In this section I'm going to very briefly explain when and how i got into carp fishing. but please bare with my English it is really bad!. That's why ill be adding pictures then for those like myself it will be much clearer. Its only going to be brief as last year i lost all the pics i had on my computer which to say the least I nearly cried when i lost every thing as it had so much history on my computer, but from it i have learnt to have every thing back up and double back up !
How it started
I can remember being around the age of 10 and going float fishing with my dad with a mate from school catching loads of roach, as you can imagine when being that young anything that you caught out of the water was amazing.
It was on this trip that i saw my fist every carp, i can remember my dad saying " look at that, that's one of the bigguns" "where where " i replied.
Then i see it this big black Shadow slowing cruising round this pound, from then i wanted to see this monster on the bank, so we tried, well i see we, my dad did so out come the bread and on went abit of floating crust. You no what happened next he had it. My first experience of seeing someone catch a carp ! Well that was it i was Hooked i wanted to catch one of these monsters that lercked in the Murky waters .
In the next couple of weeks i can imagine myself asking my dad every day weather we can go fishing, being all excited as i had seen a carp !
Now people reading this and who know me will no that my memory isn't so great, so trying to explain to you what happened 11 years ago is going to be fairly tricky for me but I'm going to give it my best shot !
Back when i was 10 i can remember getting my first fishing rod, I'm pretty sure it was a place called Hadleigh Buy-right. It was abit like The range, so as you can imagine it was never going to be the best gear in the world. But it was a rod i could put a hook on and catch fish ! Now I'm pretty sure that i didn't actually go fishing with my dad once i got this rod, at the time we, being myself my mum and my dad where living on Lawford dale in Manningtree, mum had horses and my dad was the local football manager of the local football team and used to play alot, so for my dad to have the time to take me fishing was Farly hard .
But my fishing background wasn't just from my Dads influence it was also on my mums side of the family. Her brother Steve my uncle, has been fishing ever since he was a kid, and is a very very educated fisherman with unbelievable watercraft and is a perfectness. But with these skills he had a great photo album and knowledge on how to catch fish.
Now i remember this very well, my uncle Steve was fishing on the River Stour in Bratham with his best friend Chris, and he invited me and my dad to come site with them down the river while they where fishing. Well me being a kid you imagine how exited i was. So off we went down to the river and they where fishing a section of the river called the lock. It was made i had only ever seen someone fishing with 1 rod and floats, as i arrived i was like what the hell is all this. There was these funny alarms that made noise if you had a fish ! WHAT THE HELL ! Well as you could imagine they where well kitted out, also it was that long ago they where using monkey climbers. Well anyway the action started it was a lovely summers evening on the river and the fish where on it, there was none stop action, think they had had something like 5 very big carp ( to me ) in a space of 2 hours.
While i was there i was learning what everything was and did and that to me was the start of my fishing i had started learning and to this day have never stopped learning. Steve ( my uncle ) had a run this alarm thing was going mental, it was the mk1 delkim what a noise they make :) and he said to me go on Brad have it, so as his standing over me making sure everything went as smoothly as possible for my first experience of a carp. I Finlay landed my first carp and river carp, i had a smile that was on my face for weeks .
Now after this i wanted in on the action so i got my Lawford Ticket which allowed me to fish various waters including the river. and i used to bike down the a pond called station pond and and it was full of loads of Little carp back then they where massive, I soon got the hang of tieing a hook on and attaching the floating crust and catching carp. With fishing down there alot after school in the summer with friends, i soon had a new pb of 9lb awesome !
I only ever had 1 rod for a about 2 years until one Xmas i got a compete set up, amazing. i was ready to hunt some larger carp out the river . I wont go into much detail but i fished the river alot with my uncle and dad on the weekends and was catching river carp. And it wasn't long until i realised that my complete set up from badage wasn't going to be enough. so birthdays and xmas i was upgrading my gear slowly but increasing upping my knowledge on how to fish .
I could right so many pages on this time of my life when fishing the river as there are so many good memory's from there and some pukka fish caught as well, but it has to be this memory of the river that is my favourite, it was in the summer of 03 i reckon when i caught my biggest fish out of the river which was a fully scaled mirror at 19.2lb from a spot up near flat for about a mile and half drive along the river off rod where i had made a swim, it was a very tight section of the river with some lovely overhanging trees! What i used to do is when i finished school i would fill a rucksack up with a load of bait and go and bait some spots up, well it paid off ! Now this is why this is one my memorable captures as 2 years after having the 19 fully scaled i was fishing the same spot with one of my rods on the spot where the 19 had been hooked from and in the middle of the night the rod screamed of and what rolled in the net this same fully scaled mirror that i had caught 2 years previous. I just couldn't believed what had happened, so as it was in the middle of the night the fish got sacked up and i waited to first light to weigh and photograph this beautiful creature. In the morning i lifted it out with help from my dad and got it in the weigh sling and round went the scales to 24.8lb it had grown ! and was also a new pb for me. I have heard stories of people have repeated captures but on a river and from the same spot i bet that doesn't happen every day !
Pics of the fully scaled at 19.2 and 24.8
From the River
From gaining experience and having some lovely fish out of the river it was time to move and started fishing some lakes with mates, getting dropped of by mum or dad on a Friday then being picked up on Sunday. This was great i had so much freedom on whilst out on the bank and so probably did my mum and dad with me not being there.
It was probably around when i was 14, i was at school and there was some div that was 2 years above me but as had not been in the teachers good book and had been moved down into my form, it here when i met one of my best friends Paul Gaffney, how it come about is I used to be there in form reading carp mags etc and Paul one day said " oh you fish you should come with us one time " so i did.
The trip was arranged and i was dropped of down the lake, I remember my mum saying before i went " you sure these kids are allright " yeah yeah i replied. How wrong was I. I got down the lake to be greeted by Pauls best Friend Ash / Barney ! who where set up. so out come the gear and got set up, now to say to this day that i still fish with them as much as i can is awesome true friends for life !
The lake we was fishing was called AAA or Alesford Pits. It was a 12 acre gravel pit which was stunning, still to this day one of the best looking waters i have fished. It was down AAA where i learnt most of what i know today.
I could talk about Alresford days for pages as well as i spent my time being aged 14-16 down the lake most weekends in all weather for 2 years. So you could imagine some of stories i have from that place and unfortunately i just haven't got the time to sit here and write about them all, so instead I'm gonna pull out some of my favourite pics in the time to show you.
Now this is when i start to get upset as i had some many pictures from down AAA but due to my computer going down last year i lost everything so i these pictures are of ones that i have asked Paul to send across to me.
From time to time us boys me Ash Paul and a few of the others used to try other places and got ourselves a CAPS ticket. and done some fishing over pebmarsh now i only have 1 pic left of any of the fish that where caught out of there and it was my first 20lb common, think it weighed 22lb Buzzing !
Driving Started
A few years past and i was 17 and was able to drive dear god ! You would think that having the freedom of being able to drive to any lake and go anywhere would have made me do alot more fishing but it could of been any different. I found out what was in between girls legs and had a car you no what i done for a couple of years lol. Ill let you work the rest out !
But with not doing much fishing over this time there's not much to write about, but once a year us boys still went to France for a week so what I'm going to do is is not go into much detail maybe a little but just upload some of my favourite pictures from these trips over the years.
Kingfisher 2007
This was my second trip to France don't have no pictures from fist trip as they where all on a film camera, Kingfisher was run by Martin who happened to be Chris's brother Chris is who i meanted on the river who was my uncles best mate. He had brought this beautiful lake in Normandy France and set up his own fishery. It was amazing great set up great fishing and the perfect host to a weeks fishing.
I had a total of 21 fish in the week to a amazing 38lb which was my new French pb
Now i will try and get my hands on some More photos from kingfisher but for now this is all i have !
Angel Lakes 2008
In 2008 it was the same again another France trip this time to a lake called Angel Lakes, it was a package deal where you fly out use there gear and fish, well what a week we had. There was myself Paul Ash Pef and myself , we all had a great week with some lovely fish caught and plenty of beer drunk
My new French pb at 48lb
Le Rocher 2009
Yet another year gone and again it was time for another french trip, we booked up to go to a lake called Le Rocher, this has been my best fishing holiday i have had, not for the fishing but as a whole a great place to be the owners where great and the highlight of the week was gaffeny having the silver common at 62lb who cared if no one caught anything what a fish ! So again ill let the pictures do the talking.
The Moment Paul had the 62lb common
The group with Donna and mark who run the lake at the time
This pic just says it all
Murphy's 2010
Again another year gone and another french trip looming. It was a lake called Murphy's not going to go into detail but one of our worst package trip. but some good fish caught.
This is going to be it on this little bit now, this is just a tiny little insight of how i started carp fishing and what i have done between then and now, well as you can imagine so much has happened and the main thing of doing the whole blog is so that i can write and record what i get up to in my current fishing. So my next chapter will start you of from my fishing in 2011 of my movements and what i get up 2
Thanks Brad
