It’s not just tackle that has changed beyond recognition, it is bait as well

It’s not just tackle that has changed beyond recognition, it is bait as well. I started my carp fishing at the old Halls Angling Scheme (now RMC Angling) gravel pit at Bedfont in Middlesex. The pit unfortunately is no longer there having been re-landscaped into a park. Like most gravel pits in those days it was largely unfished and certainly not by carp anglers. I fished as a lad for anything that came along, I had little tackle and anyway I had to ride my bike to the waters then, as I was too young to drive. However on one hot day in 1976 I spotted a disturbance in some weed in a bay. Getting a better look from a high bank I could see two carp lying up. They were the biggest fish I had ever seen; realistically they were probably around 20lb. I spent the rest of the summer holidays trying to tempt these carp with bread, worm, carrots, anything that I could think of or that I had read about in my Catchmore Carp book written by Jack Hilton, all to no avail. The following year I rode my bike all the way beyond Staines to another Halls Angling water called Longfield. Here, again on a hot day, I found carp even closer in, I could make out every scale of both big commons and mirrors. From then on I was determined that one day I would catch a big carp. It was several more years before I did just that. I had started work, I could drive and I had two 2lb test curve 11-foot rods and Heron buzzers. I caught my first double figure carp from the Bedfont Pit in 1978 on a large black slug. On a cold October morning I had gone there to pike fish but in the dawn light I found carp rolling only about 20yards out. I had only sprats with me so I found a slug in the grass and impaled it on a size 6 hook and put six swan shot on the line and cast out as far as I could. The bait landed with a plop about 5 yards short of the carp but I left it not really expecting to catch anything anyway. I cast the other rod out for pike and sat back reading the paper. An hour later there was the sound of a screaming Heron buzzer and the reel on the slug rod was revolving very slowly. Striking with all my might I hauled the fish in in about fifteen seconds. There in the net was a fat mirror carp weighing 13lb 4oz, I was so pleased I thought I would burst, a carp angler had been born! I tried all the next summer to catch another carp from Bedfont but I never did and the following year the pit was closed and most of it filled in. Some big carp were netted from it; I believe a couple over 30lb. I have only heard rumours but I think some went to Longfield and some to Wraysbury but I really do not know, I wonder what happened to my 13lber?Armed with more knowledge I fished at Longfield. I was using boilies made from Angel Delight and Nesquick by then and the Rod Hutchinson Catchum range was out. Anyone who was anyone went to the Carp Cellar in Watford to look at the pictures and hopefully glean some information from the mega stars who frequented the place, Rod Hutchinson, Kevin Maddocks, Ritchie MacDonald, Curly Hatchman and the like. I caught several carp from the small little lake (lake 3) up to 12lb on these baits but could not get a take from the Road Lake or Fox Pool itself. However then I decide to use Catchum Seafood mix and hey presto! I was getting takes from the Road Lake. By the end of August 1980 I had upped my personal best to 18lb. I had seen carp to 27lb on the bank and my desire to catch a big one was getting stronger. Then a stroke of luck occurred in October of that year when a chap in the next swim caught a mirror of over 20lb, the fish was called Bottlenose or Bullnose for those of you who remember the Longfield fish. Anyway, being a keeny, as soon as the carp was on the bank I bent down to unhook it for the lucky angler, there from its mouth was the boilie hanging on a length of cotton tied to the bend of the hook. Any questions I asked were ignored and I was given a very frosty reception from that point on.I spent the winter thinking about this strange rig but figured it could never work consistently so got on with my plans for the coming season. On opening night, everyone went down the Feathers for a beer and I found myself sitting next to Ritchie MacDonald. After a few beers I plucked up the courage to ask him about this strange rig. Ritchie was surprisingly very open about it but in hindsight it had already appeared in print, but not in diagram form, in Kevin Maddocks Carp Fever that was published in 1980. He assured me it worked though. Opening night I blanked but during the next day I tied up one of these rigs and used it the next day. Just as I was packing up after the week session, having caught two carp to 16lb on my side hooking rig, I had a fast take on this new rig and after a scrap landed one of the biggest carp in the Road Lake, the mirror called Lumpy at 23lb 6oz. I went round the whole lake getting people to come and see, I even went onto Fox Pool to drag people off there, I wanted everyone to see that I was a real carp angler now! From then on I went from strength to strength but I never did catch a carp from Fox Pool itself, although I lost the mirror called Big Scale when the hook pulled at the net, and I never caught a bigger carp from the Road Lake, but my catches did increase due to the Hair Rig. So I guess I have Rod to thank for the bait and Ritchie to thank for the rig. Oh happy days. This was not really what I started to write about, I was going to talk about baits and the wide choices we all have now but Iíll do that another time.

Have fun!