Each year I have a dilemma around March-April when the renewal letter slips through the letterbox. My Sussex syndicate membership is due and I have to ask myself the question, is it worth it? On average I make it down twice a year, which makes each visit quite a luxury plus petrol and it all adds up to an expensive day out. But this year my membership renewal has not arrived, reason unknown. I have asked a friend and member if his renewal has arrived and it seems that he too is in the situation. Hopefully this is an administration problem and all is well with the syndicate.

With the possibility that the syndicate has run into problems and my access to this water could be lost has made me realise that my membership is very important even if I am unable to get down to Sussex as often as I would like. Knowing that I can jump in the car and be by the water within ninety minutes is a tonic. The mill pond is a good size and was dug about three hundred years ago. Below the lilly covered surface is a good head of tench, some large old carp, pike of all sizes plus huge shoals of roach and rudd, in a way it is perfect although sometimes it can be really quite difficult to fish, often it sleeps much to my frustration, but on occasions it has given up some wonderful catches. So now I wait in hope that my membership renewal arrives so that I can continue to fish there and not not just dream of such a place.

In London on my wall hangs a postcard from 1931 which shows the mill pond, little has changed, perhaps the same carp are still alive from when that photograph was taken? An eighty three year old carp, well it’s possible?