CHAPTER 4 - A NIGHT TO REMEMBER!

I was six years old in 1950 and I was standing behind my brother Bill in the family’s workshop watching him make a coarse fishing rod. Bill had bought an old army tank aerial, surplus from the Korean War, from the local army surplus store, for seven and sixpence. It was aluminium, and a rather floppy, segmented, khaki-painted aerial, which was soon to become a fully ringed, cork-handled magnificent fishing rod!

I loved to watch Bill’s skill and couldn’t wait to see the finished rod.

After a few days Bill declared that he had finished but wouldn’t let me see it until he had blindfolded me and walked me into the workshop and stood me before the rod. Blindfold removed, I opened my eyes and saw the rod. Bill was pleased with what he had made and couldn’t wait to take me fishing, me with my bamboo rod which then seemed to be from Noah’s collection, and Bill with his new self-made metal rod. He said he would make me one if his worked, but he was rather sceptical of its strength if he was to hook a big fish!

Holding the soft, rather beautiful, self-sculpted cork handle on Bill’s new rod, was a wonderful experience. It was so silky-smooth and perfectly shaped to fit his right hand. I had learned to fish with a twig, a length of cord and a bent needle for a hook, like so many people when I was young.

As a young boy I would visit the local river Yare in Great Yarmouth, dangle a handline baited with a piece of herring, and catch mostly flounders and eels.

One day in late December 1954, I pulled up a giant cod. It was a monster and I had to be careful bringing it up the nobbly river wall.

I spent many happy hours lying with my head and shoulders looking over the river’s edge into the water to see what might be hauled up, and it seems to me now as I look back, that the fish were not only very plentiful then, but they seemed to be a good deal bigger, and could easily feed my family of fifteen, eleven in my family, a retired violinist from the Halle Orchestra who was incontinent, an ex-prisoner of war from a Japanese prison camp, and another ex-soldier and his wife, fresh out of prison who had lost his way. What were my parents doing filling my home with such people, I thought, but they were very needy people, and my parents would do anything for anyone?

That feeling of adrenaline rushing through my body when I felt a wriggle on the end of the line has never left me, and I could hardly wait to fish with Bill and see his tank aerial in action. I was soon to realise that making one's own rods was the way ahead, and he helped me make my own tank aerial rod, because, during the few trips we had together, he caught many fish, including a twelve-pound pike! Each time we went fishing together Bill would come home, often late, but always clean and polish his rod and other fishing gear. He learned to be so organised and spotless after two years in the Royal Navy during the last two years of World War Two. Now I knew why his motor cycling friends call him ‘Shoe-Shine-Billy!

My love of fishing grew from an early age, probably because of loving the tank-aerial rod I had made with Bill, and by the time I was eight, I was cycling five miles in the summer holidays to Ormesby and Rollesby broads to dangle a worm under a quill-float, using my new rod, which Bill taught me to treasure and always care for.

The first freshwater fish I caught was a two-ounce perch, and I was absolutely over the moon. I had shinned up a tree and dropped my baited ‘needle’ in front of a beautiful, red-finned fish. I couldn’t wait for the bite and when it came, minutes later, I didn’t ever want to go home! I was so enthralled by it all.

As darkness came, I jumped on my bike and pedalled home, making up stories of ever-bigger fish to tell my parents and family, but on arriving home I was met with little enthusiasm for my catch! It was I, the youngest they thought, who had become a dreamer!

My brothers were unimpressed and taunted me, saying things like “ha ha bro, an elastic fish, hey”.

I think I covered those five miles in about twenty minutes with no lights on my bike, but at that time there was very little traffic on the country roads. I had to be careful because a few weeks earlier I had been pulled over by the Police in Great Yarmouth, with the copper shouting “pull over young man” through a loudspeaker. I was consequently summoned and fined ten shillings, which I had to pay myself as a warning from my father. I also received a warning from the Police.

I loved that cycle ride home and couldn’t wait for the rest of the summer holidays, so I could really embrace my love of fishing. This was a theme throughout my growing-up years, and there were very few days when I didn’t cast a line.

When I was ten, I made my first beach casting rod which was adorned with an old wooden Nottingham style reel, which I eventually used for coarse fishing, as it was made by my father, with a length of catgut for the line. That evening I walked excitedly towards the surf and cast out about thirty yards into the churning, blue-green sea, and waited until my lugworms which I had dug up the previous day, were gobbled up by whiting, the main fish we caught. What an ironic name for a fish!

With the rod held high I waited in the darkness for a shake on the rod tip, which would signal a bite, before winding in the line. Sometimes I caught tiny fish, but I remember on one occasion I hauled in four cracking whiting, one on each hook.

After that I never looked back, and fishing has been a great part of my life ever since. It was not only the fish that bit, but I was ‘bitten’ for life!

That introduction to sea fishing was to take me into the world of invention and self-made tackle, and all that I would use when I went fishing. By the time I was thirteen I had made a lovely greenheart rod and even a new reel during my woodwork lessons, and so I had all the equipment I would need to fish properly, like a real angler, like my brother Bill. I loved to be on a cold, east coast beach, rod in hand with the cold icy wind blowing in my hair, and the bright, black starry sky above, beckoning me to cast a line into the unknown.

One night, while fishing with my friend Trevor Jones, I cast over fifty yards into deeper water and was rewarded with a sharp pull on the rod tip, which developed into a massive bite. The rod was dragged into the sea by a huge fish. I could only imagine the size at the time, as it was pulling and thrashing about in the crashing waves.

I dashed down the beach, dived on the rod and after a tussle I pulled a huge cod out of the surf and dragged it along the beach, its great weight helped ashore by the incoming surf. It weighed sixteen pounds! That cod fed the entire Whiting family for two suppers. I was very proud and was now a fishing hero, I fished and fished and fished, but more important than that, I had the respect of my brothers, the taunting five, who gobbled down the cod as though there was no tomorrow.

I loved every minute I fished, and spent almost all my spare time making rods, designing rigs, and even making my own hooks, which I carefully sharpened with a file and then finished on my father’s grindstone, when he would let me use it. I was to experience many more memorable catches, even landing an angler fish! All five of my brothers eventually became anglers!

This love of fishing still occupies a special place in my heart, and I still cast a line but predominantly fly-fish for trout and salmon. I have been involved in making films on salmon fishing in Norway, and have fished several rivers there, every trip being different.

I also fish for carp again, and at this stage in my life I love the peace I can get from sitting by a lake, fishing. It is that peace in a modern, fast-changing world, that is so important to me.

After a gap of twenty-years I have recently renewed my commitment to my main love, salmon fly fishing. I have again become so interested in this highly academic part of angling, that it occupies most of my out-of-school time, and I am now a regular on the Tweed.

Fishing has been such a passion of mine, that by the time I was in my late thirties, as well as teaching, I had launched a rod company called Dynaflex Tackle Limited, which supplied fishing rods to shops around Great Britain and Europe. The rods were much admired, custom-made, and adorned with my own unique spiral design, which was formally registered, rather like a patent. The registration meant that no company could make spiral-wound rods unless I sanctioned it. However, being a fishing rod manufacturer was not to take me from my first love and career, teaching. I knew I could fish and teach, so that suited me well.

By 1979 I had achieved my aim. I had caught over two hundred carp weighing more than twenty pounds using my own hand built Dynaflex rods, self-invented terminal rigs and all the carp were caught using my own bait.

On the subject of bait, I have chosen to mention the side of carp fishing which has developed so rapidly, and some people are making a lot of money by manufacturing and selling a plethora of different high protein baits, offering a huge variety of flavours and sizes.

I was inspired when Peter Mohan and I met in Cheltenham in 1971, partly to engage in general conversation as early members of the British Carp Study Group, but also to speak about the latest developments in the production of carp baits created by Fred Wilton. The first time I heard the name ‘boilie’ was from Peter.

We were both experimental fish scientists who had been carp fishing for many years, and although we had fished together and caught a lot of carp on traditional methods, such as worms, maggots, bread, potatoes, and in particular floating crust, we were excited to look at what Fred Wilton was offering. Fred transformed the world of carp fishing throughout Europe, just as Peter’s book ‘Cypry’ impacted greatly on the British carp scene then.

People often kept their own bait recipes as well protected secrets, and although I had caught a great many carp using traditional methods, I was so impressed with Fred’s work that I undertook to study Fred’s bait concept, make my own baits and fish with them!

I chose to use only natural products at first, but later I had studied such additives as sow milk replacer, casein, golden breadcrumbs, malt, flour, ground corn, Robin Red, and many special flavourings. It was necessary to add eggs and boil the baits so they could be used appropriately. One could choose how big the baits should be and what hardness you wanted by mixing the powder with a certain number of eggs and immersing in boiling water.

Alongside these experiments I was happily catching a good number of carp using Kit-e-Kat and other brands of cat food, often mixed with golden breadcrumbs and sow milk replacer, as well as raw sausage meat and golden breadcrumbs mixed into a ball. Fish loved both, and whenever I went to my local fishery and tried out my new baits, free lining at that time, I always caught.

At that time, I was stalking a small head of large carp at a lake in Hertfordshire, and I had joined the local angling club near to where I worked as a headmaster. When I was not teaching, I could easily load up my car and head off for a four-hour session at times when the lake was not fished by many carp anglers, mostly mid-week. I chose my time very carefully and had studied the lake throughout the early spring and summer. It was a smashing lake and by the time I had another interesting meeting with Peter Mohan, I was on the way to my tenth twenty-pounder and had also caught two thirty-pounders. Then things changed!

I am a rather solitary fisherman. I choose mostly to fish alone. I like peace, and watercraft is the main thing for me, so studying the lake in detail enabled me to take the planned steps to catch the big fish. If I could see them, I could catch them, provided they were feeding.

I am not an angler only interested in size, although I do like to catch big carp, so my photographs of fish do not feature me holding them towards the camera to make them look bigger and the pictures are not emblazoned with details of weight. I like to remember the whole series of elements that end up with banked fish, the preparation, making my own rods and baits, and the plethora of self-invented rigs, etc.

Nowadays, size still doesn’t matter to me. I know that size is certainly the main agenda for today’s carp fishers; but it is not my priority. It is about the beauty of the fish, its habitat, and the wily way we as fishers seek to trick these creatures into taking our bait and return them safely, unhurt. We work hard at our craft.

I had an excellent and successful year when I caught three twenties and one thirty in an evening, as well as three upper-doubles, which was a step above the magnificent catch by Bob Reynolds, of three twenties in a night from Billing. Bob’s catch has been much more celebrated than mine, and rightly so. His was a catch extraordinaire that I had wanted to emulate, using my own methods, and lots of research of the lake.

At that time, I wrote an article for a fishing magazine, and David Hall, the editor, suggested it should be shared with the carping world as an inspiration, which I was initially against. It was called ‘A Night to Remember’ and featured the story of my big catch that night. I wasn’t keen on stating the size in the article, but David Hall insisted I did for the sake of the magazine’s sales. I wanted to stop a rush to find my secret lake. Did I?

The thirty, an unusually big carp at that time, adorned the front page with the declared weight being a few pounds below its actual size, thanks to David and his protective decision.

I want to pay tribute to a truly great angler, a carp angler extraordinaire, and the captor of the British record mirror carp, the first mirror carp over 40lbs. Ron Groombridge caught the huge carp from a lake in Hertfordshire, not the same lake as I have mentioned but a much smaller lake. Ron fished for that carp using the traditional methods of the time, and I salute his catch. He is a great angler!

Ron was my fishing friend for some time in the 1970s and indeed became the general manager of Dynaflex. It was an exciting experience to fish with him at an apparently haunted lake we knew well. Apparently, nobody fished that lake at night because in the middle of the night the ghost of a goat dragged chains around the lake!

As an inventor I had to be sure that I kept quiet about any of my fishing ideas, as so often one has an idea and then someone else begins to sell it, claiming it as theirs. That has happened to me a few times but perhaps that is what the modern world has become. Which lake I caught the fish from, and on what bait, seemed to be the big question asked when carp anglers appeared at the lakeside in small friend-groups, speculating and asking questions whilst also paying me undeserved compliments and flattering me for their own gain!

Sadly, not long after the article about my big catch, my club decided to allow people to join from far away, even though the rules were strictly ‘locals only’. That was an infringement of the original rules, and I suspected foul play.

Carp fishermen, some very well-known, appeared on the lakeside and very soon their bivvies lined the banks, and it was hard to fish in my usual way stalking carp. One lake, where I had caught a large carp, became packed at weekends. Times were changing! I was gutted!

I met many anglers who had read the article and had worked out by bush telegraph that my catch was from the lake they were now fishing, because I happened to be fishing there. It was! I could only assume that the telephone tree was ablaze with people wanting to emulate my catch. I suppose in some way it was flattering.

During that week I was told by a friend that news of my catch had become commonly known amongst the carp world far and wide, so I decided to have a series of twenty, four-hour, mid-week sessions, at a quieter time of day, when fewer anglers fished, as a farewell to carp fishing. I had had enough! Not only did I fish my lovely lake, but I also fished nearby well-known carp lakes.

After the success of my big catch, I wanted to try my new bait and prove I could also catch some big fish from Boyer’s, which I did, but I never beat the excellent first thirty from that lake by my friend Paul Gummer, which I witnessed.

Paul and I fished Boyer’s and one night met in the middle of the big lake, each swimming in the dark carrying a bucket of specific particles that were to be spread on a gravel bar we had separately found. It was from that bar that I took a large carp, nudging thirty pounds. Paul exceeded that by a few pounds the following week. I returned six months later and caught another very big carp from that lake; at an undeclared weight. Paul was a great carp angler, and a hell of a nice bloke!

One particular day at the lake in Hertfordshire, I baited up the margins from whence I had caught three common carp over 20lbs. from under the rod tip, using a new rod I had made specifically for margin fishing, called ‘The Miracle’. It was 11' 1.25 lbs. test curve. A soft-action rod, ideal for the task of margin fishing.

That was a mistake. Nobody fished the margins and although I catapulted a few dozen boilies into the middle of the lake as a spook, other anglers started to take an interest in where my rod pointed to!

Conversations took place as a guise for wanting to know what bait I was using, and where I was fishing. All eyes were scanning for my bait store, duly covered, as I made up a story that there was an adder’s nest in my swim and the adults came out in the evening. I said one had bitten me hoping to keep them away from my swim, but it hadn’t. One well-known super carp angler decided to challenge my statement about the adder bite. I was keen to continue my confabulations. When I was on active service in Cyprus in 1964, I was bitten by a large venomous snake, and the soldier I was with took out his bayonet and thrust it into the two bite holes, causing blood to flow and supposedly taking the venom out with it. A bad call! That put me in hospital for three weeks, and I still have a large scar where the bayonet went into my leg, and when I showed that scar my story about the adder was gobbled up!

One Friday I was lucky enough to catch two twenties in an hour fishing in the margins, less than half a rod length out. The first was a twenty-seven-pound beautiful, copper coloured common, with a perfect mouth and not a mark on it. It took a seed bait, and the screaming run was like a charging train. The rod had steadily powered into the rushing fish, and I was in for a big fight, but I did not want to put a great strain on it for fear of damaging its mouth, which is part of the reason I created this light rod, specifically to save the carp.

After twenty minutes I saw the beautiful carp’s face peep through the surface of the water and with a tired look allowed me to gently slide the net under its beautiful body and trap it in the water. That fish was the lake record common.

Word soon got about, and my telephone rang many times the day after I caught the big common, which was unusual for news to travel so quickly.

After I had cleaned my car early the next morning, I made my ‘unusual’ trip to the lake, this time as a walker. What I saw was absolutely the reason I chose to hang up my rods and leave the carp fishing world forever, until this year.

Two chaps, famous carp anglers, were in swimming gear snorkelling in the early morning sunshine and picking up the boilies from the bottom of the lake where I usually set up my tackle.

My baits! Clearly, they were desperate to find out what I was using as an attractor.

“What do you think you are doing breaking the lake rules? Are you members? No swimming in the lakes!”

Their reply was “Why don’t you f… off and find something better to do?”

I had to get heavy with these chaps, and when they scrambled out of the lake with a net bag holding a dozen or so red baits, my trade colour I marched them to their clothes which were in a pile hidden on the opposite bank, made sure they knew the rules, gave them my name, and banned them for life from the lake.

Sadly, the club committee didn’t uphold my ban, so I was talked about quite a lot after that confrontation! Later that week I was told by a club member that most of the carp fishermen in the club were now from all over England and had used false addresses to get in, which was against the rules.

I have never forgiven the club management, because the last three carp I caught had been badly handled and one had lost several scales. It was a friend with whom I occasionally fished who told me what was happening, and apparently people had started to make boilies professionally and test-sell them. My new attracter featured in many, organic maple syrup!

So, maple was on offer, and was used nationwide and pictures of big carp began to find their way into fishing magazines, and so began the ‘big is best’ tradition which prevails today, but there are so many huge carp that today, the modern, real specimen anglers have bypassed that propensity and fish essentially for the joy it gives them, not for size only but in little known carp lakes away from the more commercial fisheries that were springing up all over Europe.

I think it has taken three decades for that transformation, and every angler now has a chance to catch big fish if they want to, thanks to the leadership of the Carp Society and the amazing owners of big fish waters who religiously take care of their fisheries. I salute them! Or do I?

At the same time, bait companies sprang up all over the country and so did new inventions, especially terminal rigs and the ‘hair rig’. I won’t go there with that one!

Heroes of the ‘big is best’ side of carp fishing began to become the face of the angling magazines, new societies were created for carp anglers, finding lakes that were not syndicate lakes became more difficult, and tackle prices escalated.

The once private and superb British Carp Study Group, withered into insignificance alongside these other clubs, which was a great pity. I watched these trends from afar and remember putting my gear into cold storage, so to speak, because it seemed as though my sport, the sport I loved, the sport where one could enjoy peace and tranquillity in the beautiful natural world, had become something else. Those trends also were instrumental in encouraging me to abandon my skill as a rod designer and tackle company managing director!

I am now back carp fishing again, mostly on a small lake where a ten-pound fish is a great catch, and where every angler day-fishes only. The fishery is well-run, and the natural scenery is breath-taking. Last time I fished there, my son caught a very large common on light tackle, perhaps the lake record, and I saw the joy in his eyes, that old joy that I experienced throughout my time as a hunter of carp.

It was big, but for Oliver the size only mattered a little. It was the falcon, the woodpecker and the Kingfisher standing on the bough of the tree near where we fished that seemed to usurp the catching of that fish. It was just a fish, just a catch and size did not matter to Oliver.

Beauty had overpowered ‘big is best’ and although I applaud every angler for finding their own light in how they fish, and having caught a marlin of 900 lbs. for me it is the wonder of nature that my son Oliver has found in simple fishing, even though he filmed the entire catch of the giant blue marlin and saw it released with minimum harm into the deep blue Atlantic Ocean, to live its life as nature intended!

I have never, and will never, fish for marlin ever again…..