Strictly Carp: Martin Clarke

FOREWORD

by Rob Maylin

I first met Martin way back in the seventies, he was as keen as mustard even in those early days as a young junior angler fishing our local Vauxhall angling club waters. Even in those early days he struck me as an angler destined to succeed. Since we both came from Luton, in Bedfordshire, it was obvious that sometimes we would be fishing the same waters, but it was not until some ten years later that we both came to settle on the notoriously tricky Harefield Lake in Middlesex. It was here that I finally realised what a superb angler Martin had become. Out-fishing everyone around him, he took Harefield apart, breaking all the records in his path.

Later on Taplow I fished alongside Martin again, what an eye-opener that was, as Martin dominated the water during his short time on the venue. Martin has many strengths, but it is his observation and approach that are spot on. Martin’s attention to detail, regarding the end tackle, soon resulted in a new generation of carp rigs. As you will see in this book there is an excellent chapter on rigs.

His easygoing character combined with his competitive nature makes him great company on the bank and we have remained good friends for over twenty years. Many of you would have followed his exploits through Big Carp magazine and Carp World but here for the first time, the whole story of his amazing successes are revealed.

Martin has simply lost count of the hundreds of twenty pound fish he has caught, but the conclusive evidence of his statistics shows he has caught over fifty English thirty pluses and eight over the forty-pound mark. Interestingly enough, not one of these are the same fish caught by Terry Hearn in his amazing list of big fish, the two anglers have simply not fished on the same waters! Not only has Martin been successful in England but France, Holland and Romania have also been tackled, with his current overseas record standing at an impressive sixty-two pounds and eight ounces, with commons to thirty-five pound plus.

Martin is a true family man and has been with his wife Louise over twenty years and has a daughter called Kirsty who is coming up for her eleventh birthday. As a self-employed bricklayer time has always been restricted, trying to squeeze in as much as possible by, in his words, ‘working like a madman’. Martin has been a consultant for Rod Hutchinson and is currently employed by the highly acclaimed Solar Tackle as a field-tester and consultant. I am sure you will enjoy hearing of Martin’s fishing life, the ups and the downs, which have led Martin to become one of England’s most successful carp anglers.

INTRODUCTION

From the Start

Carp fishing is a funny old game, I mean one minute you can be busy at work and then all of a sudden you can get a flashback or a vision of a lake you fish or a carp you’d like to catch, it’s then you realise that carp fishing has begun to become part of your life, for some it is there life. The one thing that is certain in your mind is the fact that, if you could transport yourself Star Trek fashion, you’d be at the water’s edge in a flash, if not to fish then just to see if you could find a few carp and chat to a few anglers. The cold reality sinks in though, and a few seconds later, whilst your trying to concentrate on the thoughts going through your mind, you hit your hand with a hammer or trowel, well that’s what I’m always doing but then I am a bricklayer and have been since I left school in 1977. Good job I chose not be a chippy, as I’d have probably sawn through my fingers a few times by now.

Carp angling is to me what it is probably to a lot of you reading this, an obsession. My obsession for carp started in the summer of 1979 at a time when carp fishing was just starting to become popular. I’d caught carp prior to 1979 in my younger days float fishing corn or bread or ledgering luncheon meat on the local stretches of the Grand Union canal or at Ampthill reservoir, but that was tiddler-bashing compared to out ‘n’ out carp fishing where you’d be looking at catching carp somewhat bigger. The more I fished for carp the more engrossed I became in learning all I could about how to catch the carp I fished for, little did I realise that one day I would become a ‘Face’ in the British carp scene and write about all the things I’ve learned along the way.

I must admit that in my early days the size of the carp I caught never really entered into my head, I just enjoyed getting rip-roaring runs fishing with luncheon meat side hooked on to size 4 or 2 hooks, which, if my memory serves me right, I can remember a certain Mr. Gerry Savage hitting the headlines a few times when I used to read the Angling Times at the back of the class when I was a school boy. Then boilies came along and when I left school and started work as an apprentice bricklayer and earned some money, a whole new way of thinking soon followed, I even brought a camera.

I joined many local clubs over the next decade and started off pre-hair rig days at Henlow Grange and the Airman pit. It didn’t take me long to start catching a few carp but the mosquitoes at Henlow at the time were too fierce for my liking and I seemed to spend more of my time at the Airman pit which seemed to be stuffed full of singles and doubles, a perfect venue to get a bend in your rod. I never broke into the 20lb bracket at either venue but I did have twenty runs one night at the Airman fishing corn over hemp. Cor, those were the days. I caught a few doubles and lost a big carp at Henlow on a trout pellet based boilie, my dad, also a keen angler in his younger days, ribbed me for ages about ‘the one that got away’.

Even at this time I was fully aware that carp could be cute and one particular winter’s day on the Airman I watched a carp hook itself on my so-called bolt rig, and instead of bolting it remained in a very tight area having what looked like an epileptic fit, writhing about on the bottom obviously trying to rid itself of the hook. I could see clearly what was going on and even though there was no indication on the rod, I just knew it was hooked and just picked up the rod and landed a nice looking mirror which weighed just 10lb.

Vauxhall A.C. Woburn Sands was the next venue I tackled and one which was to hold my enthusiasm for a good few years for some strange reason, probably because I made a few friends and we got away with using three rods when most other local venues it was just two rods. There used to be two lakes at Woburn but the smaller one which only had six carp was to be filled in, but not before I caught the biggest resident at 21.11 lb from it stalking with one rod and a free lined side hooked boilie. The big lake, which is still there, is about 5 acres and crystal clear for most of the time, pretty much your typical small clay pit really. Amazingly the deepest parts of the lake were approaching 30ft deep, and there wasn’t any shortage of weed either at all depths which made plumbing an arduous task if you cast into the real thick stuff. Most of my captures came from the edge or on the surface when I first started at Woburn, although a few others caught a few further out into the deeper areas. At the time, 1980/85, there were around forty carp in the Woburn with the biggest carp in the mid-twenty bracket. Because Woburn was a relatively small club venue and received a fair bit of pressure in the summer months, the carp certainly wised up to us carp anglers a few weeks into the start of each season. I suppose this could have come down to the fact that in those early days the carp took a bit of a pasting by some good anglers.

I can remember the first weekend I ever tried hair rigs at Woburn as though it was only last week. I had six runs and only hooked one carp that went 19lb. I started off fishing with 25mm hairs and gradually shortened them to 5mm until I actually hooked one on my last takes of the session. I was fishing a swim I nicknamed ‘the Theatre’ which had a nice ledge at 10ft to present your traps, just a rod length out. Why call it ‘the Theatre’? Well the bottom was clinically cleaned from the rolling and feeding by all the species except perch and pike and you had to sit or stand on the high bank above your rods which was great as you could watch them feeding when they put their heads down. Watching and catching was, and is, such an addiction but its greatest forte is that you cannot fail to learn, and learn I did. I caught most of the known twenties, but two which seemed to like me more than the others were ‘the Pet’ and ‘Scaly’, both of which have since passed the 30lb barrier.

I fished other venues in the mid 1980s with these being Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire and the infamous ‘Cracker factory’ a.k.a. Stanborough lake at Welwyn Garden City It seemed everywhere I went I learned, and I even caught a few more twenties. Stanton was, and still is, a lovely lake with lovely carp in residence and funnily enough it was the first place I met Rob Maylin way back in 1975 who was catching barbel at the time from the nearby River Windrush. Vauxhall A.C. ran the odd coach trip to Stanton, and whilst Rob and all the other elders stitched up the lake and river taking the prime swims, my mates and I would drift onto the lake behind and also the lake over the road and poached them, metaphorically speaking, as we never had tickets. The lake over the road from Stanton was great as we youngsters had the place to ourselves and all the species came to our waiting landing nets, the local police had it at the time though we never ever saw anyone else fish there in those days.

When I returned to fish Stanton in the mid-eighties, I was shown a rig by the late John Burrows. The hooklink was a nylon multi-strand made up with a number of low strength mono lines. When I took this rig along to Woburn, my results just got better and better, at the time I used four strands of 2.7lb Bayer Perlon and basically the rigs were invisible when you put them in the water. Meanwhile, at the ‘Cracker Factory’, a pressured park lake the colour of pea soup, the carp showed similar characteristics to some of the Airman carp and it was my mates Gary Bearman a.k.a. Desperate Dan and Simon Day a.k.a. Doris who’d twigged onto the fact that a lot of the time you just got a single bleep, and if you picked up the rod and struck you often found yourself connected to another carp. I can remember catching a 20lb leather when half the lake was frozen one winter’s day which never even gave a single bleep, I saw my rod tip bend and struck to find I was in once more.

Other venues which interested me for a little time in the late 1980s were Withy pool taken over by Kevin Maddocks when it was day ticket, Horseshoe lake at Lechlade, Steppingley reservoir near Flitwick and Blunham L-shape near Sandy, another small club venue which I joined as it was close to a building site I was working on at the time. In my first decade of carp fishing, I certainly got around to a few relatively local venues and had action everywhere I went, though not every time I went I should add.

My second decade of carp fishing though took a different direction as I inevitably went in search of bigger British and foreign carp and tougher challenges. Many fine British carp have graced my net, quite a few small ones and quite a few big ’uns, from noted venues such as Harefield, Taplow, Lockwood reservoir, Elstow and Sheephouse, to name just a few I must have learned a lot over the years, if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t have caught so many carp.

Noted anglers have always written books but it was the likes of Jack Hilton, Chris Yates, Rod Hutchinson and Kevin Maddocks whose books really sparked the beginning of the current carp fishing culture that we now have at this present day. Other names soon became ‘Faces’ within our cult, too many to mention here, and magazines devoted to carp fishing started to gain momentum. Rob Maylin and Tim Paisley are two names I must mention though as these two where good enough to go through hell for us to get their publications off the ground, and both are still going and both have written excellent articles and books in their own individual styles.

Now it’s my turn to write a book concerning carp angling. What have I got to say? What have I learned? How do I fish? What have I caught? Hopefully by the time you turn the last page, you’ll be a wiser carp angler than you already are and you’ll try a few of the things that my friends and I have found effective. I’m convinced that, if you couple some of my knowledge and that of my guests with yours, then your results should be easier to achieve and a few extra carp will grace your net wherever you cast a line.

I’ve made numerous friends over the years and all of them have helped me enjoy my fishing in some way or another. Knowing so many faces, I could have been swamped with guest chapters from familiar names but I chose some of my closest, some lesser known, friends to write a piece for me in my first book as I know full well you will enjoy their chapters for various reasons, thus making my first book complete.

‘The Linear’, Woburn Sands, 1980, I think!

The ‘Rare One’, Wolburn Sands, a decent hair cut!

‘Clarkey’s Pet’, Woburn Sands, off the top!

A nice mid-twenty from Blunham L-Shape.

My first Stanborough twenty, on a single bleep!

CHAPTER 1

Ingredients for Success

I personally view British carp angling as a bit like playing chess, only carp angling is a lot more involved as the weather plays its part and it’s much more fun even though it has many frustrating moments. If you have ever played chess, or any other type of competitive sport come to think of it, then you’ll know and learn that the better the opposition then the tougher the game will be for you. The more you play tougher opponents, especially with mind games, then the level of your own game will rise above its present state. All we have to do to start learning to be more successful is to visit or fish the chosen venue, and then hopefully each time we return we’ll learn a little bit more, and sooner rather than later it’ll start coming together more often than not. Our opponents are those carp we each desire to catch and the other anglers around us to some degree. We should all learn from observing the carp, but we’ll also learn things from the other anglers, and take it from me making friends has certainly many more advantages than disadvantages.

Decreasing your failures and increasing your chances isn’t a bad direction to head for, and you’ll find it’s a continual process of learning, thinking, experimenting and responding accordingly to past and present experiences. When you’ve found a winning method, bait, rig or even a swim, then if the conditions look good then often it’s a simple exercise of replication which will help us catch more and possibly bigger carp. Be warned though as I have found that, in time, you’ll be getting a few too many repeat captures if you stay at one venue too long or fish one swim too often. On one particular lake I’ve caught the same 20lb plus carp 7 times, I even caught it 3 weekends on the trot one winter but I didn’t grumble each time as I was still learning.

Now, I’ve been criticised in the past by other angling writers about talking and writing about catching big carp, mainly the green eyed variety who talk the talk but can’t walk the walk. As you’ll see, I’ve been to a few noteworthy places and caught a few nice carp. I set out to catch the big ones because, believe me, the bigger they are the bigger the satisfaction I get, regardless of how long it took me to catch them. I’ve caught untold carp under 30lb and I still enjoy catching even a few small ones which I seldom weigh, but I have learned that, in order to catch the bigger carp, you have first got to learn to walk past the smaller ones because, if you don’t, then you won’t catch many of the carp you desire.

I have been fortunate enough to break a few lake records when others have been around and have had binoculars trained on me on quite a few occasions, so I must be doing something right and my photo album also confirms this.

Even I make mistakes though, and when I look back I can honestly say that I am not a lucky angler - fortunate but not lucky. Hopefully for all of us, as each year drifts into another, we will make fewer and fewer mistakes each year, and one of these years I’m not going to make any. Think positive and go forward is my motto.

Most of the carp anglers I know generally fish a few venues each season and move on after a few years, or they fish one venue until they’ve caught what they were after and then look for another venue to get to grips with. Moving on to new challenges can sometimes be necessary unless you want to continually catch the same carp again and again. Some people appear frightened to venture from their ‘home turf’, don’t let this happen to you as you’ll find that your fishing will be more satisfying as you’ll be starting from scratch and looking at different horizons, a fresh sheet and a new game, so to speak. I’ve found that, by fishing a number of lakes, my mind has not been fixed on just one method or approach and my confidence levels have grown to a level that needs fresh challenges almost every year.

The ingredients for success haven’t changed over the last two decades, and as we are now into a new millennium I can’t see them changing much in the next two decades although I will accept that most advances will probably be with bait or baiting approaches and perhaps a few rigs. Most newcomers to carp angling can be misled into thinking that success will come out of a bag, bucket or bottle from the local tackle shop, and then a few years later they discover that this is not necessarily the case as more ingredients are required.

Having fished a number of noted big carp venues, and even though I regard myself a good angler, I still never expect to catch everything in my first season on any given venue. This is simply down to the fact that I know that I will not be living on the venue for most of the year as some do, so my chances will be less to begin with. Being married and having a mortgage, job, child, bills, etc, means that I have and probably never will be a full time carp angler until the day I win the lottery anyway or pay off the mortgage. The vast majority of you reading this will also be part-time anglers such as myself, so if you approach venues as I do then you will not be disappointed. I have been the man to watch a few times so I know what I’m capable of, but I would not be so brash as to say that I have not learnt things from other anglers around me along the way, or that I know all I need to know a good enough reason to include some guest chapters from a few of my friends. Every dog will have his day, as they say.

My early days were spent just fishing for carp, any carp, but once I began to gain confidence I started to view my own personal fishing as something to improve on, and why not? I started looking at catching the bigger carp and with a different strategy to those around me I started to succeed and have just carried on really. Focusing on catching specific carp may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you look around I’m not the only angler who does it as most of today’s faces are at it to some degree.

Most of the venues, which I’ve fished in the past have also seen the attentions of other anglers, and although it has been detrimental at times in crowded situations, there have been many other occasions in which it has been beneficial to me. Let’s face it, if you’re the only person fishing a venue then you’ll only have your own encounters to learn from, but if you’re fishing a lake that, for argument’s sake has half a dozen anglers or more on there, then you will learn a lot from them without having to think too hard. Even when you or someone else has a result, it will be knowledge you can utilise in the future providing, of course, you see the event and are not tucked away in your bivvy reading a book or mag or worse still having a kip, mind you there are times when we need to rest.

Once you get to know other anglers, you’ll be surprised what things you’ll learn from them, long gone are the backward days when everyone kept things a secret as now most anglers know only too well that we can all learn from each other. You’ll always get some people that don’t want to talk to you, it’s their loss not yours, so treat it as a mind game.

For a few of us, carp angling is all about enjoyment and the likelihood of fishing in another county is zero as some seem not to venture far from familiar venues in their local vicinity. Not much of a problem if the local venues contain a few whackers, but if it’s mostly doubles/ twenties in your local venue, then after your hundredth double or twenty you then enter the stage that you’re not learning anything and you’re just going through the motions. It’s not beyond anyone to catch one or two big carp, you’ve just got to put yourself on the right water and apply yourself as others do. Catching big carp consistently is then the next step up the ladder and one in which not all of us will achieve without all the vital ingredients.

Although catching big carp can sometimes appear very easy, believe me it’s harder than catching smaller carp. I could give hundreds of examples to explain the difference but I’ll just keep it to a few so that you understand the pit-falls of pursuing the big ’uns, that’s if you’re not already.

In 1999 I personally caught more carp in one weekend at Horseshoe Lake, Lechlade than I caught at Sheephouse Lake that year, the difference is one lake holds a few thousand carp and the other just 18. At Harefield I would expect to catch 20 plus carp in a year whilst on some lakes you could well have that amount in a few sessions, a good friend of mine has caught 40 plus carp in a day on a couple of occasions. Why? Simple, there’s without doubt more small carp in this country than big ’uns, and the bigger they