MC#3 Gareth Fareham interview

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OLDSCHOOL a new revolution gareth fareham

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Gareth Fareham Gaz, you’re from Northern England originally, I know that doesn’t mean Dad, and then I moved onto Redesmere when things got serious and I anything to a lot of our readers here, but could you explain what that wanted to make that step up and go it alone. My Dad wasn’t interested means in terms of carp fishing? in the big fish circuit, so we kind of parted ways there in angling terms.

It was a big step at 16 years old. Redesmere was THE big fish water in Hi Gio, I suppose in a nutshell, growing up and doing my carp fish- the North of the country in the late 90’s, had some of the best anglers ing apprenticeship in the North basically meant it was a struggle, and on the North West circuit fishing there, was immensely pressured, rock everything was hard won and earned! The North of England has a very hard and had a big set of angling issues to contend with like a 48hr rich carp fishing heritage, and although I was not blessed with large rule, long range fishing, at times horrendous weed, a small nomadic numbers of waters full of large (easy! haha, jokes..) carp like the south, stock of fish, deep silt but it contained some really special original I was blessed with a solid scene, full of really good anglers and a cou- 1950’s stock Leney’s, the fish that we hold in such high regard in the ple of waters very close to my home that contained some carp with UK scene. At the time the two big commons in there, which at the the purest of lineage. The other thing about the North, geographically, right time of year would go between 35-39lb, were some of the bigis that we don’t have any gravel pits, now that may not seem like a big gest in the whole of the UK. In terms of heritage it couldn’t have been point but the sense of history you get from fishing the old glacial meres any better and instilled almost all the values I hold to this day. I was and the estate lakes was wonderful, they were truly magical and mys- forced to learn very quickly, and within a few sessions I had stripped terious lakes; dark, decrepit, musty and ancient…much different to the my kit down to basics to stay more mobile on the big venue and had ‘feel’ you get from a fifty or sixty year old gravel pit which is brand new changed my whole approach to suit. People frequently blanked entire compared to something that was created during the last ice age!!! I seasons on ‘The Mere’ as we used to call it and I was well aware that fished some lovely little estate lakes with my Dad for a good few years unless I was absolutely ‘on the ball’ I would get no rewards, it taught (after the usual coarse and silver fish angling from the age of about me an awful lot, very quickly. I caught just three carp that first year, for 6) I suppose from being about 12-16yrs old I was carp fishing with my maybe 150 nights fishing? Also, and this may sound strange, but the 5

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lads were very ‘cliquey’ in the North West big fish scene, no one was too friendly to begin with, and nothing was given away easily, no one told you much and so almost everything that you learnt, you learnt for yourself, the hard way. Although that was difficult at the time, it was a blessing in disguise as it made me very conscious of the effort that would be required to catch these particular carp, and how high a regard they were held in, if anything it made me work all that much harder and it has definitely stayed with me until today that lesson. The lads were only being protective of something they cared about, and as soon as they realized you were on the same wavelength as them, they started talking and welcomed you in with open arms, and many of those lads who (literally!) turned their backs on me at first, and barely said hello, are some of my dearest friends now, many of whom travelled the length of the country to be at my wedding last year down on the south coast in Bournemouth, a 7-800 mile round trip for them! The social scene and sense of camaraderie on Redesmere was something very special through those years in the mid-late 90’s, almost everyone who fished through that period speaks so fondly of it and I think we have all been searching for that same sense of unity ever since?

With big or special carp far and few between in the Northwest of Belgium and in the North of the Netherlands, it feels somehow alike. We might as well coin this phenomenon ‘The North Fate’!

That could work as a t-shirt, a take on ‘The North Face brand’…but instead it could say ‘The Northern Fate’, haha! I actually have one with the North Face logo that says ‘The South West’, and often wear it on my trips back up North to wind them up, they hate it, Northerners are very proud people, but they also have a great sense of humour so it is ok!

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So why did you move to the other side of the country? Was it solely for the sake of carp fishing or was it for your girlfriend who is now your wife? And when did you move?

It was actually anything but the carp fishing to be honest, in fact it was the opposite! I had been absorbed by my fishing since I was a young lad, and although I had done other things including surfing, riding BMX, and racing Moto-X to national standard, it was always the fishing that had stood strong throughout the years. I damaged my knee really badly in a Moto-X accident in 99 which kind of ended my career and I made the decision to move to Cornwall for my education and to focus on my surfing as it was easier on the knee, less impact/ pressure. Falmouth College of Arts was right down in deepest Cornwall, very near to some of the best breaks in the UK, one reef set-up called Porthleven in particular, and also had a very good reputation as an Arts University. I applied and got my place and left for Cornwall, so the fishing took a massive back seat for about two years and I didn’t fish at all, just surfing as often as I could and making my art. During this time I also had surf trips to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, France and the Canaries. It didn’t take too long for the fishing to creep back in though, I brought my copy of ‘In Pursuit of the Largest’, Terry Hearn’s book, back with me after a trip home one time and quite soon I was making plans to collect my kit! The fishing was actually quite good, by chance there was a big reservoir just ten minutes away that had some old Leneys in, so I fished there for a few seasons. It was 80 odd acres and being just ten minutes from the south west coast took a battering from the big winds, it was quite a wild place, and I enjoyed it there, it was ‘raw’.

I stayed in Cornwall until 2005 I think, splitting with my fiancée at the time and moving back up North, it was too hard to find work down there and I wanted to set up a studio, so I made the tough decision to

leave. I was back in the North for about 18 months, working, making art and fishing some of the big meres up there again, and it was during this time I also started travelling south to fish some of big fish circuit waters down near London, a 600 mile round trip, but they were big fish and ones I wanted to fish for so it was worth the efforts! I moved south again in 2006 to go back to Exeter University to do my Teacher Training PGCE course, and ended up getting placements in Cornwall again, so ended up back in Falmouth at one point! I had taken my fishing kit with me as there were some lovely big commons in a park lake in Exeter near my Uni that I wanted to fish for but the course was so highly intensive the kit just stayed in my room, I lived in 3 different shared houses in that time as well, so the kit just lived in my bedroom, buried under all the other art and teaching related chaos! It was during this time I met my (now) wife, we eventually moved in together and have permanent teaching jobs and have bought a house here now, so the moving is all over for a good while hopefully, it is not very productive for the fishing! I currently live in Bournemouth which is right on the south coast, but only ten minutes from one of the best chains of gravel pits in the country, so now I have the surf as well as the big carp! and some of the best big chub, barbel and roach rivers in the country too! I am only an hour’s drive from the major London pits and the famous Colne Valley waters like Wraysbury, Savay and Yateley so I am well placed really now.

Don’t make my girlfriend jealous there! She’s the surfing designer of this mag and that’s exactly why we are living 100 metres from the beach, although there’s only a handful of interesting carp fishing venues here. Before we start talking about your carp fishing, I would rather link your interest for art to fishing as a whole, as this is what most people here will know you from – and the occasional vid on the Korda site of course, haha. When did you actually start drawing/making illustrations for carp books?

The air is better near the coast, it is good for the soul! It was way back in about 1997 I think, I was 16 or 17 and just doing my A-levels at school and the first book I ended up being involved with was Terry

Bad attitude.

Hearn’s ‘In Pursuit of the Largest’, little did I know at the time what an absolute game changer and influential and important piece of modern day carp literature that would become! It was odd how it came about really, I was just a skint art college student at the time, I was fishing the lake Redesmere we mentioned before and I wanted to get a new unhooking mat as I’d just caught my first thirty pounder, it was actually the biggest mirror in the lake unbelievably, my first bite as well! It was one called Single Scale, a lovely long mirror, and I’d just felt my mat was a little small for such a special carp, in hindsight it was fine really but at the time I was really captivated by all the Yateley stories; about Bazil and Heather, and Jumbo and in all the pictures they had these great big unhooking mats, huge, often with more than one laid out as well, I thought the sense of care they showed in the pictures was really inspirational and so I wrote a letter to Jamie Smith who ran a small company called CP products at the time, asking if he fancied swapping one of these huge ‘Yateley style’ mats for a drawing of him with a fish, he agreed and the deal was done. Terry was a good friend of Jamie’s and he’d seen the picture at his house one evening and been really impressed, and so a couple of months later I was sat at home one night and got a phone call from Tel asking if I fancied doing the drawings for a new book he was writing, of course I jumped at the chance and it went on from there, looking back now I was so young, and the drawings aren’t really that great, but it was still amazing to be a part of that book!

Since then I’ve had the pleasure of working with Terry again on his second book Still Searching, Mike Willmott, Tim Paisley on a number of occasions, Albert Romp, Martin Bowler and I even got to spend some time at his house with a hero of mine and true carp fishing legend, Rod Hutchinson, discussing how he wanted the drawings to look in his book and looking through all his old photographs, a wonderful opportunity and one I am grateful to have had the chance to do. It has been great to be able to be involved with the carp books, and it is always nice to see your work published. The drawings I have done for the carp books are vastly different to the art I make in my studio and what I made at university, it was highly intricate pure abstract painting for many years, and now I am working on large scale figurative work of vocalists and scenes from punk rock gigs.

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I saw some of that work and feeling very close to that scene as well, I must stress your work there is truly unique and I hope we can include it in the pictures as well. So things started off quite early for you then, but it wasn’t until a couple of years back you and your friends put out ‘The Forgotten Chapters’, now already a truly landmark in carp angling books. Could you tell us something more on it as why did you feel the need for it, etc.?

That’s really kind you should say that, thank you. I’ve always loved written and printed carp material, I have a huge collection of magazines, Carpworld from issue 1988, most of the early Big Carp’s, Carp Fisher’s…I have donated all the last 7 or 8 years worth of my collection to a local angling charity that supports under privileged kids, but I love the older copies, from the 80’s and 90’s, the stories had a bit more heart and soul back then? I also have quite a big book collection, I suppose my interest in the arts, and graphics and illustration influences that love of print as well. I had the idea for the ‘collective’ idea of a book of big carp stories by different authors for many years, but I suppose it is very difficult to just roll up at a printers with only an idea, unless you have the connections and respect from your peers and the scene, so it was good few years before I was ever in a position where I could make it happen. I wrote myself for all the UK magazines at some point for a few years, some stories, some technical, some philosophical…I really enjoy writing and I love photography as well, so I ended up picking up quite a bit of sponsorship along the way, it helped balance the irregularity of the freelance work making art and the time and money invested in the university education, and of course it made my fishing cheaper as well. I got very frustrated after a while though, the editors just wanted the same old material; a pva bag piece, a piece on winter hookbaits, a piece on single hookbait fishing…and my photos that I’d taken so much care over would just get crammed in, or cropped badly, or have some tacky border put around them! I just got fed and cynical with it all and to be honest it started to really affect my enjoyment of my fishing, especially with all the extra commitments I had ended up with, so I just cut it all, completely, the writing, the sponsorship, everything. I just kept my bait sponsor as they were more than happy for me to just do some lower key bits on the website for them, on my own terms, so I’m very grateful still for their help. I couldn’t help but feel that all the tide of carp fishing media was pushing the wrong way, soley towards selling products, and catching more and bigger fish and I felt it was all losing its soul. I would speak to kids at the shows who had only ever caught one twenty, or thirty and they were already looking for sponsors and writing deals, and wanted to know how they could get them, it is mad! Carp fishing to me is ALL about mystery and adventure, and chasing dreams that might seem unobtainable, the challenge is massively important to me. The magazines weren’t interested in that angle as it doesn’t sell any products so I thought you know what, ‘fuck it, I’ll just do something myself’ and so I decided to make the book.

By this point, 2008 I suppose, I had a lot of friends in the scene, and some seriously good anglers and hoped I had their respect and confidence, so I drafted out a list of potential chapters, and started making the phone calls. Everyone was so helpful, and it was amazing to work with anglers like Jason Hayward, Simon Scott, Martin Locke and Ritchie MacDonald as well as some of my close friends who had never written anything before, and to be able to publish their stories.

I wanted something that was gritty, honest and above all else something that was ‘real’, that anyone could identify with, the vast majority of the contributors have normal jobs, other lives, wives, family. I wanted to get away from that endless parade of big fish that are plastered all over the other magazines, complete with logo covered hats and jackets and replace it with stories about carp that lads really care about, just because they love angling, not because they are getting paid to be there, or have a commitment to fulfill, you know? That’s a

sweeping statement, of course there’s plenty of lads out there getting paid to fish who do truly love it, I just think the magazines portray it all in the wrong way if that makes sense?

That is so true and literally the same motivations as we had for doing this mag. Talking of mags, we might have a little scoop here for the Benelux readership as you are coming with your own mag as well next year. Can you tell us a bit more about your new project?

Haha, yeah for sure! The Forgotten Chapters has sold so well, and was so well received that I knew there was mileage in the idea, I always had faith that people would want to know about the different fish, rather than the same old ones off the circuit, or stories by the lads no one had heard of, or really old, long forgotten stories. Loads of people had asked me whether I was doing a ‘Part 2’, and although I liked the idea and there was plenty of material out there I didn’t just want to roll out a follow up for the sake of it, and I also had other ideas! I wanted to do something that would document the scene more, something that could encompass a whole lot more than just self written stories, so I came up with the idea of producing a ‘Journal’ instead, with the idea to produce one Issue per year, released on June 16th each season (which is the old start of the UK season that was abolished years ago) It will be more ‘book’ than mag, at 300350 pages, soft back and high quality stock paper and I think calling it a ‘Journal’ immediately gives it the sense that it is intended to be taken seriously, and that it isn’t just a thinly veiled excuse for an advert. So what you will have is a range of stories, big interviews, mini interviews, gallery sections…pieces about strains and stocking, ecology, politics, travel, old school/ new school, scenes, creativity… pieces based on photography, all manner of material relating to big carp culture, from some of the best of the UK’s anglers as well as some from Europe. I am really interested in how some of the European anglers are pushing their photography and I’m also fascinated by some of the big water angling, and canal and river fishing… there is a whole new sense of adventure to all that and I think the UK has a lot to learn from you guys, so much of the U K

scene has become a bit narrow minded, so there will be pieces from Belgium, France, Germany in there as well hopefully. The focus of the whole publication will be on quality, and the photography, design and reproduction will be as good as we can possibly get it. I am essentially doing the whole thing myself, with my designer and help from friends, so am flat out at the moment trying to get the material for Issue 1 together! As well as work/teach, illustrate and build an otter fence at our syndicate in the evenings…we have bad problems in our area at the moment! Oh yeah…there’s going to be an online blog to back up the printed publication as well with other material, interviews, short videos etc as well, again, anything the documents and portrays big carp fishing in a positive way. I really believe we need a new direction as a pursuit, and I believe the media plays a huge part in shaping the path things take. I’m not saying my way is ‘right’, but it will certainly offer something different.

Sounds really cool and cain’t wait for June 16th next year! So what’s the title of your journal then, or is it still a bit of a secret?

It’s going to be called Subsurface, of course that has many connotations; getting a bit ‘deeper’ etc, but it also rhymes with ‘subversive’ which I like as well! Haha!

Did you actually know it will affect your fishing time? :-) Haha! I did yes! The Forgotten Chapters took up a huge amount of my time, and because that was only collating stories I knew this project would be even more labour intensive as I’m out interviewing and photographing and filming for it as well, but I think I am just as excited about documenting carp fishing these days as I am actually catching them, you know? And I just think the UK scene really needs something positive like this, I know a lot of really good anglers and old school lads who are dropping out of it because of the way it is all represented and the bullshit and hype. I am more than happy to squeeze my angling into short overnight sessions these days, that way I can still do lots of work as well.

I am going

to have to be much more careful with my lifestyle and work ethic this time around though as I ended up making myself really quite ill during the last stages of putting the book together, I was still fishing 2-3 nights a week, teaching Art at the school, working on other commissions and travelling to and from the printers around in Essex, which was a five hour round trip. I was fishing ‘the Mere’ the spring the book was coming together, not the mere up north, THE Mere, the one containing the Black Mirror in the Colne Valley. Generally I’d be leaving Bournemouth in the evening after work, arriving at The Mere in the dark, it was a big walk in from where it was safe to park your car, then I’d have to try to figure out if anyone was fishing, which is not easy with everyone essentially ‘hidden’ away, then retrieve my kit from it’s stash hole. Set up, fish the night, then the rods would be back in and stashed again by 7am, I’d then head off around the M25 (London Ring Road) to the printers, with the rush hour traffic that could take another two hours, I’d spend the day there laying the book out and tweaking pictures and captions, drinking lots of coffee and that and then head back off to repeat the process, often with another couple of hours on the M25 in the traffic. I was also dropping in and baiting the Car Park once a week during that time on the way to or from the Mere as it was the close season at Yateley, always under the cover of darkness as well as technically pre-baiting was banned. I did that for a few months through late Feb, March, April and into May. The fishing on the Mere was intense, and often uncomfortable, and in the end I just burnt myself out trying to do it all, ending up in Hospital on a drip for a few days with suspected appendicitis just a week after the final proofs of the book had gone to the printers, it turned out to be acute IBS and since then I’ve suffered with it from time to time. I’m completely caffeine and alcohol free these days which helps massively, but I also try not to get too wrapped up in campaigns like that as well, I wouldn’t mind but I didn’t even get a bite that spring!

So where are you squeezing in those overnighters at the mo? Are you targeting something special/undergoing a full campaign or just fishing a bit ‘here and there’?

Living in Bournemouth now I am really, really, lucky to live so close to the Ringwood pits. They are just 10 minutes from my doorstep! I was fortunate to get a Roach Pit ticket last year so I have been concentrating my efforts on there. Previously to that I’d been travelling up to fish Yateley for about 3 years, I’d caught 4 out of the 6 big old Car Park mirrors; The Dustbin, Pearly Tail, Heather and the Baby Orange and had burnt myself out a bit fishing in such a calculated way, tailoring my approach for just one carp, Arfur. In the end I knew I needed a break from that intensity of the Car Park and Roach Pit is great because you have somewhere in the region of ten or twelve 40lb+ carp, including half a dozen over 45lb and three over 50lb at the right time of year. So although there are really special ones in there I’d dearly like to catch, if one of the big fish does get caught, there are still plenty more to fish for, and some of the smaller thirty pound mirrors are just incredible, dark, scaley and rare visitors to the bank as well. It felt great just to be ‘angling’ again for whatever came along. The Roach Pit fish are an amazing strain, and there is a good few seasons fishing to be had on there, it is not easy at all either, 3-6 fish is a very good average season. I’m not very good at flitting from venue to venue, I tend to be a ‘one water at a time’ type of angler, I find it hard to spread my efforts and really enjoy getting tuned into a venue, learning about the fish, their habits and also keeping something going in terms of baiting and ‘prepped’ spots, that is hugely important to me for making the overnighters successful. I tend to have a spring campaign somewhere different, a main water for the bulk of the season and then spend the winters flitting about a bit socialising and fishing the rivers for the big chub.

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Sole Kempisch carp in a week, but meaning so much to me!

That’s what you hear quite often, after some years of intense target angling for just one particular carp at a time, people tend to ease off and even quit carp angling at all, or they keep angling for big fish but then for whatever comes along. You mention Yateley there, I guess a lot of people here will have seen your vid banking Heather but few will really understand the hardship of fishing a place like that.

I know lots of anglers that have been finished off by a place like the Car Park, the intensity just changes something inside you? I remember meeting Hampshire Graham on Vinnetrow the spring before I started on the Car Park, one of the first things he said to me was ‘Don’t let it ruin you son’ I didn’t really understand the magnitude of what he meant, but three years of hopes and dreams down the line and I knew exactly! He had fished the Car Park very hard for a good few years and had been through it himself. It was a magical place, I can’t quite explain the sense of buzz that everyone had about the lake and the fish…

I have never experienced anything like it anywhere else. Because it was all so acute, and you put so much into it, both mentally as well as physically I think it drains you somehow, and when you finish, you are just left empty? I can’t say there were many genuine ‘hardships’ to fishing Yateley, the social aspect was massive, and thoroughly enjoyable. A lot of the old regulars would drop in in the evenings for tea and a chat, it was the ‘hub’ of the local scene and you’d have lads like Steve Fudge, Steve Pagulatos, Lee Picknell, Scott Karabowicz, Darren Miles, Benny Hamilton etc down there which was great, especially as you’d get to hear all the old stories, I loved the sense of history the place had acquired. I think the hardships were the mental ones, the psychological effort you invested into the angling. Realistically the big mirrors would only do two captures each a year at best, one early on, either in June or July, and then one in the late summer or autumn, so if you were targeting a particular one of them, and they did a capture, you would then be looking at working towards just one more potential opportunity, channeling everything towards that one chance, your baiti n g , your spots, your whole approach could be tailored towards particular targets on the Car Park. It was mad really, you’ve be investing everything in building up to that one chance.

I’d be watching my phone continually, at the start of the second season when I’d invested a lot of time and effort baiting throughout the close season every text would make my heart jump…I think there was only thirteen ‘mirror’ bites that second season I fished there, just thirteen, between a whole syndicate and ten months of angling, it was no wonder it was like a pressure cooker! The lads used to say it was an average of about 70-80 nights per bite, and if you caught one mirror a year you were doing really well. I used to think of it feeling like you 14

were a spring being tightened down, each week it cranked you down another notch or two, and again, and again, until either you caught one yourself, or someone else did and the pressure was released!

Really, during the time I fished there almost all the syndicate were focused on catching Heather, so you can imagine how it was. Despite all that, I never felt a shred of jealousy, bitchiness, or saw anyone being deceitful, or trying to stitch swims up…it was like everyone was working together, helping each other along. In fact a few of the really hard lakes I’ve fished have had that same sense, I think the difficulty breeds some sense of unity? I can recall many situations where I’d been up a tree offering directions to a friend to help them pinpoint a tiny gravel spot, or helping them hand place a hookbait by holding the rod. I made some really good friends at Yateley.

Well, that’s totally different to here! I clearly remember my early reserve days when we were boating out baits at night and if you didn’t have a friend to look on your kit, other anglers would just reel yours baits in 20-30 yards while you were boating back (if that does make sense). Anyway, if we’re not mistaken, you do favour a bit of nature reserve fishing yourself, don’t you?

“Ik kan Not all the lakes in the UK have that atmosphere I can assure you, Yateley was a bit special! Many of the more prolific big fish lakes have a cutthroat and ‘fish at all costs’ atmosphere, but fuck that, I just can’t be bothered with those attitudes!

To be honest, I do look for lakes that have a nice tight knit scene and good lads fishing them, that is important to me these days. Yes you are right, I absolutely love the reserve fishing, after the pressure and intensity of the Car Park, some seclusion and absolute escapism was really needed, so I did quite a bit of that after my years at Yateley, it was one extreme to the other! It is funny, apart from my very close friends I am very protective about the reserves though, you have to

keep it quiet, not tell anyone what you are up to…the more people know, the more likely it is to get ruined by the cover being blown, or too many anglers turning up. I think you have to be very respectful with that type of fishing, and not everyone is always that good at that sadly…I have never written about my reserve fishing either, or published any photos. Again, unless you hide the location really well I think media attention can be potentially damaging to sensitive reserve fishing, especially in the UK with so many carp anglers, and not so many venues and carp.

Things are changing over here as well, there’s so many people trying to do so little you know.

Banks get busier and busier every day. Have you ever fished here/outside the UK? If so, how was it like? Are you planning to come back? What are you looking in a foreign venue? Public versus commercial?

KK m agic.

I’ll be honest, sadly my first trips abroad were to shitty commercial lakes, I did a few bits of filming with a rather well known tackle company out there and it just really wasn’t my thing at all. Catching a couple of forty and fifty pounders every night is just a contradiction of everything I believe in about carp fishing, no real thought needed, not a whole lot of effort…and certainly no challenge at all. I respect the fact that everyone wants different things from their fishing, but I also think it is down to what the media have pushed, if they promote these easy over stocked commercials then that is what people want to go and fish, simple. They create the demand, then fish theft and overstocking supports and supplies it. Since then I have only had one trip overseas, and that was to the Kempisch, which was amazing, I only caught one, a low twenty common, in the week I was out there but I’d rather catch one 22lb common from somewhere like that than a hundred fat grey fifty ponders from commercial venues, you know?! I’ve got a few close friends in Ringwood who are well into the reserve and public fishing out in Europe and they’ve really inspired me of late to get back out there, so I have two trips planned for the autumn this year, to where? I have no idea as of yet, and I like it like that, make an adventure of it.

Thank you Gareth! Although there’s still plenty of stuff to ask you, I guess that’s it for now as we are running out of space. But we hope you will be back in the next issues of MC with an article/ feature now and then! And of course, all the best with your fishing and SS! Of course Gio, many thanks for having me and I look forward to seeing you again soon!

F: Gareth Fareham & friends, Oli Davis

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