‘WRAYBSURY REVELATIONS’

KEITH JENKINS

Fishing at Wraysbury is not all it’s cracked up to be sometimes; not only is the fishing rock-hard, but the local villains don’t make life easy! In the final part of his look at Wraysbury, Keith reveals everything, warts and all.

I

had thought of just presenting you with half a dozen snippets from different chapters of The Wraysbury Chronicles, but instead I thought I’d highlight a few topics that seem to run as themes throughout the book, so here goes.

If you know anything about the lake, either by having fished on there or simply read articles about it, you’ll know that, as well as the nature of the lake and the fish, one of the most troubling aspects of fishing there is making sure that you leave with the same amount of tackle that you arrived with. For most, the presence of the local ‘undesirables’ is just an inconvenience, but for some people it became so much more than that. Here’s just a taster of what befell Ben Gratwicke whilst he was fishing on there: “The next 10 minutes will stay with me for the rest of my life and as I write this I can picture it like it was yesterday. As we drove onto the sailing club peninsula through the open gate, Simon at the wheel and me hanging out of the window still looking for fish, we rounded the last slight corner where the peninsula widens out and there, in the shade of the tree where I had left my car some hour and half before, was a sight that left me speechless. The car was still there, but the back windscreen was not, and all around the back of the car was a spread of glass glinting in the hazy afternoon sun; the car looked like it had been gutted, but it was not its guts it had lost, it was the entire contents of fishing gear belonging to Simon and me. On closer

inspection everything had gone – six rods, six reels, two bedchairs; the lot. All those years of saving to buy your precious fishing gear and all the personal bits you had accumulated from years gone by, all gone… We both stood in shock, complete and utter shock.

Wraysbury had dealt a massive, massive blow. Simon’s results from last year and my minimal efforts for such a reward lay in tatters, a mix of anger, disbelief and grief swept over me. The angler in the Giants Footsteps was no longer there, as he had decided to move, and our naivety, and perhaps being a little too relaxed, had been punished. My two-andhalf-hour drive home to Devon was awful, no back windscreen, no stereo, and no fishing gear.

I pretty much didn’t get it together for a while and when I had managed to scrape enough

gear together, it was a little farcical.

On our return to Wraysbury, both Simon and I were so undergunned it was hilarious.

My fishing suffered and although we were now using a boat and electric outboard it just did not click and I felt like I was always three steps behind. The long drive from Devon, and holding down a full-time job, was taking its toll and Wraysbury was winning yet again. Just to add insult to injury, on a social call to see Simon, when I had been visiting my sister in London, I parked my car in full view of his swim just over the other side of Giants Footsteps Bay and wandered round to a swim near the green fence, which looks across the bay, for a quick cup of tea on my way home.

As we sat and chatted I heard a noise and, looking round from Simon’s brolly, I could clearly

“The next 10 minutes will stay with me for the rest of my life and as I write this I can picture it like it was yesterday”

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ABOVE Are you ready for this?

see my car all safe and sound.

Strange, the sound had sounded like breaking glass, I thought to myself. Five minutes went by and Steve Alcott gave me a call.

“Is that your car by the Giants Footsteps?”

“Yes mate, it is,” I replied.

“I hate to say this, but someone has put a brick through your rear windscreen and whatever was in your car has gone.”

My car had been facing me and whatever scumbag had helped himself to my new bedchair, which I had been using in London, had obviously been watching me and waited for me to duck back under the brolly after chucking a brick through. Another long drive back to Devon in a very drafty car, but I was not the only one having trouble. Steve Alcott had had his rucksack nicked and Allen Welch had had all three of his rods and reels pinched out of his swim, but luckily he managed to trace the line

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which spilled off the reels and recovered them hidden in a bush.

The trouble was a group of young pikeys living locally had cottoned on to the fishing practices of carp anglers, and the cost of carp gear, so nicking rods, reels and anything they could get their hands on was a lucrative trade as the gear could be quickly re-sold!”

A salutary tale, but one that has been repeated many times over the past couple of decades.

It seemed that the pikey problem only started to raise its head once the lake became more popular in the early-’90s, but over the ensuing years tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of tackle has been stolen, and a similar figure could be put on the damage to anglers’ vehicles. That said, it would seem that the sailing clubs both suffered from similar problems, and are still doing so.

Still fancy having a go on there?

If that wasn’t enough, you still had to try to tempt one of the elusive beasts that are the whole reason we go there. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. Here are a couple of conflicting, but very similar tales from Tom Anderson and Adam Penning. First, Tom: “All I could think of at work the next day was that I was missing a prime opportunity to catch a Wraysbury ‘proper ’un’. On my way home that afternoon, during my now daily visit to the lake, I peered over into the canopy and was not surprised to see that everything I put in the previous evening had been consumed. Milling over the

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spot, looking for further grub, was Ray and one of the commons. Up to this point, everything that I had seen in the canopy had entered and exited from the left-hand side, however, approaching me from the right-hand side through the dense snags, and relatively tight to the bank, was Three Scale. I crouched and watched as it did a couple of circuits around the canopy before disappearing down to the right again. I scampered down the margin path to where the snags finished and perched in a tree. It glided out of the snags only a few feet from the bank, before gradually disappearing down the marginal slope. This had to be my opportunity! I put a handful of bait next to a tree root in around 3ft of water, exactly where it had exited the snags, and then gave the others their nightly feed inside the canopy. I returned again the following afternoon, but this time with rod in hand. I checked my margin spot to the right and was pleasantly greeted with a few of the telltale white polished snail shells that indicated that the silty area had been freshly fed on. I threw in another handful of bait and went back to the canopy to check on the group of four, in what was becoming their firmly established ‘home’. Just as had happened the afternoon before, Three Scale approached from the right. I returned to my margin spot to find that the bait I had deposited 10 minutes earlier had all been eaten. It just had to have been Three Scale. I hastily prepared and lowered a rig onto the spot, along

with a bit more bait, and perched in the tree next to my rod. It felt like an eternity but was probably only 15 minutes before Three Scale appeared from the snag. It swam over to my spot only 6ins above my rig, before spooking down the marginal slope. Everything had been completely pinned down and I couldn’t have asked for a better presentation, so what spooked it I will never know. I left my rig in place until the early hours hoping it would return, but to no avail.

The next day was Friday and I

fished the whole weekend on the right-hand side of the snags, but a little further down the marginal slope, where I hoped it would have less chance of detecting me.

Three Scale and the other fish were there for most of the weekend and I was convinced I was going to catch it, but the weekend drifted away and I was left wondering how the hell I had managed to cock-up such an opportunity.

Two weeks later I had the phone call to say that Three Scale TOP LEFT Just something else to

contend with at Wraysbury.

ABOVE And if it all becomes too much…

BELOW Three Scale had returned to join the others.

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Wraysbury Revelations Keith Jenkins

had made its first appearance for three years. It had been caught at Sunnymeads at the top of the North Lake (the furthest point from where I had been seeing it) while the fish were grouping up to spawn. Well and truly kicked in the balls! I had suffered a similar experience with a large mirror during my first spring on Wraysbury, when I must have spent eight nights trying to tempt this fish into picking up my bait from the edge. I was starting to wonder what I had to do to catch the ones I wanted.”

Adam fared a little better, ‘little’ being the operative word.

“The carp was still there, bait wafting out of his gills as he sifted through the banquet. I couldn’t place the rig, it was just too risky, so instead I rang Scotty in the vain hope of using him as a release valve for my pressure cooker cranium. I could see a small nick out of the lower tail lobe and Simon reckoned it had to be a fish that Phil had caught the previous winter at 38lb 8oz.

It looked bigger than that to me, every ounce of 40lb. I was in my dream-stalking scenario, but could I make it count? I could hardly even dare think about the reality of setting steel into such a prize.

Eventually, the fish ambled off, back up to the big snag to my right. Hooking on a small stick of the groundbait mix, I lowered the rig onto the spot. The way the shelf lay, at the bottom of this steep cliff, together with the fact that the fish was no more than 2ft from the bank, meant that the line lay was horrendous. In

“Less than a minute later, the common came back and this time he appeared to be mouthing the words ‘say hello to my little friend’” fact, there wasn’t any line lay! It simply rose from the rig straight up to the rod tip. Cringing at the sight of it, I fashioned a backrest from a likely-looking branch and used this to elevate the butt and get the tip down closer to the water. The rod placement was very awkward; it had to go under a crosshatch of small branches that were thin enough that I would be able to lift the rod in the event of a bite and at the same time over a thicker one that would have stopped me raising the rod. The line was vertical but slack, and, in all honesty, it was far from being the perfect trap.

Less than a minute later, the

common came back and this time he appeared to be mouthing the words ‘say hello to my little friend’ who was following close behind.

This was a mirror and looked to be around 35lb. As they both dropped onto my spot I could hardly believe what I was seeing – I’d only been at Wraysbury for two days and here I was presented with a perfect opportunity.

However, the dream quickly turned into a nightmare as somehow, over the next three hours, I failed to hook either of them. Although I couldn’t see the actual rig, I knew exactly where it was and they fed all around it, and even on top of it, without the

ABOVE Keep quiet and what fantastic sights you can behold.

BOTTOM LEFT At long last

– a Wraysbury carp!

slightest sign of alarm. I sat there and watched, boots off and ready at any moment to commence what would be a very exciting battle.

Nothing happened. I was drained. My shirt was damp with sweat, I had pins and needles in my legs and my throat was parched. I couldn’t remember ever seeing such protracted feeding on such a tiny amount of bait. I should have realised that the rig was ineffective earlier, but in all honesty, it was such a procedure to get it onto the spot in the first place that I really didn’t want to move it. Plus, I would also once again run the risk of spooking the fish when I respotted it.

Eventually, I had to admit defeat and retreat to the bivvy and regroup. As the fish nonchalantly cruised off to the right, I wound the rig up to the tip ring and unthreaded it from the branches. Back at camp, my head was spinning – was I really at Wraysbury? Why on earth hadn’t I hooked one of them?

I shortened the rig to 2½ins and changed the lead for a 5oz brute – this was war! Back in position I scattered a handful of the mix on top of the rig and waited for them to come back.

A few minutes later the

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linear returned with a smaller double in close attendance. They both dropped onto the ball I had just thrown in which had come to rest against the side of my lead, where it was slowly dissolving. Suddenly, both fish were gone, bolting in a blur, the line whipped up tight and I was in. In the bloody lake!

I jumped down through the branches and brambles, landing on top of my baited spot. The rod wrenched down and I frantically groped behind me for the landing net, its mesh entangled in spiteful wild rose. I waded out a couple of steps and nearly disappeared under the surface, quickly backing up and gaining a foothold as my adversary erupted on the surface.

I could see it wasn’t the linear and certainly not the common – it was the little scamp mirror but nonetheless, the words boomed through my head as I bundled him into the net: ‘BLOODY HELL, I HAD CAUGHT A WRAYSBURY CARP!!!!’

So, it can be done. But when you see what can happen right under your feet, imagine what might happen ‘out there’, hundreds of yards out, through weedbed after weedbed, and with carp so

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wary they can sit above your bait for ten minutes without causing the line to twitch; who knows what else might be happening?

“On peering through the Perspex-bottomed bucket I could see that the rig had been moved a good 4yds, the last 2yds having caught on a frond of weed and been doubled back on itself.

My heart sank and I wished so

hard I could have gone back in time and hit that jerky take.”

The spot was totally destroyed – every last scrap of bait was gone, and the weed had been uprooted. The small weed hole to the right of the spot was now the size of a dustbin lid, and a few inches deeper, with silt-stained stones scattered all over the surrounding area. Both rigs sat exactly where they’d been left…

A big leathery-looking carp cruised straight up to the bar and disappeared. I sat there in anger, gritting my teeth at the yachts, hardly breathing. I watched in silence. Fifteen minutes later she rose up again, rolling over before cruising off. There was just no way I could get out there; Wraysbury Sailing Club were having an open day, and there was tuition and races all day. In the evening my dinghy turned into a hovercraft as I raced out to the spot. It was polished cleaner than clean – oh, what could have been!”

Just a couple of descriptions that could quite easily come from any one of the 28 chapters in the book, and probably from the diaries of hundreds of other Wraysbury anglers. But it’s not all doom and gloom. After all that heartache, when you catch one, a Wraysbury carp, then there is nothing else quite like it.

“I’m on my own at Wraysbury with a proper carp on the end and action was called for, so I did the unsensible thing and jumped into my little inflatable dinghy with

ABOVE ‘It’s a dream!’

BOTTOM LEFT A most special fish.

rod, net and life jacket on and waddled out into the dark night to, hopefully, do battle. Whilst in the boat I yelled out to Thommo in the faint hope that he was awake. He was, and responded, saying that he was on his way to give moral support from the bank.

Out in the lake I was soon over the top of the fish, it was a good 15yds past the bar and after ten minutes or so of steady pressure whilst spinning around (just like Kylie), a big dark shape slid into the net. I let out a roar – it was a bloody great big common carp!

‘What have you got?’ shouted Thommo.

‘I dunno, it’s a dream!’

I yelled back.

It later transpired that he thought I had said ‘it’s a bream!’ and was about to leave me to it and go back to bed!

Back on terra firma I was gibbering like a baboon. On inspection we confirmed that it was, indeed, a great big common carp but it wasn’t one of the two known commons, Floppy or Judy. What was it? We giggled and shook hands and weighed the beast by torchlight – 33lb and some ounces. It certainly wasn’t a known fish and, to be honest, it blew me away and we stayed up all night drinking tea and willing the morning to come so we could take some pictures and admire the catch.

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And what a sight it was that morning, a perfectly-shaped, dark and scale-/fin-perfect common. He swam off strongly and I gazed at him, still mesmerised by the sight of him.

I heard and saw the run begin – only it didn’t just run, it flew! Line was positively screaming out and I was sure that the rod was going to take off at any second. It was frightening! I stumbled into the freezing cold mud, not stopping to put on my boots, and struck, but I don’t think the fish even noticed.

It just kept going…and going, and going, and going. This one was definitely not semi-dormant!

There is no way I can truly describe that fight. There were no weedbeds, no snags, no marker buoys; just me, the carp and lots of open water in the cold, December night. It made run after run, and then more. Every inch of line I gained I had to fight hard for and by the time I had it close in, netting it seemed almost unfair.

But net it I did and felt, somehow, that we had fought each other to a most honourable draw.

A moment later the rounded top lobe of an enormous tail rose through the surface beyond the end of the boat. I will never forget that vision. Although I had no Polaroids on and the light

was poor, the clear water gave me a reasonable view of what lay agonisingly just beyond my reach. Beneath the tail which sat motionless, a massive creamy brown flank stretched away from me. I swallowed hard; that was definitely going to be a personal best if I could only get it into my landing net. I went down the list of possibilities silently in my head, dismissing them as I went: Jacko’s Common – NO – this was a mirror – no doubt!

The Pug – It was the wrong colour and shape.

Mallins – Again, the shape looked wrong and so was the colour.

Mary’s Mate – This carp had the length…but it was far too deep in the body.

Cluster – It looked too long and too pale in colour.

I took a VERY deep breath…that left…

MARY! I am incredibly lucky to have had the chance to cradle that most special fish in front of the camera and, typing this paragraph now, more than a decade later, still puts a huge lump in my throat and brings the emotions of that meeting flooding to the surface.”

So, they are in there, you can catch them, but what about

Waddle? I can think of no better way to end this brief dance across the choppy waters of Wraysbury than with that mythical carp.

And who better to talk about it than two Wraysbury legends – Sir Pete and Lord Ken. Ken: “That same week, the week that Chris caught the record, Nick West caught The 40 as well, didn’t he?”

Pete: “Yeah. That was a bit strange because he didn’t have scales big enough so they put two sets back to back and weighed it that way. I’m not sure how well that works, but having said that, it was a big fish, wasn’t it?”

Ken: “Very big. The photos don’t do it justice, but it must have been 40ins long. It was a really long fish, and we saw it a few times, didn’t we?”

Pete: “The Sandy Fish, that’s what we called it, wasn’t it? It was a very light fish and you could see it from miles away. If you were up a tree and it was around, you’d spot it straightaway.

It was with the Sandy Fish that I saw the other one – Waddle.

Waddle! You saw Waddle?”

Pete: “Yeah. There was a guy called Keith Roberts on there before we started fishing for carp. He was there in about 1978. Well, he said that he’d seen a huge fish in

“Every inch of line I gained I had to fight hard for and by the time I had it close in, netting it seemed almost unfair”

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TOP LEFT Monsters and myths.

ABOVE Get it right and you can put

some very special fish on the mat.

there – a big, black fish – and he was convinced that it was over 50.

Absolutely convinced! He was so sure that he fished the lake nonstop for a year, didn’t go home, just camped out on the lake. I saw him a few times and he was a bit of a hippy, pretty zoned-out for most of the time, if you know what I mean. I seem to recall that he hooked a good fish and after a bit of a battle the line broke, or the hook pulled. That just fried him, totally, and I think he actually gave up fishing after that. Anyway, a few years later I was down in the Swimming Pool, and there used to be a big bed of lilies down there back then. I think they’ve totally gone now, but back then the fish used to get in under them, and it was a good place to do some floater fishing. I’d seen a couple of fish, then I saw Nick’s fish, the sandy one. I think it might have been after Nick caught it, so I knew what size it was, and then this other fish appeared and it was big. It looked the same length as The 40, which was a long fish, but as it turned I could see it had depth and girth as well. I was amazed. It was a darker fish than The 40, but when it turned side -on you could see this big, creamy belly. I tried following them up the lake but they just went off. This other fish was big and bulky, and it sort of waddled, so that’s

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where the name came from.”

Ken: “Colin saw it as well, didn’t he?”

Pete: “Yeah, Colin Swaden. He used to do a bit of scuba diving and one close season he and Ian Booker had been at Longfield doing a bit of diving. Then they went up to Wraysbury and had a swim around there and Colin saw a whacking great carp. I don’t know where he was, it might have been the Swimming Pool, but he was alone and he saw this great big carp. When I spoke to him I asked him how big he thought it was, and after a bit he said he thought it was over 50. People said about how things get magnified underwater, looking through a mask, but Colin had done a lot of diving and had seen a lot of fish – he knew what he was looking at. When I saw it I was sure it must have been the same fish, and I wasn’t unhappy with the size Colin had put on it, either. It was a very big fish, that’s for sure.”

Ken: “We never saw it again though, did we? After that it just disappeared.”

Pete: “I think Jan may have seen it a year or so later, and the way he described it to me, it seemed like it was the same fish that I’d

“People said about how things get magnified underwater, looking through a mask, but Colin had done a lot of diving and had seen a lot of fish – he knew what he was looking at” seen, so it was obviously around for a bit longer. Richard Skidmore also told me of a big fish he’d seen with Mary, and he put that at quite a bit bigger than Mary.

I know Dave and Phil also saw a big fish when they were on there, but whether we’re talking about the same fish, I don’t know.”

So, does that mean that Waddle is no longer? It became obvious, as I read more and more, that Waddle was a generic term for a large, uncaught carp, and it also became obvious that over the decades there have been enough sightings to confirm that, no, Waddle has not disappeared, it may just have changed in appearance.

That’s a little teaser for you, just a glimpse into what it takes to fish the legendary Wraysbury One. Yes, it’s hard – rock hard. Everything about it is hard. The terrain, the logistics, the locals, the weather, the boats, the planes, and especially the fish. So why even try? Well, because after all is said and done,

it makes people feel like this…

“Thank the Lord for carp fishing and thank the Lord for Wraysbury. Long live the King!”

“I went and angled for those very special fish, in a very special lake, and my life would have been poorer if I hadn’t.”

“I know of no other water where the capture of a carp can give so much satisfaction. Most carp anglers will not even tackle it, yet Wraysbury carp are the stuff that dreams are made of.”

“That is what fishing at Wraysbury is all about, a hell of a lot of downs and a few ups, but trust me, the ups are worth all those downs.”

“Wraysbury One is a place that stands proud in the history of carp fishing. Long may it continue to make many a fisherman’s dreams come true – it made mine!”

“But still I think of the place every day and dream of going back…And if I do, when I land my first Wraysbury carp, it will

be a very emotional moment.”

“To have fished and caught carp from Wraysbury is something that I found to be enormously special; it is a colossal theatre of carp fishing and an extreme challenge.”

“My time so far on Wraysbury has been the most enjoyable fishing of my life. The problem I face in the future is finding another water that can provide me the same quality of fishing.” “…but the magic was always there, you just had to believe.

Many times I’ve looked across the lake and thought, ‘There’s nowhere else on earth I would rather be than here.’

When you feel like that, the fishing is easy!”

“If angling is the great escape from real life, then Wraysbury is perhaps the greatest escape of all…”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. CW BELOW It’s a hard place to fish, but this is why we do it!

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