Gear
Rods:
In 1979 all of our Carp rods were made from floppy fibreglass. They were often quite heavy and unresponsive too. Those early Carp rods were no longer than 11 feet long, long Carp rods were a thing yet for the future. Most of the were about ten to eleven feet long in the fibreglass era. Then in the late 1970's carbon fibre came into play ... then boron ... then moron, but enough about me. Stuff like chemically sharpened hooks and decent bite alarms were still well in the future, well just around the corner perhaps when looking back from the modern day? In truth the gear we used when I stopped fishing in 1990 still looks to my eye pretty much the same as now as it had come on leaps and bounds in that one single decade. It wasn't like that when I first started and to illustrate the point, you'd still see the occasional older dude using Split Cane rods back then now and again. In fact I remember going to fish a lake in Cornwall in the late 1990's and saw some old boy still using a spilt cane rod even then.
We used to have many rows about gear, the main cause of them being rods. The early years marked the oncoming of Carbon Fibre rod technology, so anything made out of floppy old fibreglass was either given away or just thrown out. In 1982 (I think) Geoff and I, drove to Hertfordshire (was it Simpsons of Turnford or was the shop in Hitchin?) to pick up our rods of choice, namely a pair each of hand built 2 lb 10 oz test curve compound taper Rod Hutchinson's. Now these were long rods, I think they were 12 feet long, very long for Carp rods back then anyway, and were a vast improvement of what we'd been using previously. They were also beautifully built being made from Bruce and Walker blanks. They cast a reasonable distance being able to handle a two and a half ounce lead but were still very pliable and therefore nice to play fish on. Anyway, at some time during the early 1980's another carbon fibre Carp rod hit the market, namely the Titan. They were horrible fast taper things, stiff as a broom-handle, they were cheap both monetarily and in quality by comparison with the feel of the hand made Rod Hutchinson rods and these vile Carp poles were the bane of Geoff's life ... he hated them! The ongoing banter often turned to out and out rows, it could be hilarious at times mind you. After using Rod Hutchinsons rods I then bought another pair of long range Carp rods, both twelve footers bought from the same place in Hitchen or Turnford where we got the RH's from. I think these too were endorsed by Rod? They were still compound tapers designs but these were slightly stiffer but lighter and with them I could cast miles. Eventually, at the end of my fishing days, I bought a pair of Kevin Maddocks endorsed 12.5 foot 2 pound 12 oz test curve rods built by Simpsons of Turnford, and these were absolute beasts. They were still compound taper, quite soft and powerful in the mid range and wow would they chuck a bait out if you gave them a bit of welly. I also used various other Carp rods for shorter ranges or smaller pits, but the three types mentioned were the main ones that I used for the long range fishing on Fordwich.
Reels:
Line and other bits and pieces:
In the early years we used either 8 lb or 10 lb lines but once we learned to fish at longer ranges we then started using very light main line with a heavy shock leader. In some of the swims it was essential to be able to cast 130 yards or more to where many of the fish were. We used to go down as light as using a 6 lb main line using 18 lb shock leaders for the long range stuff in years when the weed wasn't too bad (or else we'd use 7 lb mainline) and never encountered any problems as we, unlike some, learned to tie proper knots and keep an eye out for line wear. I used Sylcast monofilament almost exclusively back then, mainly as you could buy it in 1000 yard spools and though slightly wiry, it did come off the spool nicely for long range casting and the wiriness meant it didn't chaff too much and wear on the gravel bars or whatever. It was just a very high quality and affordable line, it had to be, or else we'd have used something else. I also had many spare spools fitted with heavier line for the mid range stuff but you'd never need anything any heavier than 10 lb strain on Fordwich in any of the swims. There was no proper snag fishing. I'd always like to stretch my line and would also always put a light solution of washing up liquid treated water on it so as to help it sink and remove the drag. It was quite possible with a two and three quarter ounce leads to cast over 150 yards in favourable or even flat calm conditions and whilst some people might scoff at this I know it's right as we used to go practise casting at our local playing fields and measure the casts out. There were very few people at the time who could cast properly, and for the most part it was a would be a waste of time even if they could as very few people ever used a catapult to anywhere near its full potential. Baiting up was always a problem when you fished the Ritchies or the Mound swim. The lake is 200+ yards wide there and it was often the case that the further you could chuck it the more fish you'd catch. My method was to practise, practise and practise some more. We have two lots of huge playing fields nearby, so it was always easy to get a bit of casting practise in during those early years. There were inevitably days when you could cast further than you could bait up due to headwinds and on such occasions I'd drop one rod short amongst my freebie baits and the other as a single offering as far past them as I could get it. Common sense had to be applied and if at some point of the session the wind was favourable for long range baiting up then I'd pile in as much bait as I dared. If it wasn't, then I didn't ... it's not exactly rocket science is it, but I used to wince when I saw people dropping most of their free baits miles short or in a different postal code of where they were casting their hook baits. I used to like baiting an area as early as was possible after arrival, trying to keep the baits on rough lines, well as best as I could anyway? I used to envision a largish area of the lake bed being scattered loosely with baits and hoped that the Carp would just following these baited gravel bar lines up or down until they noticed your hook bait. The gravel bars were easy to find as the islands alongside the open water were just shallower gravel bars on top of which trees and bushes grew which showed the direction of the bats and were used as alignment.
Boats were not allowed on C&DAA waters at the time, so all you had to get any free baits out at range were those high pressure black window hunting style catapults which could propel a large hard boilie in excess of 130 yards in good conditions for such things. Any new catapult elastics had to be prepared before use by stretching the elastics and working on the leather slings to soften them up and get them pliable. This could be achieved by just playing around with them by hand or should you get a really thick type of leather even by biting it. The quality of every batch varied and cheap elastic had to be avoided like the plague. I was really hot on my catapult elastics (does it show?) and often worked on them till they were dead right but even then you'd need at least two or three catapults on the go at one time just to have one or two that were in peak condition when one inevitably snapped. Most people didn't understand all of this and suffered because of it. The baiting was never properly accurate even by applying my overly anal standards to the procedure and I was quite happy to get the baits within a thirty yard radius or line, chuck lots of boilies out there and get them scurrying around looking for them. Often was the time you'd catch a fish and see it pooping out your bait so it obviously worked.
Then we come to ... the Weather Forecasts.
Baits
Bait 1982 onward ...
And now its time for Imaginary question time? Did the birds on Fordwich eat your bait?
The following section may well be very, very, very boring. Don't say that you weren't warned. Of course you'd already be aware of the boredom aspect anyway if you were silly enough to wade through what I wrote on the previous page?
Rods:
In 1979 all of our Carp rods were made from floppy fibreglass. They were often quite heavy and unresponsive too. Those early Carp rods were no longer than 11 feet long, long Carp rods were a thing yet for the future. Most of the were about ten to eleven feet long in the fibreglass era. Then in the late 1970's carbon fibre came into play ... then boron ... then moron, but enough about me. Stuff like chemically sharpened hooks and decent bite alarms were still well in the future, well just around the corner perhaps when looking back from the modern day? In truth the gear we used when I stopped fishing in 1990 still looks to my eye pretty much the same as now as it had come on leaps and bounds in that one single decade. It wasn't like that when I first started and to illustrate the point, you'd still see the occasional older dude using Split Cane rods back then now and again. In fact I remember going to fish a lake in Cornwall in the late 1990's and saw some old boy still using a spilt cane rod even then.
We used to have many rows about gear, the main cause of them being rods. The early years marked the oncoming of Carbon Fibre rod technology, so anything made out of floppy old fibreglass was either given away or just thrown out. In 1982 (I think) Geoff and I, drove to Hertfordshire (was it Simpsons of Turnford or was the shop in Hitchin?) to pick up our rods of choice, namely a pair each of hand built 2 lb 10 oz test curve compound taper Rod Hutchinson's. Now these were long rods, I think they were 12 feet long, very long for Carp rods back then anyway, and were a vast improvement of what we'd been using previously. They were also beautifully built being made from Bruce and Walker blanks. They cast a reasonable distance being able to handle a two and a half ounce lead but were still very pliable and therefore nice to play fish on. Anyway, at some time during the early 1980's another carbon fibre Carp rod hit the market, namely the Titan. They were horrible fast taper things, stiff as a broom-handle, they were cheap both monetarily and in quality by comparison with the feel of the hand made Rod Hutchinson rods and these vile Carp poles were the bane of Geoff's life ... he hated them! The ongoing banter often turned to out and out rows, it could be hilarious at times mind you. After using Rod Hutchinsons rods I then bought another pair of long range Carp rods, both twelve footers bought from the same place in Hitchen or Turnford where we got the RH's from. I think these too were endorsed by Rod? They were still compound tapers designs but these were slightly stiffer but lighter and with them I could cast miles. Eventually, at the end of my fishing days, I bought a pair of Kevin Maddocks endorsed 12.5 foot 2 pound 12 oz test curve rods built by Simpsons of Turnford, and these were absolute beasts. They were still compound taper, quite soft and powerful in the mid range and wow would they chuck a bait out if you gave them a bit of welly. I also used various other Carp rods for shorter ranges or smaller pits, but the three types mentioned were the main ones that I used for the long range fishing on Fordwich.
Reels:
My personal pet hate were some of the reels available in the late 1970's. At this time in history the main specimen hunter type reels were ether made by Mitchell or Abu and only the ABU's were without fault. There were others available but they were awful, the line laying was all skew whiff, the bail arms would snap shut when you cast out, they often felt cheap and not very smooth on the retrieve and often the bail arms felt as if they were hewn from rolling up a couple of Kit Kat tin foil wrappers. Mitchell reels were not too bad, but only for general fishing. They were well designed, had a nice edge on the spool, allowing smooth casting but were let down for long range Carp fishing as if you gave a large lead a good whack out then the bail arms were trustworthy and could snap shut. The Abu's were of a far higher quality, the brass gearing being utterly magnificent as was the clutch and drag mechanism. The rear drag could be useful when self hooking rigs were used, and I always used mine in bait-runner style, casting out, loosening off the drag and just applying pressure to the spool with your hand, clicking off the clutch and tightening the rear drag when you had a take. It was a fail proof method. The Abu reels were indestructible too, built like a tank they were. I had lots of these reels, mostly Mitchells initially (300's, 410's and an 810) also later on my favourites, Abu Cardinal 55's and later on 3 Abu Cardinal 57's. At some time during the middle 1980's a company started selling Baitrunner reels designed specifically for Carp fishing and of course everyone started to buy them, but they were cheap and nasty. It's like anything, they see a gap in the market and get the things to look nice but build them out of cheaper, softer metals and plastic, it was this cutting of the corners that ruined the product. As soon as you saw the way the original Baitrunners laid the line on the spool you could see they weren't very good, but that aside the actual baitrunner facility was a very good idea and it did work but I'd apply the analogy that an old banger will drive you to the shops but it's far better to drive there in an Aston Martin isn't it? That just about sums it up I think? I might come across a bit of a gear snob here, and perhaps I was, but I still stand by what I just wrote. I got taken in one time. I walked into this shop and saw there a pair of reels with enormous deep spools, perhaps the only thing lacking with my Cardinal 57's? The larger and deeper the spool the better they would be for long range casting due to less drag as less spool lip gets exposed once you've hit the 80 - 100+ yard mark during a cast. Anyway, I bought a pair and within just a few months they already felt like I'd had then for a decade or more. They were just cheap and nasty. I wonder how many of those first generation bait-runners gave twenty years of faultless service? None I'd wager, they just weren't built to last. I do admit to being a bit anal about my gear even though I didn't treat it as precious. To my mind what's the point of using a tool that threatens to let you down? If it loses you just one fish then for me that's one fish too many. I used to see so many anglers using old line, blunt hooks etc and just couldn't get my head around it.
Two very old Mitchell 300's. Mine were newer versions than these with red on them somewhere? The one good thing about these reels were that you could let them churn and they wouldn't overrun and get in a tangle. Otherwise they were best left alone. I used four types of Mitchell reels, one with flick type automatic bail arm for float fishing, a blue reel called a 440a, two 410's and one called an 810 which was expensive. This was brown and had a gear ratio of 6:1 for quick retrieving. You felt like a king when using an 810, it looked a rather classy object ... hee hee.
I later found my exact reels. Was it worth the effort? Possibly not, but I was having fun at the time and that's all that really matters innit? The fact that it's boring the pants off you readers is inconsequential. I've just watched a Tubeface video about how to take a screenshot, a big things for a computer idiot like me is that. I am now having a wail of a time ... screenshoting this ... screenshoting that ...
Ah the good old 55, magic things. I initially started my Carping using ABU Cardinal 55's but soon wanted some of the larger 57's which were better for long range stuff. Anyhow, this just came to me, by the middle 1980's 57's were hard to get hold of but then Geoff came up trumps and located the three I needed. I might even have had to buy them second hand though he might have found someone who knew someone etc who knew a shop where they had them in stock new? If they were secondhand then mine were mint when I finally got them. Getting hold of gear was far more difficult in those pre interweb days. You'd see gear for sale via an advert in a fishing magazine and have to send off a cheque after phoning to see if what you wanted was in stock. The locals shops were okay for the smaller tackle items but awfully limited gear wise where rods and reels were concerned meaning that anything niche needed sending away for. It was all quite a palava.
The 57's were larger reels with longer more easy to grip handles. They were however a pig to get hold of back then.
Line and other bits and pieces:
In the early years we used either 8 lb or 10 lb lines but once we learned to fish at longer ranges we then started using very light main line with a heavy shock leader. In some of the swims it was essential to be able to cast 130 yards or more to where many of the fish were. We used to go down as light as using a 6 lb main line using 18 lb shock leaders for the long range stuff in years when the weed wasn't too bad (or else we'd use 7 lb mainline) and never encountered any problems as we, unlike some, learned to tie proper knots and keep an eye out for line wear. I used Sylcast monofilament almost exclusively back then, mainly as you could buy it in 1000 yard spools and though slightly wiry, it did come off the spool nicely for long range casting and the wiriness meant it didn't chaff too much and wear on the gravel bars or whatever. It was just a very high quality and affordable line, it had to be, or else we'd have used something else. I also had many spare spools fitted with heavier line for the mid range stuff but you'd never need anything any heavier than 10 lb strain on Fordwich in any of the swims. There was no proper snag fishing. I'd always like to stretch my line and would also always put a light solution of washing up liquid treated water on it so as to help it sink and remove the drag. It was quite possible with a two and three quarter ounce leads to cast over 150 yards in favourable or even flat calm conditions and whilst some people might scoff at this I know it's right as we used to go practise casting at our local playing fields and measure the casts out. There were very few people at the time who could cast properly, and for the most part it was a would be a waste of time even if they could as very few people ever used a catapult to anywhere near its full potential. Baiting up was always a problem when you fished the Ritchies or the Mound swim. The lake is 200+ yards wide there and it was often the case that the further you could chuck it the more fish you'd catch. My method was to practise, practise and practise some more. We have two lots of huge playing fields nearby, so it was always easy to get a bit of casting practise in during those early years. There were inevitably days when you could cast further than you could bait up due to headwinds and on such occasions I'd drop one rod short amongst my freebie baits and the other as a single offering as far past them as I could get it. Common sense had to be applied and if at some point of the session the wind was favourable for long range baiting up then I'd pile in as much bait as I dared. If it wasn't, then I didn't ... it's not exactly rocket science is it, but I used to wince when I saw people dropping most of their free baits miles short or in a different postal code of where they were casting their hook baits. I used to like baiting an area as early as was possible after arrival, trying to keep the baits on rough lines, well as best as I could anyway? I used to envision a largish area of the lake bed being scattered loosely with baits and hoped that the Carp would just following these baited gravel bar lines up or down until they noticed your hook bait. The gravel bars were easy to find as the islands alongside the open water were just shallower gravel bars on top of which trees and bushes grew which showed the direction of the bats and were used as alignment.
Boats were not allowed on C&DAA waters at the time, so all you had to get any free baits out at range were those high pressure black window hunting style catapults which could propel a large hard boilie in excess of 130 yards in good conditions for such things. Any new catapult elastics had to be prepared before use by stretching the elastics and working on the leather slings to soften them up and get them pliable. This could be achieved by just playing around with them by hand or should you get a really thick type of leather even by biting it. The quality of every batch varied and cheap elastic had to be avoided like the plague. I was really hot on my catapult elastics (does it show?) and often worked on them till they were dead right but even then you'd need at least two or three catapults on the go at one time just to have one or two that were in peak condition when one inevitably snapped. Most people didn't understand all of this and suffered because of it. The baiting was never properly accurate even by applying my overly anal standards to the procedure and I was quite happy to get the baits within a thirty yard radius or line, chuck lots of boilies out there and get them scurrying around looking for them. Often was the time you'd catch a fish and see it pooping out your bait so it obviously worked.
These high powered Black Widow catapults were able to fire out medium/large sized boilies out to vast ranges once you got the knack of them and made your baits hard and heavy enough to fly out properly. It was important to keep them going in a straight line on the follow through after firing out a bait not only to aid with the accuracy but also to stop the pouch clattering your fingers which could hurt. After a while you'd never hit your hand, it just became second nature.
The new anglers just don't know they are born where gear is concerned. When I first started fishing even things like torches were absolute rubbish and could never be trusted until the invent of the maglight and even they were utter pants by comparison with some of these new fangled L.E.D. lights available today. The batteries back in the day were beyond your wildest dream for awfulness, often you could see even newly fitted Ever Ready's dying within minutes of switching them on. Even once Duracell's hit the market the battery life wasn't enough for the power that the bulbs sucked out if them. They needed changing so often that a modern day angler would just not believe it at all. The early bivouacs were nasty, heavy, wax cotton jobs and we had a certain Mr Dave Barnes to thank when he designed the first ever (as far as I'm aware?) lightweight nylon bivvy's. There was no Kevin Nash stuff around back then, at least not in our part of planet earth. Barnes' bivvys folded up to half the size or less of the wax cotton things, weighed virtually nothing and also never leaked. They weren't as stable when used in gales but on every other count they were from a another planet by comparison.
Cameras:
Cameras:
Then we come to cameras and photos. Photography was a fairly expensive pastime back then compared with now and pretty much every photo you took was precious. The inbuilt camera light meters were often suspect and only those who knew what they were doing ever got any half reasonable photos. You'd have your heart in your mouth if you had to hand your camera to a stranger as inevitably the photo would be crooked or blurry with you in one corner with the fishes tail out of shot or something. These early cameras were also not self focusing, so you were at the mercy of the person behind the camera if he even knew how to focus the darn camera lens. The processing was also a joke. Back in the bad old days of films (or slide which was slightly superior) you'd be forced to fill the film up (you were always restricted to either 24 or 36 photos allowed on each film) and once the film was full, you'd then have to rewind it back into the metal cartridge, hoping beyond hope the film inside which was under pressure, didn't stretch of even snap, and then you were left with this small but precious, thin metallic object holding all of your precious Carp memories inside of it. Then this roll of film would need processing, as in printing onto photographic paper so as to make a photo. The heart in mouth moment came when you eventually got the photos back from the processor and often you'd find two or three photos missing, or just a plain black print showing no detail or a half and half photo with a pure white top or corner where some light had leaked in. I had one camera (an Olympus Trip) that I would hazard a guess that I never ever got a whole reel of photos back from. Eventually I annihilated it such was my rage at the vile machines inability to provide me with the 36 photos that I'd taken on that occasion, it paid with its life and good riddance!
After the properly early days we all bought better cameras (Canon SLR's) and I used to carry around two with me out of fear of some photograph disaster. My paranoia was well founded, as even these would let you down from time to time.
The modern day post digital mob just wont realise just how fortunate you are. As I say, photography could be expensive, you'd have to pay a couple of quid for the film then another fiver for the processing. When you were earning less than 80 quid a week you had to factor all of this in and you couldn't afford to be willy nilly, taking photos of everything like we all do now. After problems occurred when sending off films through the post, we used to pay extra and get our films developed at Boots. You could then pay a little more than the usual flat rate and get them done within a one hour turnaround or just wait until they were done at their leisure. This usually meant you'd just pay the extra as it was just very, very VERY exciting to get a film full of Carp back from the processors even though you'd be on tenterhooks as you opened the cardboard envelope for that first look. Nine times out of ten you'd be disappointed with the results, the photos rarely reflected the image you had in your head of that day or that fish, and it wasn't as though you could experiment and take two dozen as the films held so very few images. I sound like an old fart here don't I? There's a good reason for that ... I am one.
The Olympus Trip ... my one was totally unreliable. There was a big TV campaign about these objects of hell at the time, a light hearted advert featuring David Bailey who endorsed this pile of tripe. It said on the advert 'As used by David Bailey' ... yeah, right. One of the world's top photographers uses one of these does he? The TV advert did its job ... it fooled me into buying one.
After the properly early days we all bought better cameras (Canon SLR's) and I used to carry around two with me out of fear of some photograph disaster. My paranoia was well founded, as even these would let you down from time to time.
Canon AE1 Program. After Geoff bought one of these in 1983 I was so impressed with it as a bit of kit that I went and followed suit. The only competitor in this price range back them was the Olympus 0M1 which although having a better spot meter device was in every other way an inferior product.
I then picked up one of these Canon AE1's secondhand to use as a backup. Similar (though older) to the AE1 Program, just a fully manual camera. Wow it's weird looking back at these old cameras, nicely weird I mean.
The modern day post digital mob just wont realise just how fortunate you are. As I say, photography could be expensive, you'd have to pay a couple of quid for the film then another fiver for the processing. When you were earning less than 80 quid a week you had to factor all of this in and you couldn't afford to be willy nilly, taking photos of everything like we all do now. After problems occurred when sending off films through the post, we used to pay extra and get our films developed at Boots. You could then pay a little more than the usual flat rate and get them done within a one hour turnaround or just wait until they were done at their leisure. This usually meant you'd just pay the extra as it was just very, very VERY exciting to get a film full of Carp back from the processors even though you'd be on tenterhooks as you opened the cardboard envelope for that first look. Nine times out of ten you'd be disappointed with the results, the photos rarely reflected the image you had in your head of that day or that fish, and it wasn't as though you could experiment and take two dozen as the films held so very few images. I sound like an old fart here don't I? There's a good reason for that ... I am one.
I found this on-line, some original Heron bite alarms. Believe it or not they were on sale and they wanted £90 for them!!?? It can't have been for the purpose of fishing with them but more likely for some sadistic torture method? The grating sound of a Heron can make a man lose his mind in minutes. I'm not sure if I ever saw white Herons? I remember them coming in either green or black? One of the old alarms came in an army camo colour too, were they Herons? Or did old Gonzo just paint his camouflaged during a moment of tinkering and I have this image stuck in my memory? It does sound like the sort of thing that he would do?
Cameras had other uses too, not just for smelly old Carp. Here we have a very young Kev Harding who made the mistake of falling asleep on our sofa after a few light ales in the local drinking establishment after a ruby murry. The photo was embellished somewhat by one of the kids toys.
I wasn't beyond getting caught myself. Either Rich or Craig had snuck into my bivvy, nabbed my camera and taken this. I only found out when I got the photos back from the developers.
Cameras had other uses too, not just for smelly old Carp. Here we have a very young Kev Harding who made the mistake of falling asleep on our sofa after a few light ales in the local drinking establishment after a ruby murry. The photo was embellished somewhat by one of the kids toys.
I wasn't beyond getting caught myself. Either Rich or Craig had snuck into my bivvy, nabbed my camera and taken this. I only found out when I got the photos back from the developers.
Bite alarms:
Bite alarms came on leaps and bounds during my time. When I first started there were two bite alarms you could buy. Both were thoroughly awful but one was slightly less awful than the other. The alarms that I went for were called Heron Alarms, most people had them and everybody had many moments when they seriously considered throwing them into the lake. They were easily the most annoying items known to mankind since time in memorial. They saying goes it's the hope that gets you isn't it? Well the 'hope' in this case was that you always hoped your Heron alarms would actually do what it said on the box and alert you to a bite or stay quiet when you didn't. They rarely ever did. We all spent time tinkering with our Heron bite alarms, bending the antennae so they were more or less sensitive, spraying the innards with stuff to stop the water getting to them or sealing off the outside bit to keep them dry etc and they still always let us down ... always. You got to the stage after many months of persevering with these objects of hate, where you knew they were nothing if not utterly untrustworthy and you'd be as well to tie any cast out lines to your big toe to register a take rather than trust a Heron during a night when you needed any kip. Herons worked by putting your line around an antennae, a piece of sprung steel which when pressure was applied to it by the line tightening would create an electrical circuit, setting off a buzzer ... a horrible, stinking, grating, annoying BUZZER. It was a horrible enough sound even when it actually worked and registered a take, but so often it would happen that you'd be deep in kip and you'd hear the buzzer going off outside, you'd run outside into the mud in the dark, in your socks only to find ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENING!! I well remember a comment made by my good mate Steve Horne who once uttered the wise words "wouldn't it be good if you could cause these objects pain" and this was spot on where Heron bite alarms were concerned. Any light breeze or damp would get them a'buzzing and then on occasion you'd get out of bed in the morning, finding your rod on the floor and they'd not let out so much a single bleep. We were fortunate that the age of the Heron bite alarm was short lived for our generation after some local bod invented the rather wonderful Optonic. We bought everything they had to offer, they were heaven sent surely?? I even splashed out on one of those super duper white four way boxes. I became bedazzled by it's vast array of four different coloured flashing L.E.D. lights, and it's deep space movie like tones ... it was loud too, and had extension cables meaning you could have it in your bivvy to glance at like some precious object. These too were rubbish as it turned out. The extension cables were too thin and didn't work after about two weeks and the box housing itself wasn't even waterproof, meaning that once the thin cables broke that I was forced to hide my 'precious object' under a Tupperware box out near to the front rod rest. The divorce was galling ... finally it broke altogether and I had to bury it in the dustbin with the spent potato peelings and other general trash. A sad, sad day, impending love had turned to sadness then deep sorrow and rejection. Soon Delkim came along, then Geoff (who else, he had his uses) found this Brummy dude called Les who could super dooperise an Optonic by the use of witchcraft, an outlandishly new loudspeaker, and a cut out switch so the batteries didn't run out once a week. Genius it was, pure genius. Geoff was great at getting top quality gear, he always had his finger on the pulse. When we had the bait company up and running I remember him saying that some bloke he knew was able to make us some stainless steel rod rests. The other thing was that he'd give us them in exchange for bait. Now I cannot impress on you enough as to the astounding quality of these bank sticks, made from top quality stainless steel, totally indestructible, beautifully designed to utter perfection and what a joy to behold they were. Of all the fishing gear I ever owned those bank sticks and two/three way rod rests were by far the best quality thing of them all. I hate to think how much they would have cost if we had to buy these custom machined things now? Geoff was the best ever wheeler dealer that I ever met of course.
Bite alarms came on leaps and bounds during my time. When I first started there were two bite alarms you could buy. Both were thoroughly awful but one was slightly less awful than the other. The alarms that I went for were called Heron Alarms, most people had them and everybody had many moments when they seriously considered throwing them into the lake. They were easily the most annoying items known to mankind since time in memorial. They saying goes it's the hope that gets you isn't it? Well the 'hope' in this case was that you always hoped your Heron alarms would actually do what it said on the box and alert you to a bite or stay quiet when you didn't. They rarely ever did. We all spent time tinkering with our Heron bite alarms, bending the antennae so they were more or less sensitive, spraying the innards with stuff to stop the water getting to them or sealing off the outside bit to keep them dry etc and they still always let us down ... always. You got to the stage after many months of persevering with these objects of hate, where you knew they were nothing if not utterly untrustworthy and you'd be as well to tie any cast out lines to your big toe to register a take rather than trust a Heron during a night when you needed any kip. Herons worked by putting your line around an antennae, a piece of sprung steel which when pressure was applied to it by the line tightening would create an electrical circuit, setting off a buzzer ... a horrible, stinking, grating, annoying BUZZER. It was a horrible enough sound even when it actually worked and registered a take, but so often it would happen that you'd be deep in kip and you'd hear the buzzer going off outside, you'd run outside into the mud in the dark, in your socks only to find ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENING!! I well remember a comment made by my good mate Steve Horne who once uttered the wise words "wouldn't it be good if you could cause these objects pain" and this was spot on where Heron bite alarms were concerned. Any light breeze or damp would get them a'buzzing and then on occasion you'd get out of bed in the morning, finding your rod on the floor and they'd not let out so much a single bleep. We were fortunate that the age of the Heron bite alarm was short lived for our generation after some local bod invented the rather wonderful Optonic. We bought everything they had to offer, they were heaven sent surely?? I even splashed out on one of those super duper white four way boxes. I became bedazzled by it's vast array of four different coloured flashing L.E.D. lights, and it's deep space movie like tones ... it was loud too, and had extension cables meaning you could have it in your bivvy to glance at like some precious object. These too were rubbish as it turned out. The extension cables were too thin and didn't work after about two weeks and the box housing itself wasn't even waterproof, meaning that once the thin cables broke that I was forced to hide my 'precious object' under a Tupperware box out near to the front rod rest. The divorce was galling ... finally it broke altogether and I had to bury it in the dustbin with the spent potato peelings and other general trash. A sad, sad day, impending love had turned to sadness then deep sorrow and rejection. Soon Delkim came along, then Geoff (who else, he had his uses) found this Brummy dude called Les who could super dooperise an Optonic by the use of witchcraft, an outlandishly new loudspeaker, and a cut out switch so the batteries didn't run out once a week. Genius it was, pure genius. Geoff was great at getting top quality gear, he always had his finger on the pulse. When we had the bait company up and running I remember him saying that some bloke he knew was able to make us some stainless steel rod rests. The other thing was that he'd give us them in exchange for bait. Now I cannot impress on you enough as to the astounding quality of these bank sticks, made from top quality stainless steel, totally indestructible, beautifully designed to utter perfection and what a joy to behold they were. Of all the fishing gear I ever owned those bank sticks and two/three way rod rests were by far the best quality thing of them all. I hate to think how much they would have cost if we had to buy these custom machined things now? Geoff was the best ever wheeler dealer that I ever met of course.
The old original Optonic set as they came out of the factory back then. I splashed out on a very rare item, by the looks of it as I can find no photo on Google of my large 4 way, 4 LED extension box at all? I bet it would be worth a bob or two after seeing some of the prices this ancient gear is going for? Some people will collect pretty much anything.
A serious upgrade on the original Optonic. I had a few of these Les Bamford conversions and they never gave me any problems, just brilliant they were. You'd send off your old Optonics and Les would send them back with a built in loudspeaker and some magic inner cut off switch gubbings that stopped the batteries wearing out. The odd thing is that mine were identical to these, even the 'ears' fitted so as to stop the rods getting blown off during gales? It's uncanny, even the metal tightening mechanism, another personal upgrade looks identical too. I found this image on-line.
Whilst Googling around looking for Optonic images I then came across these. Now these look identical to what we used to refer to as Telkims which was a play on words as by this time a firm called Delkim did their own conversion of the Optonic and after this our mate from Richmond 'Tel' (or Terry Pethybridge) started getting hold of very similar things to these ... hence Tel-Kims. Now these are called Neville's but I just wonder whether or not the are the same thing that Tel used to get for us? I had quiet a few of them (they were cheap, even free in real terms being swapped for boilie mix) and although they looked like they'd been hammered together in an old garden shed they were ultra reliable and worked really well for bolt rig style Carp fishing. I still preferred my old Bamfords if I'm honest. I can't remember who it was that came up with the name Telkim but it was cracking name, it still makes me laugh now.
Hooks and Tinkering:
Tackle was limited back then but more than adequate. Hook technology made various leaps and bounds (thanks to chemically sharpening) during the 1980's and for most of the open water style fishing a Komatsu size 8 and 6 proved impressively strong for a smallish hook made from such a fine gauge wire. The shanks were quite short, but given by then we were mostly using braided hook links at that time, it was quite easy to falsely extend the shank by using superglue as a stiffener which helped with using the hooks for bolt rigs. The points were needle sharp meaning they could be used straight out of the bag, unlike many of the earlier hooks previously available which needed to be re-crowned with the use of a sharpening stone. If it sounds a bit 'cave man' then believe me it pretty much was. Virtually every bit of tackle you bought needed a bit of work done on it before being totally usable.
Tackle was limited back then but more than adequate. Hook technology made various leaps and bounds (thanks to chemically sharpening) during the 1980's and for most of the open water style fishing a Komatsu size 8 and 6 proved impressively strong for a smallish hook made from such a fine gauge wire. The shanks were quite short, but given by then we were mostly using braided hook links at that time, it was quite easy to falsely extend the shank by using superglue as a stiffener which helped with using the hooks for bolt rigs. The points were needle sharp meaning they could be used straight out of the bag, unlike many of the earlier hooks previously available which needed to be re-crowned with the use of a sharpening stone. If it sounds a bit 'cave man' then believe me it pretty much was. Virtually every bit of tackle you bought needed a bit of work done on it before being totally usable.
Also, it's probably worth mentioning here just how much of our gear we either made from scratch or were forced to tinker with in some way in those formative years? I was constantly tinkering, I quite liked it to be honest. I had that sort of mind. Dave Stewart was the most tinkeriest of them all ... he'd tinker with stuff till it worked, then re-tinker with it some more. He was out of control, he couldn't help himself. Tinkering with stuff was all part of the specimen hunter/Carp/Pike anglers game back then.
That's quite a low of pointless waffle about lots of old outdated fishing innit? I never said this blog would be interesting now did I?
Wait ... there's even more boredom on the horizon ...
Then we come to ... the Weather Forecasts.
Ah, the post digital age mob wont be able to even fathom things such as getting weather forecasts via Teletext or Ceefax will they? Ceefax and Teletext were the only 24 hour available mediums we were forced to use before the advent of the interweb and the home P.C. It was accessed on either the BBC or ITV (we only had four TV channels at the time) via the red button on your TV remote which had a few other varied coloured buttons which allowed clicking though a few different menu's. The graphics were square (about 2 pixels per square foot?) and the written content archaic, but it did allow you to find out about the up to date Football news, the daily TV guide and most relevant to this awfully dull and boring, overly nostalgic Blog, an up to date weather forecast and was therefore an essential. It cost nowt anyway, all the TV's at the time had both Teletext and Ceefax. Ceefax was the BBC's version wasn't it? ITV's the Teletext? Or vice versa? Take yer pick. Cricky, the more of this stuff I write the older I feel.
Remember this ... Ceefax weather. Just the press of a red button away.
It gave us most of our Football news too, there was all sorts on there. The top image tells a tale eh. Liverpool denied top spot by Bolton (who somehow drew 1 - 1 at Anfield on that day) whilst the bottom image actually tries to insinuate that Frank MacAvennie had scored more goals than Ian Rush. Now let's face facts here, that just isn't possible now is it and it must be a misprint. Perhaps Rushie had scored 108 goals for Liverpool that season and they left a one and a nought off the front of his total? Yeah, that must be it eh. I am so glad that I worked that out. All of this would be from 1985 or 86 as Lineker left the 'bitters' the old 'blues noses' for Barcelona in 87.
And here one of the great older Teletxt/Ceefax pages ... 4 - 1 at Old Trafford.
Baits
Our Carp baits fro 1979 were very low tech, mainly just Luncheon Meat, Sweetcorn and our top secret Big M's or in other words, Campbell's Meatballs. I caught my first ever Fordwich Carp on a Campbell's Meatball so there will always be a place in my heart for the humble Big M.
By 1980 we did start experimenting with baits more and more and we ended up settling initially on using a paste bait. Our first ever paste consisted of ground Trout Pellets bounds with eggs and a sachet of gelatin before being smothered in a bottle of very weak solution of Rayners Rum Essence, which we rolled into inch sized balls, left them to dry out and that was it! Later on, I got all uber scientific and added a couple of spoonfuls of Wheat Gluten which I liked, as it made the bait a little more rubbery. Little did I understand just how indigestible that Wheat Gluten was and that I may have well have just gone out into the shed and squirted a few drops of rubber bike inner tube fixerate into my paste as it would have had much the same effect? We used the above as, well I'm not sure whether or not to admit to this, as a sort of Carp group known as the C.C.G., or the Cartiers Carp Group. Cartiers was the shop where our leader (hee hee) back then, Dave Stewart, used to work. The name C.C.G. was very tongue in cheek of course and we still to this day have an ironic chuckle to ourselves whenever the C.C.G. is mentioned. Anyhow, the inaugural C.C.G. was made up of seven members, Dave and Alex Stewart, Tony Philips, Mick Wilkinson, Richard Stubbings, Craig Reynolds and myself. When I think back to how exciting and hush hush this all was at the time, the start of the CCG, well it was like a scene out of a cold war spy novel as I remember it? There I was outside of my house waiting for the works van to pick me up, and I'd see a pre work Dave Stewart doing the same thing. I used to see him often back then, we lived only 500 yards apart and on this particular cold morning in early 1980, no doubt during the winter and he says to me ...
Dave: "How do you fancy joining up with Al, Mick, Tony and me and getting a bait together for Fordwich?"
Me: "What just me?"
Dave: "No you blithering idiot, you, Rich and Craig. We could get together, all use the same bait, do some pre baiting and we'll hammer them!"
Okay, there were no gobbledegook cloak and dagger code-words or chalk lines drawn on wall or bus shelters, but it did all feel a bit stealth and underhand. I later made mention of this to Craig and Richard who were part of our gang and they too were right up for it and a coalition was formed. The bait recipe would be kept a secret as that's how things were back in the day, well this is sort of how I remember it anyway? We'd meet in the Pub (The Flowing Bowl) across the road, or at Al's and I think the bait recipe was Dave's ... yeah, let's blame Dave eh! Anyhow, we made loads of this stuff and did a fair bit of pre baiting for what it was worth. No doubt the Tench and Bream had a field day? Soon it was impossible to buy any Rum Essence locally but as you could buy rose water I decided to go onto that instead later on in the year. I had to, as there was not one bottle of Rum Essence on any shop shelf for miles around. We used to buy it by the box load and I always have a chuckle to myself when I imagine the shop managers back in the day thinking "who on earth is buying all of this Rum Essence all of a sudden?"
Three of the four originators of the C.C.G. Dave Stewart (or Gonzo) and below Tony Philips and Alex, Dave's brother. I have no photos of Mick Wilkinson though Mick disappeared off the scene pretty much around the time that I started my Carp fishing. The top photos shows Dave with a big Fordwich Carp and the bottom one Tony and Al fishing for Pike on Westbere canal.
Also, written in a pocket sized diary, I went on to find this. The entire C.C.G. catch from Fordwich for the year of 1980, just 27 Carp shared between all seven anglers.
Bait 1982 onward ...
I stumbled across this 1982 Geoff Kemp bait 'pamphlet' in an old shoe box full of old fishing paraphernalia. The brown splodges are 35 year old rod varnish stains. Geoff and I drove up to Kempy's every now and again to buy our bait around this time and it was this that gave Geoff the idea to start up Premier Baits. I thought he was crackers when he first made mention of it to me but let's face it he was right. Kempy used to run his firm from a large shed in his back garden at the time. He must have been one of the first privateers to start selling good quality dry ingredients at that time?
By the 1981/82 season were were trying everything, all sorts of stuff. Particles, pastes, occasionally even boilies. I even went as far as sending off for some packets of Duncan Kaye Slime but that was just horrible stuff and I can imagine Duncan having a sly chuckle to himself every time an order for this vile, horrid coloured glutenous powder arrived. In 1982 I then got hold of a list of high protein ingredients available from Geoff Kemp in Essex, and ended up sending off for a box-full of Casein, Gluten and Soya Isolate plus a few bottles of flavouring which I made into a paste and some boilies. I caught virtually nowt or at least very little on it, but at least things were headed in the right direction perhaps?
Some of my early boilie recipes found amongst the many pages of my notepads and diaries.
The baits for 1983 were all boilies by then, made up of various milk proteins and various bird foods, products I think I'd first started trying in 1982? I caught lots of Carp on this stuff so continued on and off with it into 1984, by which time I was making small gobstopper sized baits which I could catapult out over 100 yards into the lake as freebies. At some time or other (probably 1982/3?) I was also adding a bit of SMA, a type of high protein powdered Baby food which not only was a food source in itself but it also made the baits go all smooth, which was great help to the rather rough 100 mesh Casein we had then (no 200 mesh was available in those early days) and even rougher Sluis bird mix. An even more useful side effect was that it also made the baits go really hard too if left to dry. It came in a 1 litre paint sized can, it was quite expensive but I did really like the product. I was from time to time adding other things such as useless taste enhancers (including MSG) but also good stuff such as Liver Extract and Sesame Oil. By 1983/4 Geoff was firmly on the scene. Up till this time he'd been a professional butcher and had little proper free time to go proper fishing. He was always around, both at the lakes and in my upstairs sitting room where he'd sit demanding tea, chewing everything within arms reach and dribbling on my carpet.
More very early Boilie recipes, these from 1982?
For some reason we started the '84 season off going back to milk proteins which was just mad in retrospect, though by the late summer/autumn time I was back on the bird food/milk proteins again which lasted until this bloke showed up in 1983/4 or 1985? His name was Ian Brown, a man who had previously been fishing in the Colne Valley and had recently moved down into Kent. On occasion we used to stay in his flat after nights out, but for the life of me I can't remember where on earth it was? On the outskirts of Canterbury somewhere, in the sticks but that's about all I can bring to mind? Now Ian absolutely murdered the place, bashed it up good and proper, almost emptying the lake and he was using fish-meals. Now we had tried fish-meals in the past but never really used them properly.
The top mix would have been similar to the early 84 mix we started that season with. We didn't really like using semolina but it was useful being cheap (as we were skint) and it not only helped the baits to roll up nicely but also was nice a dense for long range catapulting. You had to think about density when properly long range fishing, stuff like casein caseinate was a no no for such things as it was too light and fluffy and even lactalbumin had to be used sparingly. Lactalbumin did help the mix to be sticky and not dry out but our main reason back then was the thinking that it proved a more balanced amino acid profile, though whether this actually mattered or not in retrospect is debatable?
By 1986 we hit the baity jackpot. Geoff had a brainwave and mixed the fish-meals with a rough form of my milk protein/bird food combo, we added glugs of fish oil and had at last solved the age old problem of looking for a killer bait. We caught loads of fish.
Although the above was a mix for another lake, in essence if you take the Robin Red out then this would pretty much be the bare bones of the 1986 - 1987 mixes we used on Fordwich. Why I even put Robin Red in this mix in 1989 beats me as I hated the stuff and at the time I had access to any free ingredients that I wanted? I must have just been at work on that day and on a whim knocked up a few bags of the above in preparation for a long stint at College Reservoir down in Cornwall. It may also have been that I already had a lot of plain brown fish-meals already prepared but wanted two different baits? If so why then did I just not stick some red colouring into one mix to help differentiate it from the other? Answers on a postcard please.
The method used was to pick a spot and just bait it up and sit on it. Keep the bait going in and sooner or later if you sat it out for long enough, then a group of Carp would find it and you could get many Carps! I think on a couple of separate days I landed 7 Carp each time, and if memory serves correct had TEN runs in one 24 hour period during one of the sessions off the Killick Point. It was just mad. To think that in the whole season of 1981/82 I only caught 7 Carp and here I was getting a whole seasons worth in one day. It wasn't always like this of course, you'd often have to wait around twiddling your thumbs for days on end or even blank during shorter sessions when the fish weren't feeding or you were in the wrong spot and couldn't or were too lazy to move.
By the later 1980's we had the bait firm up and running so had access to huge sacks of free baits for ever more. Those early days of getting PB up and running were just great fun as was going to work which was just a laugh a minute working with Geoff, Bamber, Brian 'dyes his hair' Allen et al. We had an indoor cricket pitch inside the bait factory and at some point had the floor set up like a rock gig, a 100 watt Marshall, 4 x 12 cabs, Gibson Les Paul, Strats etc etc. I wonder what the visiting public made of it all? I also used to have after hours jam sessions in there with a full unpadded drum kit on the go so you can only imagine how loud it got when four or five of us were at it. In time some of the other Carp anglers used to bring their guitars in. Dave Kemp had the best stuff including a superb 1970's Gibson Explorer that not only sounded wonderful but had one of the best necks that I ever felt, far better than my old Les Paul's anyway. What days they were. Another silly thing happened once word got out that I played guitar. I then got a phone call off Lee Jackson who was trying to set up a band to play on stage for the newly formed Carp conventions back then. Apparently he'd just started playing the Bass and was in need of a guitarist and had this madcap idea of having a Carp band. Let's face it he was crackers. I declined the gig ... why? For the good of musical taste that's why. My writing thing pretty much came about due to PB. The year before we wrote the 91/92 catalogue in the above image, we were forced to write out a products list to let word out and advertise our product. We decided to go the full on glossy catalogue route and the job of writing it pretty much fell to me as it worked out. I was no good at the organisational/business side of things, that was Geoff's domain, I was just a Carp angler with a few ideas and opinions. I was also better at cricket and playing guitar than the others too. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the original 1990 Premier Baits Catalogue, I'd love to see one again.
The 1991 Catalogue did get a bit mad at times. Our scathing though well meaning sledgehammer wit came very much to the fore and stuff like the above got included amongst what went on to became a 44 page poke in the eye at overly stuffy, plastic pseudo intellectual, blind you with science, business minded selling of Carp bait. We were just so very, very, very down to earth and wanted people to know this. I say this was a catalogue but I well remember well when Bamber proof read the scribble we'd set forth for inclusion prior to sending it off to the printers. After chuckling away to himself in semi disbelief he then came out with in conclusion "I don't know about this being a Catalogue, it's more of a Comic!!" To which I replied in a half a jiffy, "that's a very good idea Bamber, I'll change the name from 'Premier Baits Catalogue 1991' to 'Premier Baits Comic 1991'. These days of Premier Baits was all a bit like Top Gear was once Clarkson got his way. We just laughed our way through the whole thing.
And now its time for Imaginary question time? Did the birds on Fordwich eat your bait?
I'm so glad you asked that imaginary reader. If Frank Zappa can write Imaginary guitar solos then I can have imaginary readers too! This is my world remember. Okay, a tenuous link if ever there was one but keep it to yourself if you noticed the disjointed nature of the above. After fishing the lakes at Yateley where the Tufted Ducks, Coots, Moorhens, Invisible Auks etc would drive you insane, the following occurred to me. Why? Who knows?
Birds eating your baits were rarely a problem on Fordwich. We did get periods where a platoon of Black-headed Gulls would be attracted to the small balls of bait flying out onto and into the lake and they might grab one or two in mid air but the diving birds such as Moorhens, Coots, Tufted Ducks etc that would drive you mad on some other pits just weren't too problematical on Fordwich. Drastic measures were forced to shoo away diving birds on other pits, Richie MacDonald used to use a sawn off shotgun on the Copse at Yateley. Not that he loaded it, he just let it off and the bang did the trick as every Tufted Duck took to the sky. I found this out after he let the darn thing off two feet from my right ear hole and I was deaf in one ear for ages afterwards. The main problem that we had at Fordwich were as minor as occasional Swans swimming through your line between the rod tip and the lake, but that was about it. Tench and Bream were always a problem, an occupational hazard. The worst things were Eels as the lake was full of them. I also once caught a four/five pound Jack on a boilie fished off the Ritchies which was novel.
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