.

I spent many hours in the Valency valley,fishing for wild trout and learning as much about the countryside as I could,as a result I spent a lot of time with real country people,some of them had never been abroad or Plymouth even,I loved those old timers,I soaked everything up they taught me like a sponge..

As a result I came to view things a lot differently to other people..I respect the old ways,and the changing of the seasons,and have seen stuff,at night not many people get to see..
This is what made me an angler,and outdoorsman,those old ways.

In reply to Post #4
Adam, brilliant, this is the type of memories I'm talking about,
if more of this comes forward I would like to copy it to a document
and maybe stick it up on here when there is enough to fill a mag.
Not to make anything out of it financial or otherwise just to
preserve some untold memories, so, come on lets have some more

In reply to Post #5
looks like there aren't any good stories to be told....best forget the whole idea

In reply to Post #6
I'm surprised as well..

I'll do another,see if that will encourage others,I think its to do with nano chip impregnation,it might be hard to bypass the memory or happy wires in the frontal lobes..

Let's see if anyone can bypass it..

Lol...

In reply to Post #6
I dont read fishing books normally they just piss me off lol
things like
it graced my net the daftest thing ever written IMO ................ ( I get a mental picture of a fish splashing holy water on a landing net )
the fish I had been dreaming of ....eh ? what tosh you dream of porn not fish ?

In reply to Post #8
Xhamster.com..thats quite a good one..

Lol..

Years ago,if you wanted to come to Cornwall,you'd have to travel through Lifton, lewdown etc,past Jethros old night club,get caught in a load of traffic, stressed and moaning about who's stupid idea it was to come on holiday in the first place,but if you was an angler, unknowingly you would have driven past old mines,slate or copper,..those old pits are deep and have galleries and go sheer drop almost..there is history attached to many of them.
I used to fish up that way,it meant driving through the back lanes,and seeing places hidden by the passing traffic,one such journey entailed driving through a pristine valley,this valley abundant in all manner of wildlife,a lovely unspoilt place..
One day on this drive ,I saw some signs,I stopped and felt great sadness as the valley was going to be raped,ruined and become part of the A30..
I had just bought a mk1 Titan from Exeter angling,I was proud of this new age bivvy,no one I knew had one,plus I had a chance to catch up with a good friend Hiram,in the tackleshop.

I could see the damage being done to the valley on my drive,I tried to not acknowledge my visuality,or the impending destruction..
The lake I was fishing ,faced Dartmoor,in all its raw beauty and I was only the third member of this three man club,if you will.!

The owner of this lake was odd,and I mean that,as on one occasion I spotted him watching my every move from a small copse,his springer dog giving his presence away..I thought no more of it,..
One morning the owner said,it was raining last night at 3am,so I laid you wellys down to stop them getting wet inside.!!!
I thanked him...
I started to catch lots of fish using my Asafoetida semos,copied from a Roche AC ,member,my catches got the two Bristolian members a bit jealous..and they tried to get me off the water.

One morning I had a double take,two big upper doubles in the same net,I couldn't help it..it was one one those things..

At that point the owner ,the odd bod,came around, and told me to leave,as I'd been damaging his fish,scales on the bank etc.

To emphasise his point,a 20 bore shot gun was waved in my face,and a single barrel let off over my head..

I got the message,and I hold the UK record for fastest packdown ,ever..

Turned out a otter was killing his carp,the Bristolians wanted me off..

I went...and the beautiful valley is full of traffic..

In reply to Post #6
Credentials , none, Enyway a long time ago 3 of us were walking through a forest and when your 10 or so everythings new , a big adventure and me being the youngest by several years always tagged along, and not owning 2 bruce and walkers or 2 300,s I had much to aspire to in my mind , there was this secret society called carp fishing where grown men with long hair and dirty clothes practiced there art at the weekend and stank the house out during the week, I wanted in , my life was mapped out and all I needed was matching rods.

Back to the woods , we err well thay found a tiny pond amongst silver birch trees , a quite stunning setting even a 10 year old could get, me being a learner with only gudgeon from the thames and chub from the roading to my name, crept slowly bringing up the rear imitating the 2 carpers who would tell me if it was worth fishing, we , err no thay found carp , hushed voices described the plan , I just nodded with whatever was next on our operation.

These 2 experts, well thay were to me, much laughter 48 years on, the only thing we did not have was cocoa on our faces, mum would never have allowed that even for a secret society , lol sounds like the masons,

Right a plan was hatched, desperate men do desperate things, so I'm lead to believe, I was only there so some poor sod could keep tabs on me as I had a puncture and the last spoon I broke trying to mend it,. my 2 experts and me walked slowly , like thay do in carpology, we were ahead of the game lol, oh the tension , as we walked those carp knew we were there,we had been rumbled so much for expert ahh. the fish just swam up the other end and when we got up there thay went swimming again.

My experts kept calm and focused , I just thought I was getting dizzy going round and round the pond, I gave myself a talking to, this is carp fishing, there must be pain stinging nettles, etc, its all part of my learning curve,
as the carp were small , these guys had caught doubles and not just 1 or 2 thay gave me the rod told me to crouch
down and be still, I did what I was told for a quiet life.

So our 2 best men when up the other end and the carp came down to me and took the size 2 and lump of crust, I obviously panicked and did everything that a carp man would not do , rod tip to low, clutch to loose etc, enyway thay barked orders and I obeyed and the 3 lb willdie was mine, never to be forgot.

In reply to Post #8
She lay before me shimmering in the moon light , on the most quiet of nights , I had spent months chasing her
and now she was mine, just an old girlfriend , I put her back and never weighed her, that's 4 u gerry

In reply to Post #11
She lay before me shimmering in the moon light , on the most quiet of nights , I had spent months chasing her
and now she was mine, just an old girlfriend , I put her back and never weighed her, that's 4 u gerry


translated is it ??
sweating like a bstd thought the hook was gonna pull S***ting myself every time the f****r rolled and the line twanged on its dorsal at last got the net under the **** and was chuffed to fook it was one of the big ones left my scales at home so couldn't weigh the bstd

In reply to Post #8

In reply to Post #12
That's it you've got something there

Be Honest (to yourself)

I arrived at the club water just as one of the IN guys was playing a fish, it was beating him and it showed, I thought I would watch before I set up, after a while it snagged him, another IN guy came to help, (I don't think I would have been allowed), he said shall I go in with a landing net? he got approval and in he went, "I can feel it", "is it big", yeah, then....twang, the fish had freedom, one of them said I think it was the big one, well, thats how it started, as more IN men visited during the course of the day the story changed from I think it was the big one to it had to be....and finally it was the big one, ffs none of us saw it jeeeeze

In reply to Post #15
No it was the big one , its called freddi and always comes out at 3 pm a bloke said to someone the other day in Tesco, other stores are available

This has the potential to be a nice interesting thread,only three replies so far..

C'mon...get tapping..!

It doesn't have to be a novel..keep it short n sweet

In reply to Post #17
This has the potential to be a nice interesting thread

I was hoping that some funny stories would come flooding in

In reply to Post #18
I was hoping that some funny stories would come flooding in

Mid 70's on a small lake in Hampshire. Fishing with my then girlfriend after carp that went to upper doubles, no more. Casting to an island using Hap dogfood as bait (stunning stuff). Rods were 11ft s/u Sportex blanks, reels were Mitchell 300's. indicators were rings of foil. I'd had a couple of fish and then my girlfriend asks if she can have a go. I tell her the next fish she can bring in but I will get it away from the island first.

A while later the indicator lifts to the rod and another fish is on. I think it was a low double (most of them were). I get it away from the island and hand her the rod instructing her to keep the rod up and don't reel when the fish is pulling. She then proceeds to just wind away and the carp came in like a skimmer, sliding over the surface and straight into the net. She hands the rod back to me and says "It's not THAT exciting is it?"

Hrmmph.

"It doesn't have to be a novel..keep it short n sweet"

My first venture fishing with the old man in the mid to late 70's was on the river Wye I caught a John West pinkie and a chublet, it rained.

In reply to Post #20
"It doesn't have to be a novel.keep it short n sweet

My first venture fishing with the old man in the late 70's maybe early 80's so i was 10 maybe 11 and had been pestering him to take me night fishing. We duly ended up at Little Frensham off the dam wall. I remember watching a starlight my Dad added to my float into darkness, then waking up in the back seat of the car as dawn was breaking. I think i may have caught a perch or 2
Life was simpler then, since been back to the lake but pike fished it .

I started fishing as soon as I was able to hold a rod my dad who was a wicked wife beating child beating **** went fishing every weekend mainly trotting the tidal stretch at Teddington
and I HAD to go didnt matter if I wanted to or not
well like all things eventually I got hooked lol
and when I got to around 12 years old and had a bicycle I used to fish the Thames at Sunbury catching perch roach etc then around a year later found a spot in front of the open air swimming pool where if you cast a bunch of lob worms and a drilled bullet lead you would catch Barbel you would lose your rod if you didnt hold it all the time the takes were like nothing I had encountered before and the scrap was amazing
when I got to 16 I was working on a building site and got chatting to a brick layer His name was Bill and lived near the winning post Twickenham I never knew his last name and often think of him
and was obviously looking back one of the pioneers of Carp fishing he and his wife went Every weekend and fished Farnham Anglings Cut Mill pond (( not the similar sounding Cuttle mill )))

I told him about all these Barbel I had been catching and from the look on his face I could see he didnt believe me
this pissed me off but luckily I had one picture taken by some bloke with his Kodak box camera that was passing by and a few weeks later after the film was developed he found me fishing the same spot and gave me it
so I took it to work and showed it to him his attitude changed completely I could see he was impressed and a soon after he said as my wife is now to heavily pregnant I cant come with me anymore

you can use all her gear and come carp fishing this weekend if you want ! !!!!

that was the start of my Carp fishing ( 1962) we set up using Free lined spud a foil loop on the line and a half penny on the open spool with an enamel plate underneath no bedchairs in those days just sit up and beg chair with a wood pole brolly jammed down the side a blanket and bit of canvas over the legs

well sods law in the early hours it roared off the line hissing as it wizzed thru the foil
and being used to playing the hard fighting barbel I managed to land it big smile !
but I had never seen such a big fish !! people came from the other side of the lake to see it I was on cloud nine and and the start of my journey

and by the early 70s caught loads of carp and had joined the BCSG and was completely fanatical for the next 50 odd years

Carp fishing did not exist before Korda. They invented it. Before Danny slipped and banged his head on the toilet and imagined Carp fishing, there was only trout and sea angling.

Great Scot

In reply to Post #19
Reminds me of a time with my wife, we had a caravan in
Billing Aquadrome, used to go there every weekend for a
short break, one summer we had a couple of weeks there
and part way through we went up to Cuttle Mill for a few
days, things were going ok, me fishing her reading books
and strolling down to the barn now and then, at one point
I had to go to the toilet, right, I said, if the alarm sounds
and the bobbin lifts pick up the rod and wind the handle,
just keep a bend in the rod and you'll be fine, so, off I go
when I get back the bobbin was hanging down and the rod
was in the rests, "what happened", oh, the alarm made
lots of noise and the thingy shot up and hit the rod, "yes
yes" then what? "I did what you told me" "AND" there was
something pulling the rod, "then what" it pulled hard so
I put the rod down, I picked up the rod and wound in....
yeah you know it, nothing, it could have been a 30 or not.

In reply to Post #20
My god, theres a book somewhere there

In reply to Post #25
its all copied to a word doc, keep it up, maybe some most embarrassing moments....like

fishing the opposite end to the house at Cuttle Mill
fish showing at the house end, me....nothing not a tap,
getting really pi**ed off, cast to the far margin, plop,
lovely, nothing happening for a while so wound in
FFS I wiped out 4 anglers lines = 8 to be precise,
I apologised to all the guys, 1 was so mad I had
to buy him some new line (well I didn't really....but
I would not be writing this if I hadn't), if any of you
guys were the ones....it was bloody funny (afterwards)

In reply to Post #26
I was fishing Cut mill pond farnham one winter late 60s and I was a bit shocked when it started to get dark to see ice forming at the edge !
in those days I used 2 camping sleeping bags one inside the other a 44 ozs and a 38ozs with a blanket and canvas over the top
I woke up in the morning grabbed my gallon water bottle for a brew and found it was solid ice !!
and at that point I saw a dog running down the lake and realised it had completely frozen over and dog walkers were highly amused as they walked past
you cannot imagine what a plonker I felt

Its called Waterside these days,but a good while ago it was known as lakeview Bodmin..nr Lanivet.

It was new and well publicised and attacted some well known and famous anglers of that time
I used to fish it after work,and at one stage tried to catch at that point the biggest stocked common in Kernow,..
Angling times,was always doing a feature on the place,it was heralded as the new Anglers Paradise.
So.
After work as I said ,I rock up in my jet black Volvo 360 glt,worth a few quid these days and set up ..

Across the pool I notice a figure,and he was fishing the margins and island,using 8 single rods,each alarm had a mini pewter carp on it..apparently he was doing a feature for AT,and to my right,was a small Welsh guy,who seemed a reasonable angler and started to catch well on the waggle..

The Welsh guy,hooked a big carp,landed it and started to shout at me all excited like,a little bit pompous I thought,wanted to use my scales it turned out..I didn't much like his attitude to be fair and ignored him..

Turned out the Welsh chap was Ian Heaps,and I'd turned him down to use my Avons.(..world match champion..!

The other guy,equally famous was Gerry Savage..lol

In reply to Post #27
Similar thing happened to me at Cuttmill (Tarn Pond) albeit mid to late 90's, i was fishing the car park side 2 away from the "bog swim" I was under a brolly and at about 2 maybe 3 in the morning I had a slow steady run, yep the lake was icing over, as its in a valley it freezes fairly quickly.

In reply to Post #28
It was probably about 10 years ago after a two week trip at Rainbow in the dead of winter I was going into the showers for a spruce up prior to going home and Tim P was coming out of the shower in his birthday suit, just by the fact it was unavoidable it was the biggest cock I've ever glanced in my lifetime, it was nearly down to the knee he wouldn't of looked out of place in a donkey sanctuary.

In reply to Post #30
Yeah. Thanks for that. I've read his books and always looked up to Tim as a font of useful information. Forever tarnished.

I remember reading a story on here, a guy watching an angler
making a brew, then he has a take, the description had me in tears,
if you are the one who was watching....please put it up again, classic.

In reply to Post #31
That wasn't too bad it was when he proceeded to double hand towel dry it I felt a far lesser man.

In reply to Post #33
Didn't we all