While browsing in my local tackle shop, a voice from behind me I recognised, it was Terry McCarthy a good friend I had lost touch with when work and family lives became a priority for both of us. We have bumped in to each other at the carp society show at Sandown Park a couple of times over the years. Terry and I fished together over forty years ago. We chatted about the old days much to the amusement of the shop assistant and the conversation got to hearing about Paul Forward’s passing.
Terry was part of a small group of anglers who fished with Paul in some gravel pits on the Romney marsh when Paul moved down from Nottingham. Terry said he had seen we now have a charity event in his memory, so a plan was made for Terry to be my guest at this year’s event at Linear Fisheries, Oxford starting on Friday 20th to 22nd June 25.
We kept in touch making plans for the event and to pay his contribution to the event of £400 which included a hog Roast on the Saturday evening.
Friday the 20th was soon upon us and, as arranged, I picked him up early and loaded the van – including a bed chair one person can just about lift lol. So we had a good catch up about the old-school carp fishing of the day. We concluded that was over 40 years ago so we had a lot to catch up on where we had both been fishing in all that time.
We arrived a bit early, even after stopping for a good breakfast at Wetherspoon’s on the motorway. We had a look round the shop at Linear and bought some extra floaters for the expected surface frenzy on the Brasenose complex. We came out of the draw on Brasenose 2 with a large area to fish between swims 16 and 21.
We were allowed on the lake after 2pm when the work party had finished,. Wth the lake being closed and opened for the event by Linear fisheries, a big thankyou to them for their support for our charity. And remember Paul Forward known to many as “F” who passed away over 3 years ago after fighting his battle with Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
So, onto the fishing, we walked our patch of water and with the wind pushing up our end of the lak, it looked good for the two days ahead of us. Terry settled in to swim 16 at the end of the lake where we had seen a few on the surface with the weather being warm on arrival. I decided to drop into 19 to keep the lines away from Terrys swim. We started off fishing the surface for a couple of hours before we settled into our first night with a couple of surface caught carp under our belt.
We decided on fishing the first night on the bottom with hard hook baits. It soon became clear that the crayfish would decimate even the hardest hook baits. I went all-in on black zigs at varying depths. The floater fishing wasn’t easy with the cloud and then a couple of heavy rain showers were putting the fish down. I had another carp to the zig method but Terry’s swim looked devoid of fish until the weather brightened up again on the Saturday afternoon. Then the carp turned up in numbers and we caught from the surface.
Now the carp were competing for the mixers we were drifting past them. Terry still had a couple of zigs out, and out of the blue he got a take on the left hand black zig, his first ever bite on a zig which ended up with a lovely mid twenty mirror. We caught a couple of more surface twenties when the second of Terry’s zigs was away with another lovey linear mirror. A very enjoyable hectic afternoon and a sit down with a cup of tea and a biscuit to reflect on what had just happened.
We were due at the social for the hog-roast so we put the rods in the van and walked around to see old friends and new at the social where some games had been organised to create the perfect atmosphere along with the hog roast washed down with a few beers for most.
We wandered back to our swims before the light faded as a warm wind had picked up and was blowing onto our bank. As we walked around, Terry spotted a couple of decent carp heads and shouldered out in front of my swim. So three black zigs were out on the area and fish after fish head and shouldered just to the left of my swim, in the now strengthening wind.
Terry did the same as no fish were coming up for the floaters with the change of conditions. It wasn’t long before my left hand rod was away on a seven foot zig with a nice mid twenty mirror landed after a good battle through some of the weeds in front of me. The middle rod was then put on the spot I’d just caught from and soon after all the pics were done. We had just settled back down again when that rod was away with another mid twenty.
Then Terry was away on his zig and after a long dogged fight he landed a lovely 31 pound mirror to cap a great weekend between two good friends. As before, the second of Terry’s rods was away with another twenty pound linear mirror on the bank. Then all went quiet until my alarm sounded in the dark with another zig caught twenty. Sunday morning came around and the wind had gone and so had the active carp from the evening before.
We ended up with fifteen carp between us, so an early pack up and some goodbyes on our way out ended a great weekend. Looked like we raised around £10,000, which is amazing. A big thankyou to everyone involved, including Dave Lane for organising and Les Bowers for running the auctions – still to be completed.
That’s all for now, see you on the bank soon. Tight lines, Trev.