Tag Archives: sussex

The last tench of summer – a film

01 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Photography and video

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

It was an absolute pleasure to spend time with Kevin Parr while he fished and talked about the landscape of Wallers Haven in Sussex. Kevin spent the day building up his swim confident in his choice which resulted in a wonderful tench. This film celebrates the camaraderie between friends, the banter, the early mornings, the landscape and the fishing. It coincides with the launch of Fallon’s Angler issue 11 which goes to press today. Sadly we delivered this one a little late but issue twelve is already under way and we aim to be back on track bringing issue twelve in the new year.

Ghost pond.

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in Carp, General

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Sunte House

Growing up in the seventies and eighties, the local woods was my playground, a place of freedom and discovery, a real living breathing Xbox,  where armies were formed and disbanded, explorers lost and found, a place of endless possibilities. To get my band of brothers to the woods we had to negotiate ‘no mans lands’ – a hundred yard track that led up to the gates of Sunte House, a seventeenth century manor house and its custodian, Mr Gorer or ‘Old Man Gorer’ as us brothers of the woods called him. Unlike many manor houses, Sunte House was not austere, its large windows gave it an airy appearance, the slate roof tiles enhanced this, in bright sunlight they sparkled a silver-grey, echo’s of  past garden parties resonated in the grounds , there seemed to be an air of happiness about this place in the not so distant past.  At the start of the track was a cattle grid with a hand painted sign in black and white now flaking away, it read ‘Sunte House – Private – No through road.’ The cattle grid was ‘ours’ a place of safety, a look-out for Old Man Gorer, it was a game of cat and mouse that we played out for years. Old Man Gorer was an elderly man, always dressed in a three-quarter length beige mac, normally undone, he looked  dishevelled and always aided by his scruffy collie dog. For years I feared he would collar me, in hindsight he was frail, he was quite elderly and never posed a threat .

As we grew so did our courage, one evening we decided to break into the gardens of Sunte House and explore, dressed like commando’s we entered on the west side through a gap in a barbed wire fence and found ourselves on a meandering path, a canopy of exotic shrubs grew up high and blocked out the sky,  many of the plants were labelled, lead tags etched with their botanical names. The west side was dark and quite eerie, somewhat neglected, but still maintained a certain order, someone had curated this garden in the past, there was a sense of Victorian plant collector about this place. We were relatively well hidden on the west side but to gain access to the east side and the main garden we had to dash across the front drive across a manicured lawn in full view of the house and potentially Old Man Gorer. It was still daylight, there were no lights on in the house,  we waited until dusk, then made our move. As the light dropped we edged out from the shrubs on our hands and knees and onto the  lawn, quickly we sprinted across the open fifteen yards. Once into the cover of the main garden we found more labelled shrubs and another perimeter  stone path. We followed the path around tentatively in case we encountered Old Man Gorer coming around the opposite way. As we crept along the light through the shrubs was changing, it was getting lighter and it was moving, it was unclear what I was seeing and then I could sense  water, the garden was hiding a secret, a large pond. Pushing through the undergrowth I could see a rectangular pond with an island in the middle, lily pads everywhere, and moss covered stones and rhoddendrons lined the edge. It was still and quiet, the distinctive smell of water was present, huge Scotts Pines towered  above creating a high canopy, it was reminiscent of a Japanese garden but with an English accent. Suddenly the wind started to pick up and sway the trees, a barking dog in the distance un-nerved us, could it be Old Man Gorer’s dog? We decided to retreated and return another day. For weeks the pond played on my mind, I sometimes questioned if the pond actually existed, it was so enchanting and I was so fanatical about catching carp from lost ponds, I thought I may have imagined it.

The rest of the summer was spent  seeking out carp ponds within cycling reach of my house, scanning Ordnance Survey maps for little blue dots often nestled in patches of wood in the middle of open fields, these were forgotten hammer ponds. Once located I would jump on my bike and see if I could gain access, permission was rarely asked for, just some discreet commando style fishing. Hammer ponds are abundant in Sussex and often go back to a pre-Roman era. Sussex geology was rich in ironstone, the main material for iron production and  water was essential to the cooling of the iron. During the Stewart and Tudor times iron production boomed and more hammer ponds were created by the damming of small streams and rivers. Often these ponds had a small population of carp, tench and roach not giant carp but  a five-pounder  was a real prize and I  always hoped to discover a pond with wild, un touched Roman wildies.

My quest for hammer ponds took my mind away from the Sunte House pond for a while but soon I had to return, I would have to try to fish the pond, this was going to take all of my nerve. I decided to return to the garden alone, not with a rod but with some bread and see if there were any carp. Once again I arrived at dusk, I was about to step over the fence when a figure silently walked past literally only a few feet from my face, I froze and he continued on, it was Old Man Gorer inspecting his garden, probably enjoying the late evening air. I was convinced he saw me, the woods were dark but he decided to walk on, I was after all just by the public foot path, and he probably encountered the public there on many occasions, I imagined he had no interest in me, the public and  knew nothing of my intentions. I returned home thankful that I had not gone into his garden a few minutes earlier and  become trapped on the west side by the pond. After that rather uncomfortable close call I decided to have a break from the pond and concentrate on trying to catch a double figure carp elsewhere, I still had a few weeks left of the summer holidays, this was a target I  set myself and had yet to achieve.

It was a couple of years later when one evening after messing about in the woods that I decided to return to the garden with a friend and see if we could locate any carp, it had been a hot summers day and if the pond contained carp then tonight would surely be the night to find them feeding? Our  access to the garden was easier than ever as much of the perimeter fence had fallen down, the house looked neglected and the garden more overgrown than usual, we darted across the lawn as we had done before and into the west side.  Making our way round the dark perimeter path I felt something was not right, the light was different and the smell? As we approached the pond I peered through the shrubs only to discover a flat lawn, no pond, no island, just  green grass, it was as I feared, my imagination had run wild, it was a ghost pond. We left the garden dejected and I was somewhat embarrassed after dragging my friend into danger to see the pond that never was.

In 1985 Geoffrey Gorer died and the house was sold, every now and then the new owner could be seen driving past in his beige Mercedes, he looked fairly en-friendly, new fences and  ‘Private – No through way’ signs were put up, it was clear the new owners didn’t want any funny business, once again  I forgot about Old Man Gorer, Sunte House and the ghost pond.

Thirty years on it is 2016, I still think about that pond, did I imagine it, did I see Old Man Gorer that night, the more I contemplated it the more I doubt it’s presence. I decided that I was to make one final pilgrimage to the garden, my plan was to walk up on the Sunday morning after a family gathering on the Saturday night. Today access can only be made via the public footpath, the cattle grid entrance is now blocked. I set off on a cold wet morning, the mud underfoot was eight inches deep in places but for the sake of an hours nostalgia I was up for it, I soon came to the two open fields in front of the house, now fallow and quite overgrown with brambles, to my right was the ten foot high hedge that hid the garden. The hedges had been thinned to encourage new growth from the base and I could see a way through and into the inner fence. Pushing through the hedge I got to the old iron fence and could see the familiar stone perimeter path, beyond that I could clearly see the ghost pond, a Monet style wooden footbridge spanning over to the island, this time in the plain grey light of a bleak January morning I could confirm that the pond was a ghost no more.

Footnote:

While writing this piece I decided to do a online search for ‘Sunte House’ and ‘Gorer’ and was pleased to discover that Old Man Gorer or Geoffrey Gorer as he was known, was one of three brothers from a well to do jewish family from Hampstead, all  educated at Westminster college, with Geoffrey and his younger brother Richard both going on to Kings College, Cambridge.  Richard studied music and horticulture and moved in to horticulture professionallly soon after Geoffrey bought Sunte House in the 1950’s, the house must have been the spark to change his career.  One day while walking in the grounds Richard noticed a spontaneous hybrid of the shrub Abutilon which is now a popular species that still exists today called ‘Suntensis.’ It is probably Richards influence that made the gardens more a botanical collection of some repute. Throughout his career Geoffrey  had been a prolific author on the subject of anthropology, he  had a passion for the arts and mixed in some rather interesting social circle including George Orwell and the poet Edith Sitwell. His body of work including 10,00 letters and manuscripts are now preserved in the Kings College archive.

 

 

The Syndicate.

15 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by in General fishing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

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?

Sussex Mill

My carp scene in the 1980’s part III – Shermanbury Place & Arcadia.

27 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Carp

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Considering my friend Dax and I were teenage boys, getting up early to fish was never a chore. Dax’s mother was more than happy to get up and drive us to Shermanbury Place (a distance of about twenty-five miles from home) looking back I think she wanted to encourage more wholesome activities like fishing rather than the more troubling pursuits that sixteen year old boys were attracted to, best to say no more on this issue but fags, girls and booze was high on the agenda.
Setting off at dawn to fish is an experience that I will never tire of and I can remember this particular trip so well. This was my first real experience of fishing a specimen carp lake, the excitement and anticipation while been driven through the beautiful Sussex countryside has stayed with me to this day. Although I was now obsessed with carp fishing this had not fogged my appreciation for nature and its landscape and that particular morning was a classic misty summers dawn with a chill in the air, the sun was very low in the sky and shrouded in heavy mist, the tones were mid-greys and yellows as we sat in the car, smoking roll ups.
When we arrived I found the lake and surroundings to be a vision of perfection, the mist was still heavy and we soon found a spot where reedmace surrounded the whole end of the lake apart from two small breaks, perfect for us to set up and fish.
Before I tackled up I threw in a few handfuls of my new bait, strawberry flavoured boillies, even the sound of the boillies dropping into the water gave a new and satisfying scatter-gun sequence of plops, punctuating the stillness of the morning. I set two rods up, one with a boillie close in to the far side by the reeds and a second float rod just to my left baited with sweetcorn.
Looking beyond the reeds I could see the outline of a trimmed hedge with a gap and beyond that a manicured lawn that dissolved into the mist, it was ghostly but for now my attention was focused on the emerald-green water and the occasional knocking reed signifying life below. This was a different type of angling experience, enhanced by the knowledge that some very large carp were present and because the lake was relatively small they were not far away from my bait, it made the whole experience electric.

As the morning progressed the sun started to burn off the mist and in front of me past the reed bed and through a break in the hedge I could see the silhouette of Shermanbury Place, I was experiencing Arcadia emerging from the greys,whites and oranges of a summers morning.

Shermanbury Place arcadia

Shermanbury Place

Back in my swim there were more signals from the monster below but nothing was taking the corn or the strawberry temptations so by mid-morning we decided to explore the rest of the lake. Walking around I was surprised to see there were other anglers already set up, these carp anglers were not like the wheelbarrow pushing types we get today more focused on comfort than watercraft, these men of the 1980’s were quiet, discrete, loners and armed with a bare minimum of gear, the only indication of their presence was the occasion ‘bleep’ . I set up with just one rod now partnered with my only Optonic and kept low and quiet like the others, foolishly I felt holding a float rod did not seem the correct thing to do amongst these men of specimen carp.

By late-afternoon I was really not convinced anything was going to happen and our lift home was due at around five. While sitting on the dusty bank in my ripped faded old jeans I smoked and thought about this magical place, catching was not on the agenda today but something more important had happened, I had become entranced by large carp. As I moved small piles of dust around on the bank with my fingers creating patterns on the bank my Optonic burst into action, a run! Line spilled off the Mitchell 300 spool and ran through the rings making the monkey hit the rod as hell let loose. Looking up I could see line shooting through the water towards the opposite bank, then it stopped. My chance had gone.

Since that day I have never returned to Shermanbury Place and I don’t want to as it was my Arcadia. Since 1986 a lot has happened in carp fishing and this lake could have become ‘commercialised’. On a positive note I can’t find anything on the Internet about this place, perhaps it has gone back into private ownership to one lucky individual?

My carp scene in the 1980′s Part II…the monkey climber years & the hair.

23 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Carp

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

I have just finished reading Chris Yates new book The Lost Diaries, towards the end there is quite an entertaining chapter about fishing with a friend where he talks of ‘foul hooking a carp on a new fangled rig’ this being the hair rig. Chris Yates goes on to describe this rig as unethical to the extent of giving up fishing rather than using such a contraption. I on the other hand have to disagree about Chris Yates and the hair rig. Since I started using it in the 1980’s it has become an essential part to my angling success which leads me on to part II of my 1980’s carp fishing and my early years as a fisher of carp. The counter argument for the hair is that Mr Yates did hold the British Carp record unaided by any hair rig and I with my ‘new fangled hair rigs’ have not, but that’s for another debate on another day. Here is my second personal account on 1980’s carp fishing.

Part I which I wrote back in August, 2012 can be read here.

In the mid eighties carp fishing was becoming quite popular, carp anglers were still quite a secretive bunch, mainly due to the lack of good productive carp waters. Before I got into carp fishing I dabbled in most disciplines but dabbled was the operative word and most of my information came from general ‘how to’ books until the day I ventured into Burgess Hill Angling Centre in around 1987 and found Carp Fever by Kevin Maddocks. Burgess Hill Angling Centre had a different smell and look from my usual and more traditional tackle shops like Penfolds of Cuckfield. Here the smell was sweet and the walls were adorned with stainless steel bank sticks, bite alarms and monkey climbers, things were certainly moving away from displays of floats and the smell of gentles.
Carp Fever was not the most exciting of angling books to read but it was my first specialist book that delved into great detail about bait, rigs and hooks in such a way that it made catching a large carp a real possibility. This book introduced me to the hair rig which I thought was quite an audacious rig, mount the bait away from the hook but still have the confidence to hook a carp, crazy? It was cunning and clever, now your bait was behaving naturally with out the weight of the hook and the hook was completely exposed when a carp sucked in any bait that was attached to a hair. I started using new hook patterns and making up the hair loop, within weeks I was hooking and landing carp with confidence on my club water Haywards Heath & District Angling Society.
Nash Hooks old school
Now dressed in a camouflage jacket just like Jim Gibbinson I felt like a specimen hunter but in truth I was still only catching carp around the 3 lbs to 7 lbs mark but I was convinced bigger carp were soon to reside in my landing net.
My own carp career continued with a Marco glass carp rod, a Bob Church float rod, one Optonic, two Mitchell 300a reels, oh and of course two monkey climbers all set up on some rather smart stainless Gardener front and rear bank sticks. The matching pair of rods was still an age away but in a Heath Robinson kind of set up I was a carp angler and targeting the Sussex carp, day and night.
Ironically my first ‘double’ came soon after months of lugging all this gear around, I took a rod out one evening and followed a carp with a piece of floating crust just by a fallen tree. After a short battle a lump of a fish of 11 3/4 lbs came to my net, (this was 1 3/4lbs short of the club record set in the 1950’s) it was a milestone carp for me and I continued on to fish relatively small ponds in Sussex spending many nights under canvas in my fathers old World War II pup tent. My dream was to own two North Western carp rods with Cardinal 55’s and land a twenty, the image that I loved was from the Carp Catchers Book from 1984, it seemed a world away.
carp catchers
Then one day I was invited by a friend who knew about a ‘proper’ carp lake called Shermanberry.

The ‘Horsted’ lads.

02 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in General fishing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you travel north-east of Haywards Heath you meet a village called Lindfield, my old village, if you continue on as if you were heading towards the Ashdown Forest you come across a small village called Horsted Keynes, it has just a couple of pubs and a general shop. The main road that cuts through the village has a turning to the left travelling north, the sign post states two things, ‘No Through Road’ and the ‘Village church’, beyond the church you come to the lakes.

I experienced my fellow students from the other villages as soon as I started secondary school and in fairness they were all pretty much the same, post 1970’s kids, a mix of  the long-haired  and a new breed, the skinheads. We were too young to express ourselves as punks but the rub came in the form of suede head cuts and eighteen holer Doctor Marten Boots.  As the tribes settled in to new life in secondary school, one select bunch stood out as they appeared to have their hair cut just a little shorter than the rest and their stay-pressed trousers a little tighter, they were the Horsted lads!


There was a slight sense of un-ease with these dangerous looking lads but I soon developed a friendship with one of them called Mark, in fact his hair was quite long, unlike the other Horsted boys but more importantly we had fishing in common. As I mentioned before in my piece ‘Becoming a proper fisherman’, I spent a lot of time in lessons with the Anglers Mail on my lap and telling tales of lost and found fish, some tales were true, some exaggerated and others slipping far from the recognisable truth!

Anyway after much talk and tales of my 6 lb pike capture I was finally invited to fish the Horsted waters by Mark who lived right next to one of these lakes, these fifteen lakes that ran either side of a bridle path that ran up a small valley. I knew the area quite well as my mother used to spend the autumnal months picking apples in the orchards situated at the far end of this lake filled valley. I spent many days as a youngster, probably during some of the teacher strikes of the late seventies, sat under those trees dodging the occasional apple fall.

So five years on I was back but this time interested in the first lake you came to from the church end. The  lake was shrouded in oak and beech, from what I can remember only one end was accessible to fishermen, the rest untouchable by the overgrown banks, the water dark,  quite eerie.

Now bare in mind I was with a bunch of about three to five Horsted lads that saturday morning, I was feeling a little apprehensive that my limited fishing skills would show, these boys were born fishers, most were from single parent homes, no father or uncle to teach them the ropes, these boys just fished on instinct and instruction from the older boys. Despite being partly feral, prepared they were and some roach were caught the previous evening ready for our days piking.  Unfortunately the roach didn’t survive the night, now suspended upside down in an aluminium bait bucket. Seeing those glorious roach, lifeless was a shock but to the Horsted lads it was an annoyance, dead-baits weren’t as good as a live bait. So now not live but dead we all cast out our baits into the lake and stood back, slider floats all in a line.

By lunchtime nothing had been caught and being 13-year-old lads we also had no lunch prepared, so we fished on, luckily it was quite mild for late Autumn so we were fairly comfortable.

By three o’clock the Horsted boys were getting restless, a few heckle’s towards the local girls on horseback broke the boredom momentarily , clearly these girls were a different breed of local, home for the weekend from boarding school and certainly not playing ball with these rapscallions from the village. The truth,  I was starting to feel the pressure, their frustration I felt was starting to be aimed in my direction!

Finally I was called up to play a traditional game that had been passed down from generation to generation throughout the village…. ‘roach canons!’ Like a chapter from the Wasp Factory I was taken to the bridle path, asked to select a roach from the bait bucket (thankfully dead, normally this is done with live ones) lay the dead creature on the path facing the lake, then quickly stamp downwards using the full effect of my Dr Marten Boot, across its body, where upon its guts would explode through its mouth and into the lake! I went through the procedure feeling  like Sergeant Howie, persecuted in a community I did not belong in.

As the afternoon fell into fits of laughter and flying guts I finally stirred the courage to break for home before darkness fell, roach canons was not for me! Rod packed and tied to the cross-bar of my bike I left Horsted Keynes and sped down the three-mile road and  back to home. As I did I took in the smells of rural West Sussex and the relief of leaving the roach armageddon.

Looking back, I don’t resent the Horsted lads, they were just like any young band of brothers finding their status amongst one another, but for me angling had another meaning, a meaning that still reflects here in the Tuesday swim, not too  poetic and certainly not some form of macho prowess, but about angling experiences that enhance my life and maybe drag a few of you along with me? Stamping on fish is not a good thing but experiencing these things is, it gives us our own opinions on life and whether these experiences are good or bad, especially when we are growing up. I never did return to fish with the Horsted lads although I did go on to fish with Mark on quite a few occasions, especially night fishing for carp in an old ladies garden, but that’s another story.

Becoming a ‘proper’ fisherman?

17 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in General fishing, Music

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I spent the summer of 1983 trying to learn to fish…properly, mainly on my own and mainly for chub, my apprenticeship for gudgeon had passed. There was a favourite deep run on the Sussex Ouse just a few hundred yards from the Ardingly road which I named chub corner and this was where most of my success came from. I spent a lot of time there with my Walkman listening to one song in particular on a loop just like teenagers do! Afterwards I would lie on the river bank and take in the summer sun, even then I knew these were cherished times.

On my return to school that september one of my science classes was shared with a guy called Mark who always brought a copy of Anglers Mail in on a Wednesday and due to the old style science lab benches (the ones with the gas taps that you could simply switch on at anytime and gas out the whole class) we could secretly read each copy on our laps, undetected by our teacher.

At that time Anglers Mail were running a series of extracts from Pete Mohans’ ‘Cypry the Carp’. We were transfixed each week as the story unfolded of Andy and Cypry the Carp but what also captured my attention was the ‘make your own tackle’ features that were so popular back in those days and in september pike tackle came into the spotlight. Spoons made from, well… spoons! Toby style bars made from spoon and fork handles and slider floats made from broom handles carefully carved out. Pike fishing seemed another world away and new precautions needed to be taken in the pursuit, wire traces, pike gags and forceps all needed consideration.

With talk of pike in the back of the science lab, my friend Mark told me tales of large pike caught in the Horstead Keynes lakes and he had witnessed a few captures as he lived right next to one of the lakes with his mother and brother in a small cottage. Horstead Keynes was only about four miles away but these lakes sounded out-of-bounds to me, still my fascination with large pike was growing.

At that time I was a member of Haywards Heath and District Angling Society and another story was relayed to me about more monster pike encounters and this time it was on a water I could fish in Slaugham, a HHDAS water. A large pike was hooked by two lads fishing dead baits, it had them all over the lake and finally it shot under the platform where the two young intrepid piscators were standing. Hesitantly one of them hand-lined the pike from under the platform not realising how close his hand was to the wire trace until the shock of seeing such a large toothed mouth caused the pike to be dropped, resulting in the line parting. A return visit had to be organised and this time I was going to be properly prepared.

It was a saturday morning, crisp and bright, I had already purchased a PDQ wire snap tackle trace, bound multi-stranded wire with red cotton whipping over the twisted knots. The trace carefully coiled in a tracing paper bag, I could only afford one trace so it  had to last. Also I had purchased a Vortex sliding pike float (carving a broom handle was a lot harder than made out in the Anglers Mail article) along with various swivels beads and swan shot. The rod was my trusty old Marco fibreglass carp rod with extra whipping over   the joint where a split had started to show, the reel was a Mitchell 300s.

Standing outside the fishmongers by the roundabout in Haywards Heath I purchased a few joeys and some sprats which were a cheaper option. I was now a hunter using fish to catch bigger fish, maggots were for boys…I set off in trepidation!

The journey to Slaugham lake was a good forty minutes bike ride so I set off, now prepared like ‘proper’ fishermen do, off to do battle with rod and landing net tied to the crossbar and a faint whiff of sea fish following behind. On arrival the lake was calm, the trees bare and the air cold. My choice of swim was one of the platforms that protruded from the large reed bed that surrounded a good forty percent of the whole lake, the rest of the lake was un-fishable as the banks were covered in fallen trees that even the most cunning of stalkers could not penetrate. Once on the wooden platform I tackled up, carefully tying on my wire trace and setting the sliding float so that it ‘cocked’ nicely in the flat calm water. I couldn’t remember from my Observer Book of Coarse Fishing whether the dead bait was to settle on the bottom or dangle in the mid-water? A few  adjustments over the morning covered both options but the float never moved. By the afternoon I had covered a large corner of the lake and then remembered the illustrations in one of my books back home of a pike snapping at roach near some reeds, so I cast as close as I would dare, fearing that I could loose the wire trace and that would then be curtains for the day.

After only moments the float bobbed, then slowly towed away, just a foot or two but then stopped. Mixed  emotions of excitement, fear and disappointment all came at once but I reeled in, kept calm and replaced the now tired looking joey with a fresh tail and re-cast.  Again the float carried off and this time I struck, instantly there was a swirl that broke the stillness of the day and I was in a true tussle, like nothing I had experienced before. After a short while the pike was under control and I netted a pike of around six pounds. My next thought was how to un-hook the pike, I had forceps and a ‘humane’ gag but this was an operation all new to me. So straddling the fish I managed to get the gag in place and thankfully with shaking hands, managed to get the trebles out. I leant down and returned the pike using the landing net, I then stood up on the platform and thought, that was a ‘proper’ fish, was I a proper fisherman? Well time would tell but I certainly cycled home feeling a foot taller!

Calling Worthing 6120 is that the Sussex Piscatorial Society?

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in General fishing

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Recently I was given a 1961 Sussex Piscatorial Society membership rule book and a list of their waters. I grew up in Mid Sussex and still fish there when I get the chance to escape London, so this was of great interest to me.

The Sussex Piscatorial Society has always been quite a secretive clan for which I cannot blame them for, as they do have some stunning waters, keeping the waters hush-hush makes good sense. I know if I fished there its how I would like it.

One water that no longer belongs to Sussex Piscatorials but features in the 1961 handbook is one that I now fish in the heart of the Sussex countryside. My fishing is really only spent on places like this now, commercials or ‘tidied’ up lakes and rivers have no appeal, the lost, the overgrown and un-touched is where I want to fish. I’ve spent a few years now fishing this lake and while spending many hours waiting for a bite I think back at the anglers that have sat by the waterside and gaze in wonder of the fish that have resided and indeed still exist in this pool. The lake has a head of old Leney carp but no one knows really how many and how big they go. Its a hard place to net as there is an extensive bed of lily roots, so the lake remains a bit of an unknown.

From the description of the 1961 list of waters it talks of ‘my’ lake as if it was written yesterday, I’m sure the landowners names may have changed but the description of the  lake, the farm track, boat house and where you can park a car, is just as it is now, fifty years on.  Knowing that some waters stay unchanged is a comforting thought, my only surprise on each return is how the seasons have marked its stamp on the surrounding landscape.

Twenty five pound plus pike?

07 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Pike

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Tuesday swim finally got the pike season off to a good start with a short session down in Sussex before some ‘proper’ Guy Fawkes celebrations in Lindfield. The lake I fish is a 300 year old mill-pond with a small head of frustratingly hard carp to catch, large tench, perch, rudd and some rather big pike.

Driving down from London I kept my tackle to a bare minimum, fishing just one rod a Chapmans, Dennis Pye 700, Cardinal 66, pike bung and some oil injected sprats (two handfuls for a pound in Roman Road market). As my kit was to the bare minimum my scales were a small set of Salter spring balances that measure up to  20 lbs but I’ll come to that later!

Arriving in Sussex the weather was warm for November but felt like a typical Guy Fawkes night, over cast, some light mist and a smell of bonfires in the air. The lake has a few regulars taking advantage of the warm autumn weather and trying for a final carp of the season. The lake was moody, grey but dappled with orange from the freshly fallen leaves. Casting out the yellow pike bung next to a bed of thinning lily pads, the float settled nicely drifting close to the pads, an ideal spot for an awaiting pike. After an hour and a few re-casts my float dipped a few times and then moved slowly against the wind, waiting for a more positive take the float then sat idle, another five minutes passed so I wound in to find no bait. I thought at least something was stirring beneath the slate grey water.

After a few casts elsewhere I returned to the same spot and thought this time I shall strike a little earlier if the same thing happened… thankfully it did! Again the float bobbed a couple of times (only pike bungs have this distinctive bobbing action due to its bulky body) and then moved away, this time I struck. At first there was some resistance but only slight, then an instant heavy surge resulting in a white form as the belly of a large pike took to tail walking about thirty feet out. After this the pike made a few lunging runs off to both sides of the swim trying to take me into some fallen trees close in, but after applying considerable side strain on the Chapmans rod the pike started to tire. As I retrieved the landing net another powerful surge resulted in the flaring of gills and some more aerial acrobatics but slowly I gained full control and eventually netted the monster.

After un-hooking the pike I got the scales out and watched as the spring balanced bottomed out at 20 lbs with a thud!

Looking at the photo now, my un-hooking matt measures exactly 36 inches, adding another 5 inches for the tail I estimate it to be 41 inches long, so looking at Fred Bullers pike conversion table which is only a rough guide this pike could have a mean weight of around 25 lb? The pike was quite solid in build so who knows what weight it actually was, either way I was very pleased.

The 20lb balances have now been shelved for such trips and my larger 44 lb version are now in the tackle bag!

Update: It turns out that while sorting  out the tackle bag two days later I have left the said item, the 20lb scales on the bank, so this mistake shall never be repeated!

Update II: Said item found by fellow angler!