by Gareth Watkins
Its thirty years ago this summer that I started carp fishing seriously and Oh! how things have changed since!
It all really started by accident, when I landed an 11lb common while tench fishing. Sweet corn was the bait. After that I had caught a double and I was a Carp Fisher. I had a copy of ‘Quest for Carp’ by Jack Hilton on permanent loan form the local library, and we awaited eagerly every article by Rod Hutchinson and Chris Yates in magazines like ‘Angling’ and ‘Coarse Fisherman’. I enjoyed the fact that everyone on our local lake thought we were mad. Sitting behind a pair of parallel rods on buzzers for hours, that wasn’t fishing!!!
We were considered eccentric kids, trying to catch fish that were not catchable with techniques most angers at the time didn’t understand. ‘Noddies’ as we termed them, couldn’t understand why we would wait all day day for one bite. It was though ‘ A Carp Fisher thing they could’t understand’
The revelations at the time for me came in three phases. Firstly it was jointing the ‘Carp Society’ in 1981, where the first edition of ‘Carp Fisher’ contained Lenny Middleton’s article on the hair rig. This was the catalyst that had us all buzzing with excitement.
Secondly I sent off to Rod Hutchinson for his first ‘Carp Book’… another bomb that had me racing round South Wales looking for ‘Maples, Tick beans, Chick peas’ and various particles. The final piece that had us all making boiled baits was Kevin Maddocks’ ‘Carp Fever’ (My mother still remembers the smell of kit-e-kat in the kitchen).
The long and the short of this explosion in the carp fishing world was that we turned up at virtually any lake, cast out a blot rig with a particle bait or Semolina/Soya flour boilie on and caught fish.
On the first lake I tried these methods, where the previous season I had landed just ‘One’ fish, I was catching six or seven per day. Ok these weren’t big fish by today’s standards but double figure carp were still target fish in the 1980’s and a thirty was just a far off dream that only the like of our illustrious heroes already mentioned, caught.
Then there was the tackle we used… all hi-tech stuff for the day. My first bite alarms were recommended to us by John Wilson no less in the ‘Fisherman’s Handbook’. The ‘Optonic’ was to revolutionise our bite detection.
Next article was the rods.. in my case I had two sets of two, both hand built by myself. A pair of North Western SS55 11ft 2lb through action rods and a pair of Sportex 11ft 2lb fast taper blanks for long distance..(all of 70 yards in those days)
Reels were Mitchell 300’s and 410’s… with uprated bail arm springs coz anyone who has used this generation of reel will know about the Mtichell bail arm flap with the standard springs…
My first bivvy was a ‘Send Marketing Brolly Camp’ in heavy green canvas. This fitted over a standard upright umbrella like a large green mushroom. I don’t know how I fitted my supermarket sun lounger, bedchair in it. I used to cover its large red and yellow flowers with a Kaki army blanket.
Tackle has come a long way since, then and most of this gear that I still have, would be better off in a museum than on the bank. Any one of the modern carbon rods or far eastern reels is superior in every way to this tackle we used to consider specialist.
So thirty years down the line I’m still after the elusive carp.
Regards, Gareth
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