Carpworld The Big Interview Issue 248

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“I fish as much as I possibly can, after all it’s my living as well as what I love” T H E B I G I N T E RV I E W • PA R T T W O

T ER RY H E A R N WORDS : JIM FOSTER

In the second part of his Big Interview, Terry Hearn talks to Jim Foster about fishing on the River Thames, how important photography is to him, and answers questions from the public.

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Terry Hearn talking to Jim Foster The Big Interview

Jim Foster: We finished off last month’s feature with you starting to tell us about fishing on the River Thames. You mentioned that your mum was fishing the Thames when she was pregnant with you – so you could say you have been on the river since before you were born!

Terry Hearn: I love the Thames. I have fished it since – well, for as long as I can remember. I had my first Thames 20-pounder when I was 16, trotting bread flake at Kingston-on-Thames, close to the mouth of the Hogsmill river, which always used to be a real carp hot spot. You can’t fish that spot from the bank any more because it’s all built up with restaurants, posh apartments and stuff.

The last time I fished there – and I wrote about this in my second book – was in a little rowing boat. It was February and we moored up beneath a pipe that occasionally pumped water out from one of the multistorey car parks. We had no idea the pipe was in use at the time. It all looked very safe, so we anchored up on a shallow ledge underneath it, with big heavy lead weights for anchors, on tight ropes. We were sat there happily fishing away, when all of a sudden I heard this thundering noise behind me, and water came spurting out with an incredible force, like a fireman’s hose. It filled the boat up in just a few seconds! We were pushed out into the river with the force of the flow, and the boat sank, quick as a flash. At that time of the year we were really lucky to survive!

I’ve not been back since.

Exactly. That’s the only bit that I have ever really concentrated on.

Those reaches of the river hold more than enough carp for me.

People get put off easily, though, as the River Thames can be a bit daunting, especially the tidal section. Where do you start?

Molesey Weir was a good spot for me, but anywhere you can get access you stand a chance, I think.

Yeah. The key is bait – give them some bait. It’s rare for us to fish anywhere on the Thames – the tidal stretch especially – without having baited up first. In reality, Thames carp aren’t fished for that heavily, so if you give them some bait they generally get on it pretty quick.

Because the river is flowing, you can pull fish up to you from some distance downstream. In fact, on the tidal Thames you can pull fish from both directions, as the flow goes both ways. We like to fish through a low tide, and can get up to eight hours in a session before the tide comes in hard and the flow becomes too strong.

We bait up with plenty of boilies and particles at the end of each session, which is normally timed for when the tide begins to come in, and so, to begin with, the scent/ taste of the prebait is being washed in the opposite direction to where we are actually fishing. Then, when the tide stops coming in and the flow reverses back towards London, the scent of the attraction begins to go downstream again. Can you imagine the pulling power that has on the fish?

Bloody hell!

It was savage mate.

The stretches of the Thames that you like are from Molesey Weir to Teddington Lock, then from Teddington down to Richmond.

Would that be fair enough?

What bait would you recommend for the Thames? And in what quantity?

Any type of boilies really. We use shelf lifes, simply because I’d need a couple of chest freezers if I was to regularly use freezer bait on the river.

Thames beastie. My biggest carp from the river, 36lb 1oz.

PREVIOUS PAGE

Our river trips are always timed to coincide with the tides. Day or night, it’s just as magical.

ABOVE

Me at 16 years old with my first Thames 20.

Twenty-three years have flown by since then, wow!

BELOW

I generally prefer freezer bait though, especially when fishing more pressured venues that see a lot of good grub, but shelf lifes have been working just fine on the Thames. We use plenty of particles too, maple peas and properly prepared peanuts. They’re both very good. In total we’ll probably stick in 1015kg of mixed baits every other day. Peanuts have had a bad press in the past, but as long as they’re prepared right and the carp are eating other types of food as well, they are fine. In the Thames there’s loads of natural food for the fish, especially on the tidal. There’s the usual pea, zebra and swan mussels, as well as winkles, clams and shrimps, as the water on the tidal is slightly saline.

How far downstream do you think the carp go?

Oh, a long, long way. Right down into the major tidal areas, into central London where the water is even more saline. We’ve got a boat moored in the Twickenham area and saw a shoal of mullet last year. People catch flounders and dabs, and what have you. Seals get seen every year! You’ll definitely get carp in the middle of London, that’s 100% certain. It’s funny, I took Martin Ford out in the boat and he was saying, “Wouldn’t it be great to get a picture of you holding a carp with the House of Commons in the background?” And it would be great! We thought about it, just because it would make a good story, but we were worried about taking a boat down there and what would happen with the tide and what have you, so we didn’t do it.

It would be different, but you’d probably need to get security clearance first, before anchoring your boat outside the House of Commons.

I don’t think that would go down too well!

Anyway, let’s talk about the size of fish in the Thames. I take it you’ve had a lot of 20s.

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The Big Interview

Yeah, but I’ve only had the one 30 out of the Thames. My mate, Dave, has had a lot more 30s, but then he’s fished the Thames a lot longer. When I disappeared off to Yateley, he carried on fishing the river, so he’s had some big fish in that time.

There are plenty of 20s throughout though.

TOP RIGHT Thames specialist. My long-time mate, Dave Swinchatt, with one of his many good Thames fish.

But do you think there’s anything monstrous in the Thames?

BOTTOM We got through a lot of bait on the river.

Well, you hear all these stories about 40-pounders and all the rest of it, but… I’m going to say it…

I’m not convinced the Thames has done a 40 yet. That’s my personal opinion. If it has, then someone can come forward and claim it, but I don’t believe it at the moment. There have been several alleged captures of 40-pounders, but the pics rarely turn up, and when they have, I can’t help but be sceptical about the weight, and in one or two cases even the venue. There are some strange people out there Jim. A few years ago I met someone who told me about all these whackers he’d been catching out of the Thames, up to over 46lb. I asked if he had any pictures and the following day he was back with a big bundle of them, except the pics he was showing me were quite clearly of carp from abroad. He was a big bloke so I refrained from stating the obvious, and besides, I would have only been telling him what he already knew. I’m happy to let people like that live in their own little world, but it’s not right when it takes something away from anglers who do it for real.

Why do you think the Thames hasn’t done a 40?

Continental rivers do many big fish each year.

It’s only in recent years that the Thames’ stock of carp has increased to what it is now. In the future, it will definitely produce 40lb+ fish, as there are a

Is this a Simmo that escaped from lakes in Oxfordshire in the big floods?

BELOW

Carp fishing in a tidal river is hard to get your head around. Based on

your experiences on the Thames, what tips would you have for fishing tidal rivers?

I like to fish through the low tides.

We fish through a low tide, and in the Teddington area that gives us about eight hours of constant conditions, where the current is consistent and reasonably gentle. Then the flow reverses and the water level goes up with the incoming tide. It takes as little as two hours to rise 10ft or more, with all the water pushing in from the estuary, so the flow can be kind of fierce! You get all kinds of crap coming upstream – logs, sticks, loads of debris. It’s hard to hold bottom – your rigs get washed into snags and it’s tough going.

So, if you’re fishing out in the main river, or casting over to the far bank, then you have to be fishing through low water. But if you’re fishing close in, under the rod tips, or if you can find a slack or backwater, then you can fish as the tide is coming in. On a low tide some of these slacks are beaches – they’re dry land – but you have to remember that the water is going to come up 10ft, so at high tide you’ll be fishing in 10ft of water.

Terry Hearn talking to Jim Foster

“There’s no reason why the Thames shouldn’t do fish of the same sort of size you get in the river systems abroad”

lot of younger fish in the river now, fresh strains that are more likely to grow large. There’s no reason why the Thames shouldn’t do fish of the same sort of size you get in the river systems abroad.

Years ago, when I was a lot younger, the Thames didn’t have so many carp in it, and the ones that were there were old-looking fish. Now it’s different, especially since the really bad floods of 2007, because there are loads of new fish in the river. Young ones, too, carp that look more like Simmos. I’ll bet Mark Simmonds could tell us if they’re his fish! I think they are the ones that are likely to grow big, and there are lots of them. They’ve probably come from the Oxford area. Some of the fish we’re catching in the tidal stretch now are almost certainly Simmos from Oxfordshire fisheries that escaped in the big summer floods three or four years ago.

Could you bait up a dry bit of riverbed, put your rig in position, and then wait for the tide to come in? You couldn’t create a better baited area, could you!

I’ve got mates who have laid a rig on a dry step at low water, and then after the tide has come in they have caught a fish on that rig.

People should just give the river a go. They shouldn’t be worried about it. There are obviously the popular spots, like Kingston and Tagg’s Island opposite the houseboats, but there are plenty of carp all through the river.

That’s right mate, the whole idea of fishing the river is to get away from the crowds. It’s good to be able to do your own thing and the fishing really isn’t that difficult. We caught over 100 carp in our first season 21

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Terry Hearn talking to Jim Foster The Big Interview

after dad got the boat – not this summer just gone, but the summer before. At the start of November, on the Teddington stretch, the Water Authority does a draw-off – which basically means they lower the water level of the river to do repairs on the locks and bridges. You can look at all the features on the tidal river then and see where all the rocks and snags are, where the mussel beds are, all that kind of thing. During that time, dad’s boat is on the mud, going nowhere, and because of that we hit the fishing hard in October, during the final weeks running up to the draw-off. In that first year, during the last three weeks of October, we managed 67 runs. Then last autumn, we fished through the same period and managed another 40-odd takes, despite losing 10 days of the campaign to the floods. With a bit of effort the fishing can be brilliant. during the day though, and luckily for us, that’s when we fish most of the time. We find the carp feed well enough in the daytime. They respond to the changing tides more than they do the difference between daylight and darkness. We get the occasional bream whenever we do fish into dark, but they’ve rarely proved to be a problem.

What’s your Thames PB, Tel?

36lb 1oz – my only Thames 30, definitely one of my most special captures. When I first started carp fishing on the Thames, it was with my mate, Dave – I was only 15 or16.

Like I say, he carried on fishing the Thames after I’d moved on to other lakes, and he’d been fishing the river for 15 years before he caught his first Thames 30. The stretch where we have the boat moored happens to be where John Gard’s former Thames record of 37lb came from.

That was a long time ago now, well over a decade. It’d be nice to think that one was still about. Since that time the Thames has produced half a dozen 38-pounders, different fish too, so I’ve no doubt it will do a fully authenticated 40 soon – who knows, maybe this year.

Don’t you think the captor will keep it quiet, though?

Why? The Thames is over 180 miles long and they could just say they caught it from the lower Thames, the upper Thames, or the middle reaches – it’s easy to generalise when talking about the river. It would be nice to think there were monsters in there, wouldn’t it?

I reckon there are, Tel. I fished with this guy James for the summer and autumn of 2007 on Molesey Weir. Every now and then we’d hook something that we couldn’t stop. The fish would get into the flow, and that would be it. James decided to do something about it and loaded up his reels with 25lb main line and 45lb Kryston Quicksilver leaders – but he still got bashed up by the occasional monster, or what we thought were monsters. He had two 30s that

summer and I had carp up to 23lb, so I reckon the fish we hooked and lost could have been cats.

It’s possible. I think the odd cat has been caught from Kingston, which is the same stretch. You know, I think the Thames has got a really good future for big fish.

You do need to be dedicated to fish it properly, though. The tide, the mitten crabs, the crayfish, the dodgy people you get on certain stretches, the druggies and drunks. If you can deal with all that, you’re onto a winner fishing the tidal Thames.

The mittens have spread everywhere and they’re just as bad as crayfish.

You don’t get too many problems

TOP The Thames has lots of different strains, including some real corkers.

Mitten crabs are becoming more of a problem right through the Thames Valley.

ABOVE

At times the action on the river could be hectic. We could have often done with an extra net… or two.

BELOW

Adam Penning and I got ruined by bream for a weekend at Teddington Lock last August, but that’s another story! Tel, we could talk for ages about the Thames, but we need to move on. Two of your other interests are music and photography. Let’s take music first. You always used to be a massive drum ’n’ bass fan, is that still the case?

Yeah mate, I love it all, the old school and the new stuff as well. I listen to my favourite radio stations, mainly Kool London, which is Internet-based, so I have it on pretty much all the time at home, and nowadays a lot of the time whilst fishing as well. I’ve never been into the clubbing scene at all; when I was younger I got dragged along a few times with friends, but it wasn’t really my thing. I love the music though.

And photography is your second hobby after fishing?

Yes; I stuck to using slide film for as long as I could, as I found that I got far better quality pictures using it. I switched over to digital two to three years ago and it’s taken that long for me to learn how to get digital shots of the same sort of quality that I was used to with slides. I was writing for Angling Times back then and they just stopped supplying the film and stopped developing it, so it became even more of a nightmare using slides.

The only way I could keep up with the times was by switching to digital, and I’m so happy I did it when I did – but I had to really get into it and learn about the editing software.

What camera do you have?

A Canon EOS 5D. Nice camera that, a proper semi-pro job.

The biggest advantage of the EOS 5D is its fullframe sensor. If I put a 50mm lens on the camera

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A big Thames common.

BELOW

BOTTOM Digital photography is great, but it’s still worth learning a little about editing the pictures yourself.

Do you specialise in any specific types of photography?

Fish, hopefully! Maybe landscapes,

but to be honest I photograph whatever I think looks good and needs photographing. I’ve got an embarrassing amount of lenses, but I don’t take them all with me every time I go fishing. I always have a wide-angled 28 or 35mm lens, plus the all-important 50mm lens with me, no matter what. The 28/35 is mainly for the scenics, and the ‘nifty 50’ is for catch shots. All my trophy pics are done with the fixed 50mm lens, as they give good-quality sharp pics in a focal length closest to a natural eye view.

There’s not a lot that you can’t pick up on the Internet nowadays.

So that’s how I taught myself, on photography websites and forums.

It’s like anything I suppose; you have to have an interest to get the best out of it. Undoubtedly, the most important part of any camera is the lens, not the body. The lens is what captures the shots. A cheap EOS 350D body will still produce superb images if you put a top-quality lens on it, and you don’t always need to spend a lot of money to get a good lens. I’ve bought a couple of my favourites from car boot sales, which are another of my interests, funnily enough. Let me tell you, I don’t like missing the car boot first thing on a Sunday morning!

I love bringing a 30-odd-year-old piece of glass back to life with the use of the specially made EOS adapters, which are readily available online.

Some of the best and most wellmade lenses ever are old manual ones designed for classic film cameras, and in many cases they still work great when paired with a modern digital camera via an adapter.

You can learn so much more about photography with digital.

When I used to use slide film, I’d experiment with different shutter speeds and apertures, but quite often I wouldn’t see the end result for

Terry Hearn talking to Jim Foster

LEFT The difference between high tide and low.

body, I get 50mm. If I put it on most other EOS cameras, I’m not looking at 50mm any more, I’m likely to be looking at a focal length closer to 70mm. The same goes for all my other lenses; without the full-frame sensor all the focal lengths would be altered, and I couldn’t live with that.

I mainly use prime lenses – that’s to say, all the lenses I have are of a fixed focal length, which means changing lenses more often, but the quality of pictures is better than what you’d expect from a zoom lens covering lots of different focal lengths.

The biggest difference now compared to a couple of years ago has been learning how to edit my photos to get close to the same sort of quality I was used to with slides.

I use Adobe Lightroom 2 for this, which is simple and easy to use. I try not to muck around too much with the shots I take though, the best thing is to get your photo as good as you can through the back of the camera. That way, you have minimal amounts of editing to do on the computer when you get home.

For the most part I use Lightroom to correct any misjudgements in exposure, or if I want to sharpen pictures up a tad.

The Big Interview

“Let me tell you, I don’t like missing the car boot first thing on a Sunday morning!”

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Terry Hearn talking to Jim Foster

see something show it can mean the world. It’s like last week on here. I hadn’t had a bite since coming back after the thaw at the end of January, and then I saw one show at first light before going on to catch two the following morning from the same spot. Another time, one of those two fish could easily turn out to be the big fella.

The Big Interview

Question two. Do you think you would have achieved the same results if you’d had a fulltime job?

weeks after I’d taken the picture.

Now, I see it there and then on the back of the camera. Even better, when I get home, I can go into the image properties and see what aperture I took the shot at, what the shutter speed was, and all that stuff.

I’ve probably learnt more about photography in the last couple of years than in all my life before that.

The only thing I find frustrating is how the majority of my friends don’t show the same sort of interest, which is a shame, as most hobbies are more enjoyable when you can share your thoughts with others. Instead I just get a blank look as if I’m talking another language!

Okay, moving on again, I mentioned on Facebook that I was interviewing you, both on my page and the Crafty Carper fan page.

Here are some of the questions that came back. Firstly – and this was from more than one person – when I begin fishing a new water, where should I start?

which leads them to move into and frequent areas they might not otherwise favour.

Anyway, if it’s warm weather and the lake is quiet enough, they will quite often follow a new wind.

At other times though, like in the winter months, I’d say it’s nearly always better to get off the back of the wind. So the easiest and simplest tip is to keep an eye on the wind and react to it, or pre-empt it. In the cold weather get on the back of it, in the warm weather get on it, but it’s not easy to generalise and there are always exceptions.

I have a good idea where the fish are at the moment (in Chertsey) because I saw one show, and that’s vital at this time of the year, as they will still be pretty localised. I’m fishing in around 11ft of water towards the middle area of the lake, but there are deep margins here too, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t come close – I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve started baiting a couple of margin spots ready for when they do venture in. The middle of most lakes is usually a good bet in winter though, because it’s generally the most protected area; the wind can blow from any direction and the carp won’t have to drift too far before reaching a more comfortable body of water. If they were held up on one particular bank, at some stage or other there’s a good chance they are going to have to swim a long way to get out of the wind. The middle of the lake is generally the area that’s least affected for the longest periods of time.

The biggest thing of all, at any time of year and no matter how often or how little you get to fish, is to use your eyes. If you’re lucky enough to

“The fact that it’s more oxygenated on the wind often means they show more, as well as feed more”

It’s an obvious one, but in the spring and early summer the carp like to follow the wind, especially if it’s a warm one, and it’s before the weed has had a chance to grow. On the bigger lakes especially, the wind will get a proper undertow going, and fish being fish, they like to swim against a flow, which means they end up on the bank receiving the wind. Simple really. The fact that it’s more oxygenated on the wind often means they show more, as well as feed more. On unpressured waters carp tend to follow the wind more naturally. It would be nice if it was always that simple, but as many carp fisheries are pressured, the habits of the carp living in them are usually heavily influenced by angling,

Into the photography…

ABOVE

Another Thames cracker.

BELOW

Do you think that Steve Davis would have achieved the same results if he’d only dabbled at snooker?

I think that no matter what you’re into, whether it’s snooker, tennis, football, or fishing, the more effort you put in, the more you get out. All the people who have done well in their chosen sports/ pastimes/hobbies, whatever you want to call them, will have given it their absolute maximum. Forgive me, because I have written this before, but Steve Davis, at the height of his powers, was probably playing snooker and practising for more than eight hours a day. It didn’t come without effort; he had to really work at it. If you’re not going to give it your all, there’s always going to be someone who will. Just maybe you won’t be in such a fortunate position any longer, and then you might think about those nights spent up the boozer, or that liein when you could have been at the lake watching the water at first light. Each to their own, live and let live I say, but don’t knock somebody for giving something their all.

People have said to me, “It’s alright for you. You fish for x-amount of time per week.” Well yeah, of course I do, I fish as much as I possibly can, after all it’s my living as well as what I love. It cracks me up when I hear paid consultants announcing that they only fish one or two nights a week. Remembering that it’s their living, what an earth do they do with the other five days then? If I were a tackle or bait manufacturer and one of my paid consultants told me he was only fishing a night or two a week, I’d tell him that he best go and get another source of income! I have friends with full-time jobs and a missus and kids who still manage to squeeze an extra night in midweek whenever they feel like it’s really happening. These are the anglers who get the most out of their fishing. The more you put in, the more you get out. When I was a postman and getting up at 4.00 a.m. to deliver letters six days a week, I still made the effort to go fishing, or at the very least have a stroll round and maybe trickle a little bait onto my spots each afternoon. I’ve always put everything I possibly could into it. At the end of the day, I just think that some people have more fire in their bellies than others, it’s as simple as that.

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Yeah, mate!

I’d fish freezer boilies, for sure. The carp might not have ever seen a boilie in their life, but I’ve always found that they will still eat them, pretty much from the off with no baiting up. Just make sure to use your eyes – the location tips I gave a moment ago will hopefully help you to fish in the right places.

Another question. Do you think that sponsored anglers lie about the bait they use, because of the sponsorship?

Question four. Jon Hook wants to know if you think of fishing as a job, or is it still a passion?

Good one; definitely more of a passion, but with responsibilities.

Question five. Nick Davies wants to know if you’ve ever genuinely thought about giving up carp fishing…

[Pauses] That’s a mad question. No, not until I give up breathing. I’ve often considered diversifying more and becoming an all-rounder, but to be fair, I think I’ve already done that. I’m a fisherman and will always be a fisherman.

Question six. I think there’s a confusion of identity for you here, as a couple of noncarpers want to know if you’re related to Barry Hearn, and if so, are you happy with the way snooker is heading? That’s from Andrew Sanigar and Steve Cullen.

I am, he’s my dad! My dad’s called Barry, except he isn’t the Barry Hearn! I hope that’s clear. So I can’t answer the snooker bit, I’m afraid.

Ian Hull asks: Will there be a time when you have caught all the carp you want to catch in England?

No, no way, there are new targets turning up all the time, this fish in here being a prime example. I didn’t even know it existed until a couple of years ago.

Sarah Way has problems with goldfish. She bought her son two from the pet shop – they had a nice bowl and food, but one died and she ended up having to explain the meaning of life to a two-year-old. What went wrong?

No idea! She either fed them too much, or perhaps there was already something wrong with the fish. If it died that quickly, I would say there was already something wrong with it and she shouldn’t worry too much… cough, cough…

ABOVE

Not just a carper.

It’s pretty difficult to get bored on the bank today. IPad and iPhone, not just good entertainment but a bit of an edge. Three of my most used apps for fishing are Weather Pro, Live Moon and World Tides. Awesome kit.

BOTTOM

You’re not on Facebook, are you?

No, but there’s two or three of me on there – they’re pretending to be me! One muppet actually has pictures of me up on his profile. I checked his friends and was shocked to see that there were untold people I know, including people I’ve not seen or talked to for many years, old school friends and that. How can that be allowed?

It pees me off big-time. I’m afraid it put me right off Facebook before I even started mate, and besides, it’s not really for me anyway, because I tend to go out of my way to keep myself to myself. Telling everyone where I am and what I’m doing before I’ve done it doesn’t sound particularly conducive to me! I’ve tried getting in touch with Facebook several times to get the idiot taken off, as has my stepmum, but without any luck.

They won’t reply to me or anything.

Surely people shouldn’t be allowed to do that?

Erm… It does happen. I’ve seen it happen, when I know a certain fish has been caught on a tiger nut, for example, but then that angler has said it was caught on a boilie.

People ask this of me from time to time; did I really catch that fish on that bait? Well, I did, because the bait company I work for does pretty much everything. If I’ve caught a fish on a tiger nut, then there’s no problem with me saying so, because Dynamite would have given me the tiger nuts. Same if it was on a piece of maize, or a floater. There’s no reason at all for me to say otherwise.

I caught the Burghfield Common on tiger nuts and reported it as such – I could easily have said it was on The Source, but I didn’t, why would I?

Terry Hearn talking to Jim Foster

Matthew wants to know what sort of baiting campaign would you opt for?

The Big Interview

No way. I couldn’t have done it without Drennan and Dynamite.

Everyone needs money to live, and my sponsors have helped me no end, something for which I’m forever grateful. My books have helped a great deal, too, in particular the second one.

Question three. This year Matthew Perring is going to be fishing a big pit that’s lightly fished and lightly stocked with big carp. Sounds like our kind of venue, Tel!

Terry, that’s brilliant. I won’t ask any more Facebook questions – that’s it. I’d like to ask how you manage to stay sane and cope with doing 60 or 70 nights before you catch a target fish (or, indeed, any fish, as at St. Ives). Big-carp fishing can be a lonely old game!

“I’m not on Facebook, but there’s two or three of me on there – they’re pretending to be me!”

No, they can’t – I’d persist with it and you should get the account taken down. Okay, we’ll do a couple more questions then we’ll call it quits. Paul Lewis asks: What’s your all-time favourite bait?

Difficult one. At the moment, I’d say the Red Fish… or The Source.

Mark Morrison asks: If you didn’t have sponsors, could you afford to fish in the way you do now?

Not so much these days! Apart from all the usual stuff like sorting the rods, tying rigs, watching the lake, etc., nowadays we have wonderful inventions like Kindles, iPhones and iPads to play with. Now I can’t get bored, it’s impossible, there’s just too much to do. Know what I mean mate? I enjoy reading on the iPad, going online, teaching myself stuff… only the other evening I was thinking that there were a few things I wanted to learn about flash photography, so I Googled it and spent a few hours reading up about it, whilst tapping my feet to the sounds of Kool FM. Bored? You gotta be kidding! Long dark winter nights are easily bearable now, thanks to the iPad. The other great thing is the camera connection kit I got for it. It’s great to be able to look at your pics on a bigger screen within a few seconds of taking them, and if needed I can even email them within minutes of a capture.

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Terry Hearn talking to Jim Foster The Big Interview

Don’t you find it runs out of batteries quickly in the cold, though?

I get a good ten hours listening to Internet radio, browsing the Net, and catching up on any writing, but I still bring plenty of backup power packs with me, which I leave in the car until I need them, more than enough to last me the trip anyway.

I’ve got more power with me than EDF, mate!

And if you had one edge that you’d like to pass on to the Carpworld readers, what would it be?

Hook sharpness, without a doubt.

I am totally paranoid about hook sharpness, so my one big edge would be to properly make sure your hooks are sharp. With carp fishing, we’re expecting the carp to suck in the hookbait before swimming off and hooking itself, and for that you need a very sharp hook. It’s so, so important. Carp fishing is not like most other forms of fishing, where you strike to set the hook.

And it doesn’t matter what type of hook you use either, there will nearly always be blunt ones in a packet. Even with the best patterns I’ve ever used, I still wouldn’t expect more than 90% of them to be sharp, so in a packet of 10 that means there’s usually at least one dodgy hook, i.e. you’ve got at least a 10% chance of pulling out a dud one.

No! That’s the funny thing. I occasionally see other writers recommending that you change the hook after every fish you catch.

Sorry, but that’s a bit of a cop-out; surely the real answer is to learn the difference between a sharp hook and a blunt hook. Remembering what I said earlier about packets of hooks very rarely containing 100% useable ones, if you catch a carp and just tie on a new hook regardless every time, you’re not only wasting time, you could very easily be replacing a perfectly good hook with a blunt one. I’m not tight, and besides I’m fortunate enough to get the majority of my hooks for free, but I don’t change my hook because it ‘might’ be blunt. What’s that all about?

Maybe they put more juice in their motors after every outing as well, just in case it’s empty like.

Beats checking the petrol gauge, eh? And all this business about ‘the hooks are being damaged in transit whilst rattling around in the packets’ isn’t really true either. I guess you might damage the occasional point like that, but to put a logical angle on it, how do you think those hooks were stored before being transferred into packets of ten? Hooks are made in bulk, generally many, many thousands at a time. I have some bulk boxes of 1,000 hooks at home from more than one company, favourite patterns of mine, which I’ve made sure to stock the ‘precious

“It doesn’t matter what type of hook you use either, there will nearly always be blunt ones in a packet”

How do you find those blunt hooks?

I use the nail test. Using the minimum amount of pressure, I drag the hookpoint along my fingernail at an angle of 45 degrees. It shouldn’t scratch or slip in any way – it should instantly stick. People say to me, “Surely doing that blunts the hook?”

But I think they’ve got it wrong with the amount of pressure they think is put on the point when performing the test. If I thought it was dulling the points I wouldn’t be doing it. I use such a light, minimal pressure, it’s almost like the hook could easily fall from my fingers. If you find yourself having to try to get the hook to stick to your nail, then it’s a blunt one, simple as that. When you get the test right and you find a truly sharp hook, you’ll have no doubt about it in your mind.

Blunt jobbies will just slide over your fingernail.

ABOVE LEFT

Loadsa power!

From the ‘precious drawer’.

ABOVE

One I winkled out a couple of days after the interview.

BELOW

drawer’ up with, just in case they get discontinued in the future. Anyway, I soon learnt that there’s absolutely no difference between the hooks from the packets, and the same pattern/batch of hooks taken from the box. Not surprising really, after all, the packeted hooks come straight from the bulk boxes. If I’m used to going through 20 hooks to find ten good ones with the packets, then the same thing happens if I take them from the boxes instead. More often than not, if there are good ones and bad ones it’s usually at a ratio close to 50/50. I think there’s a reason for that, it’s all to do with the way they are made, but I’d need a whole lot more space to go into it and so it’s probably best left for another time. Anyway, common sense tells me that the blunt ones have always been blunt, they were made that way. If you’ve never seen a box of 1,000 hooks before, I can tell you that it’s just a big bundle of hooks all tangled together, but despite this, I still think damage to hooks whilst stored and shipped in this way is very minimal. In the majority of cases I’ve found that a hook with a dull point was just made that way.

It doesn’t matter what make the hooks are either – Gardner, Fox, E-S-P, Drennan, Atomic and Korda – they all make some awesome patterns, but none of them have 100% sharp hooks in all their packets. One or two of my favourites come close, but there’s still the chance of picking out a dud one, so always make sure to check them.

Tel, I am going to round it up there. Thanks for your time. I think you have come up with some terrific advice for the Carpworld readers, and also some nice little anecdotes. I, for one, am now inspired to fish the Thames this summer and autumn. Hopefully I might see you down there, and who knows, maybe one of us will get the first ratified 40 from the river! JF/TH

Do you throw away your hooks after each capture?

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20/4/11 12:25:27