December 6th – A red letter day


I’d been looking forward to Saturday 6th December, even though necessary seasonal chores had to be carried out. However, each job would take me near a different fishing venue. First thing to do was to return a boat to Pete Hibberd who lives in Hungerford, which was close to a canal I fish. With the boat loaded on top of the Landrover and a barbecue which had to be returned later to the Carp Society at Horseshoe Lake jammed in the back, it occurred to me that while in Gloucestershire I could nip over and pay my respects to Gerry Godden, owner of Whelford Pools.

The previous week, I’d been thinking it would be great to catch a carp from each of these venues in one day, as well as getting my jobs done, and arriving home at a sensible hour for dinner, therefore, not upsetting my partner.

First stop was the canal, Ben and I crept down to the bank side to be greeted by masses of bubbles caused by feeding carp. Amidst the mist coming off the water a common carp well in excess of 20lb rolled slowly, followed by a mirror around the same size. Ben and I carefully lowered our worms into the bubbles and within seconds both our floats had registered bites and we were doing battle with a couple of big winter carp. Both these carp were landed: a common of 27lb and a mirror of 28lb. First venue sorted!

A quick drive to Pete’s to deliver the boat and then it was on to Horseshoe. Upon gaining entry and driving to the caravan to drop off the barbecue, Ben and I saw masses of fish – maybe sixty fish – roll in Summer Bay. Soon we had our rods out and, as we looked out across Summer Bay, ghostly figures shrouded in mist could be seen on the far bank. In the close margins bubbles could be seen and in a flash I spied four big fully scaled mirrors. Lowering my float carefully over the feeding fish, once again within seconds the float shot away and I was into a hard fighting fish. It fought like the clappers, but succumbed in the end to my superior rod skill! It was a beautiful fully scaled mirror of 30 ¼ lb. Phew!

Now all I needed to do was to catch from Whelford. We drove to the venue full of anticipation and, after talking to Gerry he let us loose on the Top Pool. Here we were greeted with clouds of mud erupting from the bottom. There wasn’t another angler in sight as we laid on the ground and looked into the muddy waters. Carp were moving backwards and forwards as I lowered my trusty float and worm. Incredibly, the float registered yet another bite and a big mirror came grudgingly to the net. On the unhooking mat this fish looked big. Guess what? It turned out to be a new lake record at 26lb.

“John. John? John! Wake up, you’ve got a busy day ahead.” I sat up in bed and thought, Shit, what a dream!
I did do all my chores and visited every fishery… but not a fish was seen and I even arrived home late! Keep dreaming.*

John Hofgartner

*Article published by Carp-Talk n°183 (Week-ending 10th of January 1998)