Carpworld 343 April 2019

KEVIN CLIFFORD

BRIAN SKOYLES

CARP STRAINS UNCOVERED

TAKING FLOATER FISHING TO THE NEXT LEVEL

THE ORIGINAL AND STILL THE BEST

inside

WIN

STUART HIGGS AGAINST THE ODDS

C M-TE 10 R DLES BUN 1000 TH £ R O W

THINK TANK

THE END OF FISHMEALS?

APR – 2019 Issue

343 £4.75

S T E V E LYA S

D AV E L A N E

IAN CHILLCOTT

OVERNIGHT LIFE

T I L G A T E PA R K A N D B E Y O N D

JACK OF ALL TRADES

ALSO: MIKE WILLMOTT DARRELL PECK GARY BAYES TIM PAISLEY FRANK WARWICK

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PAUL FORWARD

CHRIS BALL

MARK BRYANT

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Kevin Clifford

Straining Credulity Afterthoughts

Back in the March 2018 Carpworld Kevin wrote an article that tried to shed some light on the complicated and confused world of UK carp strains. Since then a little further information has come to hand concerning a couple of the businesses that were main players in the import of carp after the 1960s

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ABOVE

Modern day carp farming at Zonhoven in Belgium

ABOVE LEFT

The drain-down of central European fish farm ponds at the end of the growing season is often a matter of much local interest and celebration

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I

t was unclear when I wrote the article where Stambridge Trout Fisheries had sourced their carp.

There had been a suggestion from Mike Wilson (concerning a Savay stocking) and Jim Gibbinson (who knew the proprietor of Stambridge) that the company imported its carp from Holland – although I had sourced a reference to Stambridge obtaining carp from Germany. However, I subsequently managed to track down 80-yearold John Powling, who had been the owner of Stambridge Trout Fisheries.

John’s father, Edgar, started the business, with his father Bertie, in the 1930s by digging a twoacre stream-fed lake to allow people to hire rowing boats, combining this with some tea rooms. After

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a while they installed some aquariums in the tea rooms and customers started asking if they could buy the fish. In 1947, after the War, they started importing carp from Germany, and gradually grew the fish business and curtailed the tea room trade. John left school at 16 and joined the business in 1954, and did most of the fish delivery work, whilst Edgar managed the site. They also netted lakes in the UK for coarse fish other than carp, but switched from Germany to Belgium around the late 1950s, mainly because the Belgian farm could supply a comprehensive range of different species.

The German carp had mainly been flown in, and this was continued after the move to Belgium with the fish flown from Ostend airport to Rochford.

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The big Interveiew Part II

Due to some overriding bits and pieces, Darrell is taking a sabbatical from his fishing through the course of this winter and spring, so we thought we would take the time to delve a little deeper into his mind and thoughts while he has some time on his hands Darrell Peck

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Steve Lyas

Overnight

life

Steve Lyas doesn’t have a great deal of time at his disposal and consequently he really has to put the effort in when and where permitted. Despite the lack of rod hours, he has been blessed with some incredible results

M

ost of my fishing time is made up with overnighters, which always happen to fall in between working days. Like most people reading this, I have a family, a wife and our own business, so finding time to go fishing can be tricky at the best of times. Still, where there is a will there is a way and I make every effort to go as much as I physically can.

Having said that, I guess one night a week is about average and they are often really short nights. I can’t ever get away from work early, so won’t arrive much before 7pm at best and I must be packed up by 6am – which can be hard if you haven’t caught anything. Broken sleep is the worst, and I am often shattered at work, but if you do catch it makes it all worth it.

Sometimes I feel that having a couple of days in one session would be an advantage, so I often stockpile my nights, not bother going for a few weeks and then do a 48-hour trip. If this is the

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Jim Wilson

Along the Way

– An Autumn’s Wandering Jim is back with another instalment of his bi-monthly piece, taking in the tail end of last year on the big boating pit and a much smaller intimate Lincolnshire venue that he helps to manage

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fter the much needed break in the sunshine it was time to get the rods out again, and before my annual leave at work finished I managed to get back to the Lincoln syndicate for a couple of nights. I arrived at midday on the Sunday, letting the lads who had fished the weekend get wrapped up before having a good look around. The fish I could see all seemed pretty pinned in the middle area of the lake, so I opted for a swim called Bailiffs, which entailed a bloody good walk with the barrow. Once in the swim I found an area at just over 120 yards range, where I got a good pull on the lead and smudges of clay came back on it. That, on this particular lake, is the one for me and soon enough I had a bucket of Krill, hemp and corn, plus a few liquid and powdered additives, deposited on the spot and three rods were launched out to fish over the space of around a rod length.

Now, I’m not the biggest caster, but I pride myself on accuracy, so this tested my resolve with a big crosswind blowing. I reckon I was on about cast number 14 when I finally got the third rod out to the mark just how I wanted it, and with the lines running parallel from the tips! All three rods were fished on the trusted fluorocarbon D rigs, with balanced hookbaits – although for this trip I reduced the size of the hookbaits to 12mm to hopefully blend in better with the loose feed items. I wasn’t concerned that the fish were backing off the bigger hookbaits, but still figured that by going smaller it could maybe produce me a few extra bites.

After a typically quiet night on the pit (I’d not had a night-time bite at this point), I was sat watching and the spot started to ‘plink’ with tiny little flat spots appearing – an indication that fish had visited the spot for sure. Around 8.30am I was on the phone to my good mate Carl, who was also fishing the pit but on the far bank, and I said to him I thought I’d missed the chance for the day as the spot was properly kicking up and the flat spot was obvious for a good 15-20 minutes. It was about an hour later when the right-hand rod, the one that had taken a stupid number of casts, pulled up and out of the clip. After a typical long-range fight, with lots of kiting left and

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Next Month

In the May issue Rigworld This month’s Rigworld features a chat between Mike Kavanagh and Dave Levy Bernard Sissons – The interview Brian Skoyles conducts a question and answer session with his friend and lifelong angler, Bernard Sissons, on some of his ‘light bulb moments’ through the years Ed Betteridge This time last year, Ed decided to take time out from his writing and just spend some time fishing for himself, away from the madding crowds, the only question was where...

Also next month...

Darrell Peck, Dave Lane, Loz East, Paul Forward, Ian Chillcott, Julian Cundiff, Chris Ball, Tim Paisley...

On sale: Tuesday 23rd April 2019 | Subscribe now to have next month’s issue delivered to your door! www.gifts4anglers.co.uk

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