CHAPTER 9 - A RECORD CARP?

I am an author, a headmaster, the founder of an independent school that has challenged the status quo, a father of five adult children, a retired soldier, a compulsive salmon fly fisherman and a one-time addicted carp angler. I was a very committed carp angler from an early age, over sixty years ago. The catch of my first freshwater fish, a small perch, set me on the pathway towards seeking to take up the sport of fishing.

In days gone by, post Albert Buckley the one-time British record holder for carp, and perhaps even when Richard Walker and Denys Watkins-Pitchford (BB) were past their best, the barometer of carp fishing began to swing away from what Richard once told me as we sat drinking tea in a small bankside swim on the banks of Wyke Lake in Chichester.

“Carp fishing is the ultimate natural enterprise my dear boy.”

Those comments were at a time of increasing high pressure, at the threshold perhaps of a time using technical rather than natural skills to catch carp. One extremely well-known angler that I knew very well also spoke to me of a coming transformation from high to low pressure angling. Those symbiotic words essentially inferred that in his opinion carp fishing would enter the doldrums!

When Richard Walker fished Redmire Pool and caught Clarissa in the early 1950s, at the astonishing weight of 44lbs., the angling world sat up and watched as a new movement was formed.

The British Carp Study Group (BCSG) was the pinnacle for those of us who were members in the 1960s and always adopted necessary protocols for the good of carp and the sport of carp fishing. We all wanted to emulate Richard Walker’s massive achievement and perhaps that was what this new study group was aiming for. ‘The bigger the carp the better’. Did that begin to label those who caught big carp as the best?

The love of the rods we used, the split cane Richard Walker Mk. 4 and the early and quite amazing, fixed spool reels, the Mitchell 300s, and the modern fishing nylon were much admired and formed the early post-Clarissa carp fishing world. I was privileged to have become an early member of the BCSG and proudly wore the special silver carp badge, which I thought identified me as a serious carp angler.

Within a year of my membership, I was appointed Vice President of Lawford Angling Club in Essex and I met some amazing anglers who regularly fished Crossman’s Lake and Keeper’s Lake who were friends and accomplices in my new sport.

Having spent some time with Richard and BB at that lakeside in Sussex in the 1960s, I gleaned the inner being of these great men whose advice and guidance was never about seeking the biggest, but it was about honouring the fish you would or perhaps would not catch, whose philosophy encompassed taking care of the environment for the fish, watercraft, and making sure that fishing with respect for all that a carp lake emanated, was what it was all about.

I remember ‘BB’ saying to me as he sipped his Thermos-tea.

“Here in this lake are some extremely big carp reared by German scientists Graeme, king carp, that one day might dwarf Clarissa!”

BB and I had a lot in common other than casting a freelined honey paste into the shimmering, clear water of Wyke lake, a love of books, especially ‘Salmon Fishing’ by J.R.Hartley and ‘The Compleat Angler’ by Isaak Walton, as well as wildfowling and black Labradors!

In those days long ago, I could speak to him about wildfowling, dogs and carp fishing in the same breath, and the joy of such vivid conversations struck me as a special quality which to me is far removed from what carp angling has become today!

I caught a large carp, a little under 30lbs. when I was a soldier in the 1960s, it seemed as though I would never need to catch another. It was through Richard and BB talking about the science of carp fishing, describing the cloop of a carp, the intelligence, the beauty, serenity, and the utter magnificence, that I soaked up such a love for the world of water, and carp fishing.

‘The Fisherman’s Bedtime book’ written and illustrated by BB had enough in it to grip any aspiring fisherman for life. The beautiful black and white drawings, mostly scraper board drawings that opened each amazing story are in my mind as I write this.

Although I only had a few encounters with Richard and Denys, I felt that I knew them intimately, and certainly they were with me at a lakeside on another occasion when Richard slid my net under the beautiful, shining belly of a big common, then admiring it and congratulating me on the catch. I was privileged because compared to Clarissa mine was a very small carp. These were two human beings, famous carp anglers on a high level who I think saw the coming of ‘big is best’!

Did Richard Walker create the ‘big is best movement’ which is so manifest today?

As a youngster I was always interested in catching fish, in the early days no matter what size, but later, when I was an adult, I wanted to catch bigger and bigger carp. I just loved the challenge and the feel of the tugging creature from below the surface of the water, that could not be seen until they had taken the bait!

By the time I was thirty I had achieved so much with regard to catching carp but was a trifle disillusioned, perhaps by too much success, or perhaps it was that the sport was about to change for the worse, and every angler wanted to make a big deal about what they caught, always centred on weight and not the magic of the fight, and the condition of the carp when it was gently slipped back into the lake warped into some kind of insignificance. That has changed back in recent years and carp are cared for in an amazing way.

This short story will be quite hard to read if you are an aspiring carp angler, and perhaps to many it may not be believed.

I shared this story with only three anglers, Richard Walker, Denys Watkins Pitchford (BB) and Peter Mohan. Sadly, all three of these great carp anglers have passed away so I have chosen to write this story in the knowledge that until now no other person has ever heard this except for a German count, a castle owner, but he passed away long ago.

I knew these three outstanding carp anglers and communicated with them occasionally throughout the previous six decades. I was inspired by the vast number of stories that each had published and there is no doubt that I could ever match their catches! Or could I? I remembered the mention of giant German, hand-reared carp!

I was in Germany in the late 1960s on a visit to Belsen Concentration Camp, not far from Luneburg. I had with me then a number of young soldiers and I was staying in the Army Air Corps officer’s mess in Minden.

While I was taking a short day’s break, I was reading the paper in the mess when I met a helicopter pilot, Major Al Shepherd.

Sipping a medium sherry in the mess one evening, we shared fishing stories as he slowly drunk himself almost unconscious the evening before his three-week rest period after a period in Vietnam. It was the beginning of a break for Al, so perhaps he had many sorrows to drown?

Before he was tipsy, he shared a secret with me. He was clearly a successful carp angler as he told me many stories of giant Vietnamese carp he had caught in the Mekong, and as that was his pastime, he was privy to a lake in the area which he had been invited to fish as a guest of the count who owned it. He told me a story of one night’s fishing that made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

“There was a schloss, German name for a castle, a few kilometres away from the heath, which had a large ancient lake in the garden. I had lost a giant carp one night, which had been reared by the castle owner, his pet, who invited me to fish the lake any time I wanted to. The fish was on for an hour and when it was drawn towards the bank, I shone my Canadian army-issue torch on the fish and was actually afraid because it was like a huge sack of sand!”

It was huge but Al’s tackle could not beat the carp. He put pressure on the fish and his line snapped. He had no net!

Al told Count Hoffmann, the owner of the castle, what had happened.

“Ah” said the Count, “that was a sad loss. My family have been breeding magnificent carp for many years and even when I was a lad, they were huge. I fed them every day with my father and now that they are like whales, we have stopped. Perhaps you missed a chance of a record major?”

The following week Alvin approached the Count and asked if I might try to catch one of these giants, with the proviso that I would use a large hook and return the fish unharmed!

The Count’s response was exciting. “Yes, of course”.

A few days later I went into the castle grounds after midnight, entering through the huge iron gates after locating the huge iron key he had told me to use. I walked towards the lake and set about trying to catch one of his giant fish.

I had a one and a quarter pound test curve, fifteen feet long carp rod which I had made, and a wooden-frame, large landing net. I had a dozen lob worms that I had dug up, in my pocket, and a pencil torch.

I decided not to drop a bait into the calm water until all the lights were off in the castle. There was much laughing and dancing, and more than a little joyous drinking, so it was one o’clock before I started to fish.

When the night was silent several enormous carp rolled, so the worms were perhaps not the right bait.

I started to feed the water with crust from a large loaf I had brought with me. The giant carp almost immediately sucking at the bread made the adrenalin flow down my trousers and fill my boots!

“What if I catch a carp of such proportions that I couldn’t land it”?

I glared into the dark water, which was lit only by the small light from the crescent moon, and my pathetic tiny torch, as a soft, warm breeze brushed my face. This was perfect weather for catching a surface-feeding leviathan!

I was filled with trepidation and contemplation about what to offer as bait to surface-feeding carp.

Within a few minutes I had prepared a ‘Whiting special’, a large piece of leathery crust with four large lobworms suspended underneath it, a method I was shown at Wyke lake by Richard Walker, wound onto the size two hook shank with fine silk, my usual method for such a presentation.

I gently swung the baited hook about ten metres out. It plopped on the surface of the black water and made the reflection of the thin moon, shimmer.

The lips of a monster carp almost instantly sucked in the bait, with a high-pitched cloop. In the darkness I could hear those giant lips doing their job, sucking and clooping with such accuracy, not expecting the luscious morsel was a trap to pull it from the dark home it had occupied for decades.

I didn’t strike for a few seconds until I estimated that the carp had turned towards the lakebed, because I knew that such a beast, one of only a few, would need to be well-hooked and only then was it possible to drive the large barbless hook into its leathery lips. Within a few seconds the fight was on, and on and on….

I was determined to see the carp and after more than an hour I had the leviathan underneath my rod, which was bent double. I had it hooked and there it was, with my net reaching out to land it. I shone my pin-torch, and almost as though some divine force had willed, it was shining right into the carp’s eye.

What a beautiful eye, and what a kind fish to lie there beaten, ready to be nestled in my huge landing net! It seemed as though the fish was giving in to my rather gentle playing, in respect for its right to be returned unharmed by the catcher.

I stretched out the landing net and the giant carp was trapped. I lifted the net arms and trapped the fish so it could not escape. With only my small light I thought I could not easily manage the task of unhooking and weighing.

Ironically, running along the bank was the castle owner, the Count, carrying a lantern.

The Count knew I was fishing and perhaps he couldn’t sleep knowing I might catch one of his babies, so perhaps he was a little over the limit from the party and couldn’t sleep! How he came to be there at that very moment is another story which I only found out years later at a garden party during a return visit.

Between us we managed to lift the creature out of the water and carefully weigh it, which was easier than we thought because I entered the water, nestled the beautiful fish in my arms and lifted it onto the bank assisted by the Count.

Lit by the little lantern, the sight of this giant fish was such a shock. I can still see the beauty of its body and the glint of its lovely, round eye and strong leathery lips pouting as though it was thanking me for being so gentle.

The fish was of such a weight that he told me he had always seen that same common carp sucking at crusts and other floating pellets first, gorging ruthlessly as the feed his family tossed into the lake during feeding time was sucked in.

“See. It has a white spot on its shoulder, can you see. I call her Heidi. Ha Ha!”

I felt a pain of resentment that I had dared to catch the Count’s pet carp, but he seemed to be glad and certainly never chastised me for catching it!

I apologised for catching the carp, and he whispered in his broken English.

“Good. No problem. That’s fine my man. It is a sign of loving fish that one would fish such a place. That fish weighs I think about twenty-five kilos, but let’s weigh it in case it is more or less. I netted her two years ago when she was 28kgs.

That is a monster! I would like to know how heavy Heidi is now, for my grandchildren”.

‘Heidi’ was gently weighed, and the huge scales went down to the maximum of 25kgs. He ran to the castle and came back within a few minutes with a set of large, old fashioned scales and weights, taking only my pin-torch to light the path.

We weighed it accurately by lanternlight. It was 27.95 kilograms! The weight was approx. 62lbs!

“My god. That must be the biggest carp in Germany” I thought.

The Count nodded his agreement but said we must never declare its weight or the details of its catch except to people we could trust. I promised I would honour his request, and I did for a decade.

About ten years later I shared it with Richard Walker in a letter, and after Richard passed away the day before my birthday in 1985, I was told by Peter Mohan that he was told the story by Richard in 1983. BB had kept it secret and took the story with him to ‘the big fishing lake in the sky’. The Count had kept the secret as far as I know, until he passed away in 1982.

I do not deserve praise for being a great angler as it was perhaps better referred to as ‘the catch of a giant carp from a garden pool’ by a soldier who had been privileged to cast a line in a private lake, seeking to catch giant fish which had been denied any angler’s hook during its life, until that night!

I knew it could not be registered as my biggest carp, but I cared not, for I had landed a giant carp and such a catch was instrumental in me re-assessing whether it was worth it any more to fish for these magnificent, ancient fish? Is bigger best?

My catch was nothing but a date with a monster that I caught with thinking-skill, but I could never claim it as my greatest catch. That title belongs to a huge carp I caught in Hertfordshire on a one and a quarter pound, fifteen feet long rod that I made. That story is for another time!