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Here are some pictures of carp I have caught. I hope they don't take too long to load - I have included some descriptive text while you hang around waiting for them to appear.....

A twenty-pound common from Murston, Sittingbourne.            The hole in the reeds through which I caught the fish

This fish was caught from a difficult swim on the Third Lake. I had to chop a hole in a reed-bed to get a bait out to where I knew fish would habitually hang around and feed - you could see their tails waving about in the air as they dug around in the extremely shallow, muddy water! As soon as it was hooked it tried to escape into the reeds of course and I ended up going in after it, up to my chest in muck and silt; young anglers should not follow my example. No carp is worth dying for - and I do mean dying. There has been more than one angling accident in which fool-hardly individuals have done something stupid; in my case I knew the water and the swim intimately and was aware of exactly what I was doing.

Twenty-pound common from Bysing Wood, Faversham, Kent

  Earlier in the summer I had hooked this fish up the backside when it had swirled at a 'Chum Mixer' I had been fishing on the top with a fly-rod. The fight I had with it was one of the most memorable ever - I had line-burns on my hands where it had torn off so fast and I'd tried to stop it getting in weed! I had to drag it in backwards, the fish thrashing the water to a froth!

If you want some real action and your water is suited to it, have a go with a fly-rod - I'm sure you will find it's the most fun you can ever have with your clothes on!

Two fish from The School Pool, Faversham, Kent - 28lbs. 10ozs. (myself) and 12lbs. (my friend Peter Hanley), 1972

A blast from the past.........Peter and I 'cracked' The School on August Bank Holiday 1972 after having fished something like four hundred hours each without a fish - we were on the point of giving up before we decided to have a week's holiday as a last final effort and kicked off with these two. 'The Gut' (on the left) was a well-known fish although it had only ever been caught two or three times and was the biggest known fish in the water. I was convinced I had won 'The Potterton Trophy' (the club's Big Fish competition award) with this fish and was absolutely 'over the moon' - little did I know that Peter was to catch a fish two days later which was to become a legend and known nationally - a fish I named 'She'. On this occasion she weighed 30lbs. 4 ozs. and it was the first time she had ever been recorded at over thirty pounds (it was only the second or third time she had ever been caught).

Thirty-pound carp are 'ten-a-penny' these days but in 1972 She was one of the few carp not to have been caught anywhere other than Redmire Pool in Herefordshire. It was quite an exceptional capture - I remember netting She in the dark - it was so dark I couldn't see her swirling around in the margins and had to grope blindly about until I felt something heavy in the net. Then we got her on the bank, shone the torch on her and both gasped at what was undoubtedly the most beautiful carp either of us had ever seen. From that moment on I swore I would catch her (and in 1977 I did).

Read about my pursuit of She and my carp-fishing career in - In the Still of the Night.

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