My angling career began when I was around 9 years old, fishing the local ponds at Highgate / Parliament Hill Fields / Hampstead Heath which was literally on my doorstep. It used to be managed by the Greater London Council but when that was disolved, CoL took over management. My brother, friends and myself would spend countless days and nights as young teenagers fishing the local ponds and much of our time during school holidays was spent at the local ponds too.
A swim (fishing spot/area) that most fisherman on these ponds used to like to fish (and there was a mad-rush for) was Carp Corner on the lower-end of Highgate 2nd Pond (mens swimming pond). If we were lucky we would get to fish this swim, however it was usually occupied by other anglers who would rotate it between themselves. I had a few good fishing sessions here though, with John Grant, who was also a very talented artist. We caught netfulls of fish including some lovely tench and I recall a great trip John invited me on to Copper Mill Stream at Walthamstow fishing for roach. We had bucket loads of good sized roach – the stream was absolutely teeming with fish!
Pete was another angler who spent time fishing Highgate 2nd and was a dedicated carp angler. He would fish halfway up the lower bank of Highgate 2nd soley after the carp. Pete was given the nickname ‘The Perv’ as he always had his binoculars out! Later, Pete moved to the Vale of Health pond further up onto Hampstead Heath. I joined him there for a few seasons and would also fish with Jake ‘the Rake’ who was from Bristol and who had some sucess on ‘the Vale’. Ian was another angler who fished the Vale and there were two Greek-Cypriot brothers who also fished here regularly, by the name of Paul & Chris. All of these guys were a lot older than my brother and I, but they were good to us and Pete especially guided us in our angling skills, showing us how to tie knots, etc. There was also a guy called Len ‘the Nod’ who would fish the Vale regularly, usually in a swim by the Willow tree.
From the age of 15 to 19 I didn’t participate in much fishing, that was until a work colleague who was a keen angler invited me to fish the River Wey at Elstead in Surrey that was leased by his angling club, The Freemasons Angling Society (I was told named after the pub where it was originally formed and not associated with any other organisation!). I later joined the club and we would have weekly meet-ups in The Queens pub in Queens Crescent and fishing at various venues throughout the south of England – mostly L.A.A venues on Sundays. The club was well organised by Stan Hall the chairman and his team and in addition to leasing a stretch of river Wey the club owned a large coach which would transport members to various venues each week.
For a year or two the club also took on a lease of a stretch of the river Loddon at Arborfield and I fished there several times and caught a chunky little river carp on a short afternoon trip whilst visiting my Dad who lived close by.
A group of lads from the fishing club would also organise an annual holiday to fish the river Avon at Bisterne, located between Ringwood and Christchurch in Hampshire. It was here that I caught my first barbel, The Prince of the River, and a species I fell in love with and dedicated most of my time fishing for in the proceeding years and for much of the rest of my angling career.
A few of the Freemason A.S lads also used to have the occassional trip to Britford at Salisbury and this was another of my favourite venues. As I’ve written elsewhere, I wanted to move to this area, but the commute to work in London would have been exhausting.
In the mid/late 1990’s I joined a fishing syndicate on the river Kennet which ran through Wasing Estate in Berkshire. I would fish here most weekends and would sometimes fit in mid-week sessions too. I loved it on the upper beats at Warren & Brimpton, however I struggled to catch a barbel over the 6lb mark. Fish were plentiful, but of a low average weight.
In 1998 I wanted a change from the scene in London. My Dad had, several years prior, moved to Berkshire and I would visit him regularly, using it as a base to fish the river Kennet. I also fished much of the South East of England each weekend and decided I wanted to relocate to Salisbury so I could be close to the river Avon, which I loved so much. However the commute to work in London’s West End was too much so I opted to purchase a house in West Berkshire, which was walking distance to Wasing Estate’s fisheries and an easier commute to London for work.
I became friendly with another Wasing syndicate member, Wayne Litttely, and we began fishing the lower beat at Woolhampton, which was less scenic, had a lower population of fish, however it was where the larger fish lived. We soon got into the larger barbel at Woolhampton after regularly introducing bait to an area and my first fish from this beat was well over the 6lb mark. I was very peased as you can imagine! We had some double figure carp too and plenty of chub. But it was the barbel we were mainly fishing for.
I spent several seasons fishing the Kennet with Wayne and he kindly invited me to a stretch of Red Spinner controlled water at Hampstead Marshall on the upper Kennet. I loved fishing the small streams of the Upper Kennet for smaller species such as Roach, Dace, Perch, Grayling and Chub in the winter months and spent many weekends driving the area looking for spots to fish above Newbury.
Backtracking to 1996 when I began building my employers website at the beginning of the commercial world of the Internet in the UK, I discovered fishing.org and joined an email list/chat group named the Internet Angling Club (IAC). They were a friendly group and would organise occassional fish-ins (meet-ups) that I would sometimes attend. I became friendly with Geoff Maynard who owned fishing.org which was one of the first angling websites in the UK. We fished the river Kennet together and also took a holiday to British Columbia in Canada fishing the Fraser and Harrison rivers for Sturgeon and Salmon. We camped in an RV (motorhome) and had a few days guided boat fishing with Fred’s Fishing Adventures and did some of our own un-guided salmon fishing from the river bank. That was a fantastic trip and we caught many, many fish. We met up with Geoff’s longtime friend Martin who lived in Vancouver and also Dave Steuart and his wife Kay who’s company we enjoyed for a few days and who where holidaying at the same time as Geoff and I. They kindly invited us out in their boat for a day and Dave wrote a little about the trip in his book From Minnows to Marlin. I may write a seperate post about that holiday as it was very enjoyable.
I’ve remained in contact with Geoff still to this day and through the IAC he (and/or Alan Tomkins) would organise an annual trip to a nice stretch of the Upper Kennet just outside Hungerford at Lower Denford, fishing for Grayling. I attended this fish-in for a number of years and always enjoyed the day with lots of Grayling and other smaller fish being caught by all. Some years later the winter Grayling venue changed from the Kennet to the river Itchen near Southampton and that too was great fun. The size of the Grayling at this venue were much larger than the Kennet fish.
In the early 2000’s I took on the lease of a very small stretch of the river Kennet in Woolhampton from Monksmead Estate. The estate had just been purchased by a new owner and they were happy with it being run mainly for local anglers – and on that basis the rent was cheap. However, very few locals wanted to fish. So I sold tickets to friends in order to cover the costs of insurance, tools, etc. It was never run as a profit-fishery, just for locals, friends and my own enjoyment. A few of the lads that purchased season tickets were members of the IAC; Edward Adcock, Stuart Eccleshall, Alan Tomkins & Geoff Maynard and I fished with them all at Woolhampton and other venues. Wayne Littley took a ticket for a year also, but didn’t fish it much. He had access to lots of venues via his other club tickets and I think had “done his time” at Woolhampton. Chris Tarrant the popular TV personality also purchased a ticket from me.
Alan Tomkins was another IAC member who I became friendly with and we also spent a number of years fishing together throughout the South of England. Alan was a succesful fisherman and country-sportsman. I very much enjoyed Alan’s company when fishing and he enjoyed fishing the stretch of river Kennet I leased for the Barbel and especially the Perch. I believe he even wrote about his sessions in his last book Magic in the Water. I’ve not read the book, though would love to get hold of a copy. When I moved to Thailand in 2006 I handed the lease of the Kennet fishery to Alan. Unfortunately when the lease came up for renewal Alan told me the owner (or his Land Agent) didn’t return his attempts at contact. The lease was passed over to Kevin Rolls who used to be fishery manager on Wasing Estate. Chris Tarrant took the lease over from Kevin Rolls and I’m unsure who manages the fishery now.
Alan was a secretive type too, however he invited me to a few of the venues he didn’t promote to others, those being a stretch of the Britsol Avon near Tetbury, stretches of the Windrush & Evenlode in Oxfordshire, along with Edward Adcock. Edward worked at Bodlien Library in Oxford and was a quiet chap. I enjoyed fishing the rivers with Alan and Edward.
Alan also invited me to The Fisheries in Hertfordshire, a carp venue with a waiting list extending into many (20 I’m told) years. I didn’t catch anything, however I appreciated the invite. I also invited Alan and Edward to fish the Hampshire Avon at Britford for roach and together we visited this venue for several seasons in the winter months. We caught a few decent roach and I recall having a fish of 1lb 14oz and then another of 1lb 15oz immediately after. On the same day Edward had a great roach well over the 2lb mark! I didn’t ever catch the 2lb-er I was after. Alan suggested I should have placed some lead-shot in the fishes mouth to get the 2lb-er I wanted 🙂
Alan is sadly no longer with us.
In 2004 as part of my agreement with Ian Welch, the boss of RMC Angling, who’s website I developed and managed, I was given a Gold Card which allowed me to fish any of their venues. Some of these had waiting lists extending into many years, however it was a cheap-ticketed venue at Burghfield that appealed to me. It was scenic, held some large fish (Carp) but had a low population. And most importantly, it didn’t get busy. Not really the type of venue one starts out their Carp angling career on. But I enjoyed it and most definetly would choose this type of venue over any of the prolific ciruit waters I had access to, such as those on the Yateley complex or at Horton. I visited those places and Chris ‘Starman’ was very helpful in providing us with access to and encouraging the fisherman at Horton to supply us with their stories for the RMC website. I appreciated Chris’ help and he never asked for anything in return. I also got drunk with Chris a few times at Horton!! I’ve learned that Chris now runs his own bait company, which you can find at Starman Products.
One of the RMC Angling forum members, Apples, who’d had some success on Burghfield in years past offered to meet me at the lake and walk it with me, giving me information to assist with my campaign. He was a bit secretive, as are many in the angling community. But I became friendly with him. I fished Burghfield on and off for several seasons (alone). I had a few carp of the lower 20lb mark and caught a fish known as Cut Tail at lower-to-mid 30lb. But I just enjoyed being at the lake whether I caught fish or not. It was a beautiful venue of just under 100 acres, but broken up into smaller bays and allowed to grow a little wild, not being overly maintained, which left a mystical feeling about it. Alan Tomkin’s last book was titled ‘Magic in the Water’ and there was certainly something magical and mystical about Burghfield for me and a small number of other anglers who enjoyed its offerings.
Apples lived in the local town to my village and we began fishing together at a large 400+ acre gravel pit near Theale and then another smaller pit at Calcot, just outside Reading. Apples later went on to agree a lease with the owners and managed the fishery at Calcot which consisted of 3 lakes. I’m unsure if he still controls it as I’ve lost contact with him, but I know he did a lot of work on the lake, as he did on several other local lakes! ( I don’t recall catching a carp from these venues, which were of a very, very low stock at the time we fished them. Apples caught the odd immaculate carp. But we had some enjoyable social’s – Apples, Dan and myself. You may be thinking Apples is an unsual name. His given name is Piers – “Apples and Pears” is rhyming slang for stairs, so his mates used to call him Apples, rather than Piers (or Pears)!
I did less barbel fishing in the 2 years prior to moving to Thailand in 2006. I fished mostly for carp. My work for RMC Angling became greater, with me taking on the Content Management/Editing of the website, as well as the development. The website was a huge success and as part of my job I would write and source articles, news stories and photos and publish these to the website. The audience consisted of mostly carp anglers, so that was the content that we tried to publish most of – and hense my move into carp fishing. It was a fulltime job with a part-time pay 🙂 But its the love of fishing that most people in the trade get involved.
I became a bit disheartened with it all in 2006 though, when Ian Welch left RMC Angling. I got on well with Ian (as I do with most people) and saw people who I’d seen him treat well being unkind to him. I felt uncomfortable with it. Maybe I was too sensitive, but I needed a holiday!
I tried to organise a trip to Costa Rica fishing for Sailfish with Eric, an angler from the RMC forum who would visit exotic locations throughout the world fishing for large sea species, however he couldn’t travel at the dates I had in mind. So I went to Thailand for a month, came back and decided to move there for a year and see how it went, working remotely. However some clients said they didn’t like that idea and I lost business contracts.
When I moved to Thailand I didn’t do much fishing. I lost my passsion for it. I fished with a client/employer for a day at IT Monster Lake in Ratchaburi which I must admit was great fun. I fished at Top Cats in Samui once or twice for a few hours each time (nothing serious) and caught a few Redtail Catfish and Meklong Giant Catfish. I had a couple of hours out on a longtail boat in Choeng Mon Bay in Samui, hand-lining for Barracuda. I was invited to fish and blanked on the river Maeklong (or maybe it was the Bang Pakong) for Stingray, though I wasn’t much interested in catching a Stingray despite their gigantic size. I purchased a rod whilst living in Khon Kaen (Isaan) and stocked some fingerling fish into a lake that was on my girlfriends families land, however the fish never grew to any size before the relationship ended. I purchased a rod whilst living in Phuket but didnt fish.
That was pretty much my fishing exploits during my 5 years in Thailand.
Since my return from Thailand in 2011 I’ve done very little fishing. I had a few days out fishing for barbel on the Kennet when I first arrived back. I fished with Geoff Maynard for tench at a lake in Maidenhead where he caught a huge Grass Carp close to record size! But that is the extent of my fishing since being back in the UK.
My passion used to be so strong for fishing. It was a large part of my life. I just don’t have the same feeling for it since 2006. I do have some good memories, so may well write a few blog posts of those.
I must now search for other things in life! Maybe I’ll start with myself….
