Jim Wilson I N T E R V I E W
B Y
B R I A N
Being a police officer seriously restricts Jim’s fishing time, so it’s important that when he does get out on the bank he makes sure the time spent pays off. How does he catch so many big carp? We sent Brian Skoyles to investigate further.
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’ve done some carp shows with Jim in the past year or so because, like me, bait-wise he’s part of the Nutrabaits team. He’s also a member of the Wychwood team, so he’s a dab hand with both bait and tackle. So I already had a fair idea about Jim’s general attitude to his fishing, but not specific details. Since he has had a couple of particularly successful seasons, I was interested to find out the details behind some of his fishing. I arranged to meet up with Jim at one of his local waters, called Mesters, near Scunthorpe. I’ve fished Mesters myself in the past and knew that it was a weedy water, with some lovely fish, but it could be tricky, so although I was looking forward to spending the afternoon watching Jim fish, I wasn’t particularly expecting him to catch in the short time I was to be there – but more about that later. I started fishing with my dad when I was about 5, fishing for roach, rudd – basically anything that came along. We fished our local area around Scunthorpe and the River E, a small tributary of the River Trent. There were a couple of small farmers’ ponds that we used to fish for crucians, tench, perch, etc. I was about 9 years old when I caught my first carp. Fishing luncheon meat, my float disappeared at a great rate of knots, my match rod bent double, and I didn’t really have a clue what was happening, to be honest. That would have been 1989. Having caught my first carp by accident, I started fishing for them deliberately, with Hair Rigs and ready-made boilies, etc. A year or so later, Nick Elliot, who had owned Bankside Tackle in Sheffield, started advertising for members for his Lincolnshire fishery, so my dad went along and took me and my younger brother with him. So I got to meet Nick, who was a well-known, successful,
Jim:
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angler in the Sheffield area, and we started to fish Nick’s water; that’s when my carp fishing really took off. I remember doing my first night on my own. I say ‘on my own’, Nick was down the other end of the lake, and my dad had dropped me off, knowing Nick would keep an eye on me. In a weekend if you didn’t have 15 or so fish, you’d not got it particularly right. It was possible to get up to 30 fish on a good weekend. The original 80 or so fish had spawned successfully and the spawn had survived, so the numbers had increased massively. Fishing Nick’s water taught me a lot about how to make the most of every opportunity. You could watch the fish at close quarters so you learn a lot about rigs and rig placement. You can see how fish feed and the effects of lines in the water. Bait-wise, I used to use a mix of hemp, maples and boilies. My dad used to get our bait from Rod Hutchinson. Every three or four months he’d go through to Rod’s place in Legbourne, and get all the base mix and the flavours, and we’d have a massive baitmaking session. Out would come the plastic rolling tables, boxes and boxes of eggs, and the trusty Burco. None of it came out round, etc., but it didn’t matter, most of our fishing was at close range anyhow, but it was all part of the
First 30 – Arfur – taught me so much about bait and its application.
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S K O Y L E S
enjoyment. One of our favourites was Yellow Seed Mix with Chocolate Malt; it just caught well all the time. My dad was always really supportive, and having anglers like Nick was a great help. They really instilled in me the values that have served me well in my life so far. School was OK, but not really my priority. I worked hard, but the important things in my life were my fishing and my rugby. That worked well because I could concentrate on my rugby in the winter, and my fishing in the summer. From about 14/15 years old I knew that I wanted to join the police, so I worked hard for my examinations. I wasn’t a swot, but I did enough to get the grades I wanted. When I left school I had a year to fill before I could join the police, so I ended up working in Chapman’s Specialist Tackle in Scunthorpe. As a really keen angler, a dream job for me at the time. I got to meet a lot of the local anglers, and several of them became, and still are, close friends. I eventually applied and got accepted for the police in 2000. I fished Nick’s water for quite some time, but in 1999 I got the chance to fish Thompsons, in East Yorkshire. Now, for someone used to catching 150+ fish a year, Thompsons was going to be a challenge, the opposite extreme. Thompsons was really two lakes joined by a narrow, weedy channel. I remember standing near the hut by the entrance, looking down the expanse of the first half, with the channel and Pond Two in the distance, wondering, ‘Will I ever catch a fish from this water? There are only 50 or so fish in here. Oh my God, what am I going to do?’ I started fishing in the February, and the bitter easterly winds were something else. I was blanking and would get home wondering if I would ever catch a carp again. On reflection, I had just started too early. It was April when I got my breakthrough and caught one of the smaller stock fish. Soon after I saw a fish called Arfur for the first time. It came into the margin I was watching, it was the first time I’d seen a fish in the 30lb range, and I was just in awe, it was something else.
21/05/2012 19:11