Carp number 46: Big Scale.
21 lb 5 oz, the Ritchies, September 1984.
Another well known fish (named by Ian Brown) and one that I was mentally chasing after I first saw photos of it in Brownie's pile of images he had on the lakeside prior to me actually getting it. It only ever graced my landing net on the one occasion, as I remember things it never used to to get caught too often.
Carp number 47:
13 lb 11 oz, the Ritchies, October 1984.
Another hard to re-identify looking fish. A bog standard Fordwich Mirror carp in other words.
Carp number 48: The Hog.
The Hog at 19 lb 7 oz. The Ritchies, September 1984.
Here again at 19 lb 5 oz. The Ritchies, October 1984.
And lastly for me, here at 19 lb 12 oz, the Ritchies, October 1984. Like most things, you wait for ages to catch the fish then get it three times in just over a month!
The Hog was a fish it took me ages to catch for myself. It was a very well known fish beforehand, named by Ian Brown (in 83?) as it seemed like every time he put the fish back in the water it swam out and started looking for his baits again! The mouth was in a sorry state by the time I caught it but it was still a handsome looking Carp.
Carp number 49:
24 lb 10 oz, the Ritchies, October 1984.
An unknown fish to me at the time when it would have been amongst the eight to ten largest Carp in the lake. Although the scale pattern is pretty standard for a Fordwich mirror, it is an odd sort of shape which might help to re-identify it? The head is small, the top lip a little lumpy and the tail end rather thin perhaps?
18 lb 1 oz, the Ritchies, October 1984.
And here almost three years later taken off the Ritchies at 22 lb 7 oz in July 1987.
This fish was again one of the big eight to ten or so of Fordwich Carp at the time but only after 1986 which is when it started piling on the weight. Prior to this it was just one of the myriad of mid to high doubles. It was called Wendy's fish by general consensus after one of the lads (I think it was Andy 'Topper' Clarke) left his missis, as in Wendy, looking after his rods and when he came back she had this fish in the net weighing in at I think 27+ pounds? Bear in mind that this would have been an enormous PB for Topper at the time as he hadn't been Carping all that long at the time. As I write I'm not 100% certain that Wendy was Topper's missis, but this would have been just typical of Topper. That said it might have been one of the other newer Carp anglers at the time? All of this would have occurred in 1986 I presume and during that autumn judging by the weight? That large patch of scales in the middle of the right hand flank was the most obvious identification marker.
14 lb 14 oz, the Ritchies, October 1984.
Another reasonably nondescript Fordwich Mirror. For the record the photo was taken in the Little Ritchies and by the looks of it I'd just had a rather smashing haircut.
Carp number 52: Long Barbels.
Capture number one, at 22 lbs, taken off the Ritchies in October of 1984. Again the photo session was done in the Little Ritchies and looking at that rather rubbish landing net, I must have been fishing with Geoff at the time. He persisted with that metal fold away landing net for years.
Capture number two, here at 25 lb 1 oz taken off the Baldwin in October of 1986.
... and lastly here at 21 lb 14 oz, taken off the Ritchies in July 1987.
Ian Brown named this fish due to it having nice long droopy barbels. A fish that you'd not often see whilst perusing through other peoples photos other peoples on the bank captures.
Carp number 53: Scargill, later Arfur Scargill.
18 lb 8 oz, the Ritchies October 1984.
19 lb 0 oz, the Ritchies, later in October 1984.
18 lbs, the Ritchies, July 1986.
19 lb 3 oz, the Mungs, August 1986. This returning photo shows just how small a swim that the Mungs was back in the day.
Well, being the middle 1980's and having N.U.M. calling the Miners strike in '84 fresh in our minds, this fish soon acquired the name of Scargill (the Miners Union leader being Arthur Scargill, a famous/infamous bloke at the time) due to it having a scar on its right hand gill. It then had an upgrade to its name after the top lobe of its tail fin got damaged and from thereon became Arfur Scargill, as in half a tail with a scar on its gill, my idea this one and it stuck. Now this is an interesting fish as it's one that can be traced back to it's actually stocking back in 1971. See below;
Now the fish written about here in this section of the 1979 C&DAA annual report is almost certainly Scargill (or Arfur Scargill as it went on to be) as the first time I ever laid eyes on the fish was when Alex Stewart caught the fish as a low to mid double in 1979/80 or 81. At this time it had a metal crimp tag fitted to its right hand gill which had some numbers or letters on it. In time the tag dropped out leaving a large wound that then became a scar. The fact that this fish was stocked at 7 lb 12 oz in 1971 and went on to weight 13 lbs by 1979 is also of interest as it gives a good clue as to the time some of the Carp were introduced to Fordwich and a rough guide of how Arfur grew over the years. At the time I used to hear reports of some fish being taken for stocking Fordwich from a Lake in north Kent and Horton Kirby springs to mind, though this may well be wrong? That said, the fish in Horton Kirby strongly resemble the Fordwich fish so perhaps that titbit of info was indeed correct? Hopefully someone out there might be able to add a bit of flesh to the bones of this conundrum as for the life of me I just cannot recall where I picked this info up in the first place. Nowadays, being so far out of the loop from the Carp scene as I am I don't see anyone who can help me join up the dots so to speak.
My first encounter with Hunky, here at 26 lb 14 oz, a PB that lasted for about a week as it turned out as the following week I caught the big one out of the School Pool at Faversham. Anyway, I caught Her here off the Ritchies in October of 1984. Check out the zigzag pectoral fin, the fish's most obvious identification mark if required?
I next caught her of the Mungs when she weighed in at only 25 lb 9 oz in September of 1986.
And here again two or three weeks later off the Ritchies again at 26 lb 1 oz in October 1986.
Hunky (Ian Brown name her) was one of the two largest fish in Fordwich during the middle 1980's but as far as I'm aware never got to 29 lbs as the real biggee Charlie had on a couple of occasions. A large headed Carp, it had a thin tail end in width and no obvious scale pattern to help with recognition but the right hand pectoral fin was zigzagged, as some of the above photos just about show.
Carp number 55: The Yellow Leather.
22 lb 6 oz, the Ritchies, October 1984.
We used to refer to this Carp as the yellow Leather. It was never a name as such, just a way of describing the fish as were most of the names that I used to think up back then. Although the lower fin damage was caused by a human being at some point in the poor things history, the dorsal fin was actually deformed, the Carp being totally smooth in the middle all the way around its back, as smooth as the belly of the fish in fact. The fins are noticeably tiny.
Carp number 56:
9 lb 7 oz, the Trees, July 1985. I just love that new hairdo ... we have Dan, Geoff's hairdresser brother to thank for that. He was fortunate that I didn't strangle him when I saw what he'd done to my barnet.
One of only two fish that I can find from the entire year of 1985 which is awfully frustrating. I've turned the spare room inside out and after looking through my entire backlog of old loose photos am worried that they may have been chucked out? I'm not sure how? Anyway, though it's far from being the catastrophe it would have been thirty years ago it still galls me somewhat. This tiddler was one of the newer stocked fish kept in the gully behind the Baldwin where they were allowed to grow from 8 oz to 1 lb ish fish before being released when 2 - 3+ lbs.
Carp number 57:
8 lb 9 oz, the Ritchies, July 1985.
One of a few awfully similar 3 - 4 lb fish introduced in the early 1980's.
Carp number 58:
16 lb 6 oz, the Ritchies, June 1986.
A very dark looking fish and one I never saw before or after I think? Even though this is going back 34 years now I still remember catching this fish as I was really struggling to catch anything at the time. To make matters even worse I'd by this time had my confidence dented at Yateley the previous week and I needed a few Carp just to make me believe in myself ever catching again. This was definitely my first Carp of the 1986/7 season and I think I blanked the first session of that tour and then had to endure a run of losing fish due to hook pulls or whatever. I was having a really frustrating time of things and I can still remember the relief of getting this one in the net. Another bonus was that for me it was also an unknown fish. We didn't know them all of course, just the bulk of the fish that used to get caught the most often.
Carp number 59
The raggedy tailed Carp caught off the Mungs at 13 lb 13 oz in August of 1986.
The raggedy tailed Carp again caught by the raggedy haired man, here taken off the Mungs at 14 lb 8 oz in September of 1986.
There's not much else to say except for the tail end was both raggedy and floppy. Also most of that raggedy hair has long since fallen out!
Carp number 60:
25 lb 13 oz, the Mungs, August 1986.
Now this one came right along out of the blue. It was an unknown fish to us at the time and was all the more noteworthy as not only did it look as if it had never seen a hook but I caught both Hunky and Charlie, as in the two largest fish in the lake, either during the same week session or within a week or two and both of these presumably larger Carp both weighed less than this one? It never acquired any name and would have surely put on a few pounds had it been caught in late October or November seeing as it was a mid twenty in August. I'd presume that up till then it was either not getting caught very much (or if at all) or may have been one of the army of smaller fish that had just been piling on the weight and rising through the ranks? It's not one of the more obviously scaled and therefore noticeable Carp is it? Nothing about it really stands out apart from the rounded off tail lobes and the small fins?
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