As Black as Balck Jack Shellac

Big Fish Series by Dave Lane I mentioned briefly in a previous article about the wild and windswept pit that I’d discovered and my brief sighting of a fish, before the pikeys turned up and ruined everything. Well, with another winter behind me, and the first encouraging signs of spring on the horizon every morning, it was time to make another visit.

‘As Black as Black J A big water sunset and only me there to see it.

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The dreaded gap (not very phone-friendly).

“The stock, although unknown, was never assumed, by even the most ambitious guess, to be more than about 20 or so fish, so it was, and still is, a hell of a challenge but, if I wanted an unknown carp, I’d just have to rise to it”

k Jack Shellac’

ll the gear was re-packaged, winter bags and bivvies discarded and a more lightweight and mobile angler set out on the long journey for the first of many trips. In reality I was only hoping beyond any real hope for even a sighting of a carp as the year starts late on the big gravel pits and the carp would probably still be tucked up in their winter quarters for a while yet. In fact the first session I did coincided with a very severe late frost and I ended up sleeping with the unhooking mat wrapped around my thin ‘summer’ bag and every scrap of clothing I possessed all layered on top of one another! However, it was just nice to be out there on my own again and spending the days walking the banks of an unknown entity once more.

Walking was, in fact, the main thing on the agenda every day that I spent at the pit, as there was no real reason to set up and start fishing anywhere until I had at least a rough idea of where the fish may be. With four different lakes all joined together by channels, and totalling about 150 acres in all, they literally could be anywhere and it was more than possible to fish in a lake totally devoid of carp altogether! The stock, although unknown, was never assumed, by even the most ambitious guess, to be more than about 20 or so fish, so it was, and still is, a hell of a challenge but, if I wanted an unknown carp, I’d just have to rise to it.

By May I’d made about five visits, spent ten or eleven nights camped out with only blind faith for company, and had still not seen or heard a single thing that could even pass as a carp. The days were always spent walking and looking and I had adopted a regime which included two circuits of the three smaller lakes and one complete circuit of the much larger, and very hard to circumnavigate, big pit. I had certain trees that I would sit up until my legs went dead and bushes I’d bait up under religiously, for which the ducks were eternally grateful. I suppose on average I’d spend six or seven hours a day walking around, although a fair bit of it was actually wading, as the water level had risen so high that a lot of the paths were totally flooded.

By the very nature of the lakes and the way they were once all separate pits, there are areas where wading is always the only option (apart from a mile or more detour) so waders had to be carted around as well at all times.

Crossing from one section to another via any of the main ‘old’ pathways was a treacherous affair and one slip would deposit you on your backside in 3ft of

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Big Fish Series by Dave Lane icy cold water – I should know, I’ve done it enough times! In two consecutive weeks I managed to write off two mobile phones by slipping arse upwards on the same rock, another phone ended up in the nearby river when a bridge gave way on me as well, so it’s a bit of a black hole as far as the ‘Car Phone Warehouse’ is concerned.

They were very exciting times for me because the hotter it became as we moved into mid-May, the more I knew that soon I would find them, somewhere! At least I bloody well hoped I would as I was practically doing no fishing whatsoever, apart from some stalking on a little pond over the back where the odd double-figure mirror would help to keep me sane.

Going through the motions.

The more usual view of a very spooky, uncaught mirror.

Sure enough, in the third week of May I climbed a tree that I’d climbed a thousand times before and there before me was a carp, in fact there were two carp, neither of them very big, but carp just the same. I watched them for about half an hour, happily cruising around a little bay, taking in the sunlight and generally enjoying the changing of the seasons. Although the bigger of the pair was only barely a 20-pounder the temptation to open my account was too great to resist and I was soon legging it back to the van for a rod and a bag of floaters. I don’t know how long those two carp would have spent in the bay, happy in each other’s company and free from fear of any kind, but as it was they were off like two bats out of hell within about three minutes of me casting my first line onto the surface! I couldn’t figure out why, as I had cast about 20yds upwind and made not a sound in doing so, admittedly one of the carp had suddenly appeared from the reeds just along to my right and, possibly, even glimpsed me for a second, but they were totally unpressured fish so why would they be so spooky? In retrospect I should have known exactly what to expect as I had come across it many times before on unfished, or lightly fished venues. The fish are often

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“The fish are often a lot more aware and nervous of any change in their environment than their more ‘clued up’ cousins ever seem to be”

a lot more aware and nervous of any change in their environment than their more ‘clued up’ cousins ever seem to be. I think that pressured fish become totally accepting of the presence of danger and, in the case of our busiest big fish waters like Yateley and Conningbrook, the fish become expert at living in such a situation. They know that there is always a clear and present danger, they expect to see badly camouflaged blokes hanging out of every tree and every free meal is an obvious challenge. It’s just a case of identifying the fly in the ointment, or the rig in the boilie patch, and eating everything bar that one; playing the percentages becomes a way of life for them. It’s the same with any creature that spends enough time close to man I suppose, they still see us as a threat but they learn our limitations and live just outside the boundaries. Look at urban foxes and the way they will happily stroll up your driveway and raid the bins right outside your window – around our way they are more reliable than the dustmen! (Only joking chaps; thank goodness I remembered to tip them this year!) The squirrels in our local park don’t even bother running away from the dogs that hurtle across the field in the hope of an easy meal,

they just sidestep at the last second or hop up onto a low branch and give them ‘the finger’.

In the more rural areas of the country, however, you seldom even see a fox less than 200yds away and a mad dog still strikes terror in the heart of most of our furry creatures. There is a fox at my most recent winter water that has become so used to dealing with humans that I awoke the other night to find his nose only 2ft from mine as he sniffed at me to check I was asleep before trying to steal five kilos of bait and the cool bag they came in!

With this in mind I vowed to try a bit harder the next time I came across any fish on the pit, regardless of their size, as they would probably all be as spooky as hell – and so it turned out to be.

Over the next few weeks I came across the fish on a number of occasions, but considering the amount of effort and shoe leather I was putting in, it was still a very rare occurrence. I had hoped they would all gang up in one area and let me at least get a good look at them, just to see what it was I was fishing for, but they stayed incredibly mobile for the entire spring.

I’d identified the one area most likely for spawning to take place and, sure enough, come early June, the fish

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started to frequent the small shallow corner more and more often until one day I turned up to find the whole section alive with bow-waves and frantic swirls on the surface. The trees immediately surrounding the area were pretty scraggy and mostly unsafe to climb, even for someone as ‘gibbonlike’ as me, but luckily the water was

anything now and size was becoming more and more irrelevant.

As the evening crept in, so the fish crept out and I went and found somewhere to sleep for the night. I was sure the fish would not be feeding but I dropped a couple of baits in the channel leading out from the bay just in case, before dropping off to dream of

A touch of sanity from the little pit next door. extremely shallow and the fish totally pre-occupied. I figured that, with some modicum of stealth, I could actually wade out to the edge of the area they were using and stand by as a passive but highly interested observer. That afternoon spent ‘heron-like’ amongst spawning fish that I’d searched for in vain for months, was one of the most exciting I’ve even spent. They paid me no heed whatsoever and I stood motionless for hours, taking in as much information as possible.

Although there were no absolute monsters there, no signs of uncaught records or even 40s, there were a couple of beautiful specimens that had probably never seen dry land. The biggest fish was a dead ringer for the one I had originally seen jumping the previous season, a light-brown fish that was very dish-shaped in appearance.

The next biggest was a linear of around mid-30s, as black as your hat. An old saying immediately sprang to mind as I first set eyes on him – “As black as Black Jack Shellac”, and so he was named.

About 20 fish were present in all and I suppose there is a good chance that this represented the entire stocking of the four pits, it was about the number I was expecting and, although I had hoped for a couple of bigger ones, I wanted an unknown fish more than

jet-black carp swirling around my legs.

Most of the swims on the lake are tiny little affairs and some not much more than a tiny piece of semi-flooded causeway, and as such, the brolly spends more time in the rod bag than it does over my head. The thing with sleeping under the stars is that the lack of darkness hours has you up at the barest crack of dawn, and so it was that, come 5.00 a.m. I was back in the bay standing sentry again.

Throughout the morning I saw the return of a handful of the fish but with a

sudden weather change they looked more interested in feeding than spawning, so I set up a stalking rod and kept an eye out for an opportunity to arise. By midday I had found one spot, a tiny clear patch of sand in about 2ft of water where the fish looked more interested than anywhere else. ‘Black Jack’ was there but the big brown female had disappeared, in fact it seemed as if only the males had returned. I carefully and slowly crept through the shallow margins with a single tiger nut dangling from the rod tip, I’d elected to place the bait by wading as I couldn’t see anything from ground level and I knew it had to be exactly right. The spot was about 20yds away on a diagonal along the margins and 10yds out. With only a few yards to go, I froze on the spot as Jack and two of his smaller mates (both commons) appeared to my right and circled the clear spot before making off again. If I could put a hook in that black beast I knew it would mean more to me than anything I’d ever done and I’m surprised the sound of my heart hammering in my chest didn’t scare off every living thing for miles around.

With the nut in place I started to creep back towards the bank, sinking the line as I went, when suddenly, and without warning, the line shot out of the water as tight as cheese-wire! I was taken completely by surprise as I was still 10yds out in the lake and, like a complete pratt, hadn’t even set up a bloody landing net yet. I had to battle the carp from reaching the gap into the adjoining lake, and with it almost definite freedom, whilst at the same time struggling to reach shore and then set up the net with the other hand. Had it been the black beast himself then I would have been really up against it and I dread to think what the result may have been but, as it happened, I could tell from the lack of any solid resistance

At last, a carp.

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Big Fish Series by Dave Lane that that wasn’t the case. Sure enough, but still by some minor miracle, I managed to scoop one very indignant and totally surprised little common into the net. Everything was soaked and plastered in mud and weed and there on the mat lay a little wildie-shaped common carp of about 12lb, and I was over the bloody moon!

Had I caught ‘Black Jack’ I think I might have had heart failure because as it was this little chap had me shaking like a leaf! Obviously I have caught hundreds of fish just like him over the years but not many from an unknown quantity such as this and it made me realise that I was doing the right thing fishing for these carp whatever the size.

Two months later and with not one more sighting of any carp whatsoever, I wasn’t so sure! I had walked for miles and miles every week and seen precisely ‘bugger all’ for my troubles.

Now I realised how hard it was going to be to locate these few carp in such a wildly convoluted and intricate layout.

Once they left the confines of the bays they were gone, lost in the vast acreage that lay beyond the gaps, free to come and go as they pleased and probably

Out there somewhere, maybe! that the fish would follow the same procedure as before and I pretty much set out my stall to intercept them as they came into the bay and then try to pick off a better one or two whilst they were there. The fish, however, had

hemp and even chopped worm in ones and twos at strategic spots in the margins and watched as they blatantly ignored the lot! On one particular occasion I drifted two tiny pieces of floating crust a distance of about 60yds,

“Just going through the motions and picking a good-looking swim in the hope of a bonus bite seems to be totally futile, they just don’t play by those sorts of rules” never to regroup until spawning time the next year.

Not only was the stock density against me, but also the algae blooms had started to spread like wildfire and what started out in the corner of one small anti-lake had, by early summer, spread to the entire complex. With zero visibility to contend with as well, I decided to call it a day and return the following spring when the odds were a little more favourable.

The following year I made a serious error of judgement, I stupidly assumed

You would have thought I’d broken the British record!

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another, much better plan. They decided, for whatever reason (probably because of me permanently hanging out of a tree on the bay entrance), to spawn in open water and to stay on the move the entire time, only occasionally showing themselves in the edge. There was a period of two weeks during the entire spring when I found and followed the fish from area to area and it was only then that I felt in with a chance. Just going through the motions and picking a good-looking swim in the hope of a bonus bite seems to be totally futile, they just don’t play by those sorts of rules. Unfortunately, on the days when I couldn’t find fish (which were many) this was the only course of action left but, apart from the odd tench and the constant attention from eels, it proved hopeless. I have never come across fish before that show the level of total distain for anything offered to them in the way of bait. In that twoweek period I failed to persuade them to eat anything, not only on a rig but also in a no-pressure environment among snags, without a line even in the water. I placed maggot, caster, corn,

having worked out exactly where they would come into contact with a pair of sunbathing mirror carp. Having crept on my hands and knees through the reeds and flooded pathways I painstakingly came to a position where I could watch their reaction to these two free offerings. I even cut a ‘bouquet’ of reeds to hold in front of my face as camouflage!

I lay as quiet as a church mouse as the twin crusts drew closer and closer; surely this had to be the one! As the first piece of ‘Mothers Pride’ hove into view and bobbed silently on the breeze, I could see it was bang on target and it passed perfectly across the back of the larger of the two fish. As expected, he dropped slowly down and eyed the offering, but instead of rising to the bait, he nudged his companion and they both turned and left the area, never to return! Quite what the hell had happened I’ll never know but I was beginning to think I’d never get to catch another fish from there even if I spent my whole life trying.

Luckily, for my sanity’s sake, I did eventually get another chance and,

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bizarrely enough, it was a fish I’d never seen before. I was up one of my favourite trees for the hundredth time that year when a fish suddenly materialised in front of my eyes. At first I though it was just a product of my overactive imagination as I’d just been visualising one in that exact spot, and, bingo, there he was. A very distinctive fish, due to the size of his fins, massive pectorals like tea plates kept him balanced atop the bar. Unlike most of the others I’d seen he actually looked interested in feeding as he picked his way through the short silkweed on the sides of a shallow bar at my feet and I knew straightaway that this could be my best chance for over a year.

To reach the bar with a rig was easy enough from the adjacent bank but to accurately hit one of the tiny holes in the silkweed was another matter entirely so I hatched a cunning plan. By attaching mini-marker floats to the hooks I cast two rigs over the lake onto the shallowest spot on the bar and then

“There was no way on this planet that I was going to lose that carp, even if I had to leap in and wrestle him to the bank with my bare hands” erupted over one of the baits and, at first, I thought I’d spooked a fish with a poor presentation. A single bleep and a bounce on the tip told another story though, as the fish appeared on the very top of the bar with his back out the water as I grabbed the rod and heaved him backwards. There was a moment or two of total stalemate as he teetered on the bar, more of him out of the water than in, and almost over the back into the other lake. Sheer bloodymindedness won over in the end though, and with one final heave he rolled into the nearside silty channel.

From there on it was just plain nerveracking rather than totally terrifying as he plodded about in front of me trying everything he could to avoid the net.

There was no way on this planet that I was going to lose that carp, even if I had to leap in and wrestle him to the bank with my bare hands.

Luckily, that wasn’t necessary and after a few sphincter-twitching moments on the net cord he rolled into the folds.

If you had heard the scream, the release of pressure mixed with the flood of adrenalin as I finally saw a big brown mirror carp roll into the net, you would have thought I’d broken the British record!

The mirror was, without doubt, the one I had watched earlier; his fins were as huge on the bank as they had looked in the water. I have never, ever, been so happy to see a 26lb carp in all my life, the photo still has pride of place next to my computer and is one of only two carp photos on show in my house (the other one has my dear old dog Fat Sam in it).

I suppose it’s all a matter of what you want most from the sport at the time; there have been times when I’ve been totally focused on that one great big, well-known whacker, a 50+ mirror or a big common, and there will be again I’m sure, but at this moment in time I had caught an unknown mirror and, regardless of weight, it had made me the happiest bloke alive. G

Above: Peace at last, back to reality.

Right: Tranquillity at dusk. walked/waded around the other side to try to find them. At first I thought I’d blown my chances as a fish spooked from under my feet but I just caught sight of a confused-looking tench scuttling off across the bar. With the floats located I retrieved the rigs, removed the floats and placed the baits by hand onto two tiny clearings.

Back in the swim all I had to do was wait, and resist the temptation to climb any trees, as the bar I was fishing was also the entrance to another section of lake and should I hook one I had to keep it on my side at all costs.

How I stayed on the ground for five hours I’ll never know, but my patience was rewarded when a massive swirl

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