CHAPTER 6 - NORFOLK RECORD and ‘Rod the Rod’.

I was looking forward to the new coarse fishing season opening on June 16th. 1977. Throughout the winter my brother Bill, my friend Dennis and I had many new ideas, and mine centred on an ambition to try to catch a huge carp I had watched throughout the spring in a lake near Harleston.

There was so much enthusiasm for carp fishing in the 1970s, and as the new season was due to open, we needed to be at the lakeside at midnight the day before the new season opened, which was a minute after midnight.

We walked around the lake on 15th. June and saw signs of carp. Huge fish were rolling on the surface seemingly beginning or were in the later stages of spawning. What a midnight it will be, I thought. I was a relative youngster then, in my thirties, so I climbed high up a tree, with binoculars in hand and looked down on the formidable and ancient creatures of the dark water. So many carp were cruising in the early summer sun, oblivious to their potential catcher watching their every move.

One carp stood out from the rest. It was quite light in colour and must have been about nine inches across the shoulders. It was certainly the mummy or daddy of them all!

This carp was majestic and gentle and was confidently cruising through the warm water just below the surface, followed by a harem of smaller carp, like disciples copying her every move. It was a female and its huge, seemingly bloated belly was clearly full of spawn. It had perhaps failed to spawn earlier in the close season. I expected would be a good weight.

I climbed down the tree and returned to our tent which was erected in a forest a few miles away. We honed our equipment, and I got the new float fishing system I had designed for ‘bubblers’ ready to attempt to catch the big fish.

Waiting for midnight at our camp was a very difficult thing to do, so we drove to the area of the lake and set up a temporary base to wait for zero hour, the opening of the new season. It was difficult to resist casting an early line as we could hear in the early darkness, clooping and swirling from a few areas of the lake. The suspense was tangible. I was pleased that there were no other anglers anywhere near the lake. At the time I felt that was very strange because the lake was one of the most famous in the country and on previous years there were always many cars parked with waiting anglers snoozing until the off.

That lake was well-known to hold many good fish, with just one supreme legendary hen carp. How can the evening before the new season at such an amazing lake be devoid of other anglers? It seemed rather eerie, but we were delighted to be the only ones at the lake getting ready for the off.

As dawn began to unfold, just as we could see the surface of the still water, we walked around the lake separately, each of us with a stalking rod in hand, and some bait. The rods we are using were made by Dynaflex Tackle, in 1976, and had become quite popular. I owned that company, and I designed the rods.

My chosen rod was called ‘The Stalker’ was nine feet long with a test curve of 1½ lbs, and was made of fibreglass, a very popular material in those days. It was a light and neat little rod, with which I had caught many carp the season before.

My new ‘bubbler’ method featured a very lightweight set-up using a drinking straw, blocked at each end with Araldite, but with some lead shot glued in at one end to ensure it stood upright, but only just. It was sealed with varnish and supported by a light line of eight pounds breaking strain. I was hoping to catch the big carp which had exuded small bubbles as it forced its lips into the bottom of the lake. I had seen it the season before. Nowadays, not many carp anglers’ fish for bubblers but I find it a scintillatingly satisfying way of catching fish.

I sat under the tree I had climbed the night before, below hanging branches of beautiful willow newly opened leaves, and watched the water.

Day was breaking quicker and quicker revealing the new season like a veil drawn by the rising sun to reveal the lake where I somehow knew I would catch that big carp. I could feel a gentle breeze on my face and the sounds of wildlife and the morning chorus. We chose not to cast at night so we could honour a long day, as I had heard it didn’t fish particularly well in the dark, which is unusual for carp. Bill and Dennis were on the other side of the lake within listening distance, so if I needed help, they could come quickly, and vice versa.

There it was, the sneaky set of bubbles rising steadily as though they had been hiding until daylight, here one minute and a little way away the next. It was definitely a carp. The bubbles were discreet enough to be from a cautiously feeding longstanding carp, a carp of old age perhaps. I guessed its possible route as I had to put my worm where I was sure it was heading. That was the whole idea of my bubbler rig

I got my tackle ready and threaded a few more wriggling brandlings onto the size 6 hook and prepared to lower the bait where I was sure the fish was heading. The patches of bubbles were moving in about six-inch clusters, so to place the worm a few feet ahead and rely on the movement of the wriggling worms and smell, seemed the right tactic to encourage a take.

I was absolutely still and full of concentration as I flicked the worm into the water. The float cocked and looked so perfect as it gently bobbed like a sentinel above the unsuspecting carp.

Almost as soon as the bait was where I thought the fish would be, the float trembled and vibrated, signalling that the carp had sucked in the worm and was ready to gorge and make a dash when it felt the hook. It did, and I set the hook hard as I had a soft rod. The huge carp shot from underneath the trees towards the far end of the lake. I waved to the boys, and they came running.

They could see the bend in my rod-tip being pulled down towards the dark depths, so I had to avoid catching my line on the hanging branches, and they gave me the thumbs-up. The fight lasted about fifteen minutes before the giant carp rolled in my swim rendering its huge body to its captor; me! I slipped my net underneath this monster. It was in the net, and I had the desire not to weigh it, but to release it before I’d handled it because although it seemed huge, I was not sure it was big enough to be netted out and photographed in the half-light.

When I landed the carp and laid it on the soft grass I wanted to hold it, to embrace its beautiful plump body and admire my catch. I can’t explain, but it seemed like a salutation to this monster that I should honour her by admiring her beautiful body, lit by the early morning rising sun.

I lifted the giant carp onto the grassy bank and the boys poured water on it, cleaning off the bits of grass as I held it in my arms, close to me. It would have spoiled the day to centre on the weight, but I could see it was well over thirty pounds.

After a photograph, I slipped it gently back from whence it came and sat on the bank satisfied that on the first day of the new season I had caught such a carp. The boys were delighted, and between us we caught three more carp on that first day of the season, on a lake with no other carp anglers. How lucky we were.

We walked to where we had our first base and had a cup of tea to celebrate. We were exhausted. Not only had I driven two hundred miles with little sleep, but the adrenaline oozing out of my shoes seemed to be a physical representation of what we had looked forward to, and what we succeeded in achieving. A large carp had been caught on a very new system of bait presentation.

When we had finished the tea and gobbled down a sandwich, the bailiff appeared in his truck. I knew Bill Haylett the bailiff and gave him a cuppa. He was, as always, kind and interested in our plans. Then came the shock.

“Well boys, I expect you are waiting for the season to begin at midnight. Not long to wait and I hear there’s a lot of big carp moving. I know there will be a lot of anglers arriving this afternoon keen to get the best swims! I know that Len will be after the big mirror he has been watching for the last week”!

“Wow” said Dennis. “Is it really big?” “When it comes out it will be a new Norfolk record, I assure you” Bill answered!

We looked at one another and became aware that we had the dates wrong and the carp was caught on the morning of the 15th of June 1977, a day before the season opened!

“You don’t say Bill”!

Gutted but happy, we fished on all week and there seemed to be no other conversation on the bankside other than that the other anglers had seen a huge fish rolling and clooping at night!

On 18th. June, we moved to the other side of G lake and most anglers had blanked, and certainly the big fish was not caught again that season. I set up my tackle for a stalking day and together with Rod Hutchinson, we stalked G lake side by side using small piles of seed baits. It was at a time when peanuts were sacred and hidden from the hungry ‘big is best’ carp anglers.

Rod was the most exceptional natural carp anglers and his skill with particles became legendary. This quiet and thinking angler taught me a lot during that five-hour circuit around the lake looking for signs of carp, but they had been spooked by over-fishing at the start of the season and we saw nothing.

Rod and I sat down under a willow tree and shared our thoughts. We were both on the same page regarding the next step, so we had a night’s sleep, baited up the margins again and changed lakes, returning to G lake at midnight on 21st. June that year.

I walked around the lake eastwards and Rod westwards. We had a 9’ Dynaflex Stalker each and 42” landing nets and with a bag of peanuts set off on the journey around the lake, a lake that was considered to be a hard lake, from where I had caught a record carp the day before the season opened!

By 10am. we had caught seven double figure mirrors between us and one common, on peanuts, and from that time onwards, when we returned to our respective homes, continued to fish with peanuts to great effect. The peanut craze soon reached Redmire!

It is not for this story for me to give the details of what the fish sizes were, but for both of us, declaring that we would never tell our story to any other carp anglers, it was the best morning’s carp stalking in the history of the Universe! The hardest lake in Wortwell had been mastered by two keen minds who loved to fish with particles, particularly peanuts. It is not surprising that a lot of carp fisheries have banned peanuts! What a very odd attitude to a proteinaceous and naturally grown fish food just because it worked so well. Rod and I were stunned, and both regretted that the bailiff Bill, spread the ‘quiet word’ to encourage the fishery to be jam packed and saturated with hundredweights of peanuts, and onwards to Tiger nuts. The fishery was ruined.

In 200 I met Rod at Boyer’s and invited him to return to Wortwell, but he was already in several syndicates and was bust at work, so I took my two sons and three other young carp anglers and rented Heartsmere for five days as a tribute to our time fishing there. It was a great trip, and several lovely carp were caught, which sealed our time at Waveney Valley Lakes!