Friday, 16th.March

The Ultimate Challenge

One of the exciting things about this time of year is the renewal or acquisition of new club or syndicate tickets. In one particular case, I have been waiting for the past three years to be offered a place - Kingfisher Angling and Preservation Society at Snodland (KAPS for short). So popular is KAPS and the waiting list so long, and the drop-out rate so low, many years can pass before a place comes up.

Recently, I reached a bit of a crisis with my carp-fishing. For more years than I care to remember I have scoured the South East of England in an endless search for my ‘ideal’ carp water - a ‘Spiritual Home’ if you will, where I can go and fish and immerse myself in total carpiness and this quote says it all as far as I’m concerned - “Carp-Fishing is who I am. It’s not what I do”.

This search has taken me as far north as Linear Fisheries near Oxford and as far south as Swanborough near Lewes near the south coast. Although I have not fished every water between these extremes, I have done my best to investigate and enquire about every bit of blue on the map in determining carpy possibilities… and still I haven’t found my ‘Home’ yet.

I aught to qualify that by saying ‘a spiritual home I can afford’ because there are many places right here in Kent which have the potential to be that place - but the cost of joining is so prohibitive they are completely out of the question. And that’s even if you can get offered a ticket.

Take Wingham Carp Syndicate for instance. Wingham is a wonderful fishery and arguably now holds carp to record size - I have even heard that an eighty-pounder (spawn-bound) has been caught! Last I heard it was £1900 to join and this puts it so far out of reach as to be impossible to justify on my pension. So the hunt for an affordable ‘Spiritual Home’ has gone on and on. Until now…

Many years ago I suggested to my good friend Phil Baker that Bough Beech Reservoir which lies between Tonbridge and Edenbridge is somewhere he aught to give a try. Knowing Phil as I do I thought this would be an ideal water for him as I know he loves the vast waters of France like Chantecoq and Salagou. I was proved right because Phil has gone on to catch the record carp for Bough Beech - a fantastic fish of 46lbs. caught last summer.

And then at last I thought, “why don’t I have a go?” Previously, I have dismissed Bough Beech as being too hard - its near 300 acres too vast that I should stand any chance of locating a carp willing to pick a bait up. I have heard Phil quoted as saying the carp density is about one fish per acre! That’s not very many! In fact it’s about a hundred times less than the optimum if you were undertaking stocking such a water! [In fact talking to Ken Crow the fishery manager, it was stocked with about 3000 fish so the density is about 10 per acre. Still not a lot!]

And yet it may just be for me. The membership is restricted to just 50 members per season and the Fishery Manager Ken Crow vets applicants rigorously to ensure suitability. This low membership is music to my ears. I so hate fishing in the vicinity of other anglers (unless they are a friend) I would even target waters which offer solitude rather than big catches. So it is with Bough Beech. Phil tells me he never sees a soul when he fishes…But how to get a ticket?

Monday, 19th.March

Meeting with Ken Crow the Fishery Manager of Bough Beech Carp Fishing Syndicate. I am truly excited and nervous at the same time - this could be the chance of a lifetime to fish a water most would cut off their right arm to fish (although one would be at somewhat of a disadvantage if one had to do that!).

The weather is about as bad as it can be; there was snow yesterday and it is still laying as I set off for the reservoir; the thermometer in the car reads -0.5 degrees!

I meet Ken at the reservoir entrance gate and we immediately hit it off. We are both the same age and have a similar background in engineering although Ken explains how he went on to study fish culture (and carp in particular), becoming so expert in it that his services have been called upon by governments and organisations across the globe.

I cannot believe the depth of knowledge and experience he has of carp as a species and we discussed many thought-provoking ideas and issues regarding carp behaviour, growth, survival and nutrition. Ken’s knowledge comes largely from his experience in breeding, growing, and developing carp and carp fisheries (and other species such as Tilapia which he did in Ghana) and such things as Food Conversion Rates (FCR) and the technicalities of stripping eggs from females and harvesting milt was an eye-opener.

It was the problems particular to fishing Bough Beech however which exercised my thoughts the most. The sheer size of the place is one thing. 285 acres of wind-lashed wild water for starters; but in the reservoir’s case it is the lack of anglers on the bank which on the one hand provides exclusive fishing and a lack of angling pressure - but on the other, means relatively little bait is going into the water and the carp simply do not depend on it as part of their usual diet.

The majority of waters in this country receive relatively high levels of introduced food in the form of boilies, particles, etc. At Bough Beech they simply don’t know what this is. They don’t go looking for it and are not regularly accustomed to finding it.

Ken explained that carp exist only to feed, and make little carps. They will eat whatever they can and if it is plentiful and in the form of protein (of at least 33%) they have no need to go to great lengths to seek alternative food sources.

Ken told me a story of when how he was out in a boat on the res. and had a ‘fish finder’ working. The trace on the screen revealed a shoal of fry eighteen feet deep by many scores of yards long!.. Here then is the plentiful food source which grows the carp in Bough Beech to monstrous size. They are fry-eaters. When there are many millions of fry, why then would they go down on the bottom and pick up a boily? Ken summed up the difficulty of fishing Bough Beech by highlighting the fact the carp spend most of their time off the bottom and the problem is getting them to go down onto bait.

“How big are the carp in the res. Ken?” The inevitable question, but the one which I thought I knew anyway. Both Phil Baker and Jim Shelley had caught forties last year but by all accounts these fish come nowhere near the potential of what might be there. Fifties certainly. Sixties? Possibly. I don’t disbelieve this. Ken cited more than one episode of truly huge fish being seen in the water of this size and if they spend most of their lives off the bottom feeding on fry then it’s logical they might never get caught by commonly employed carp angling methods.

I left the reservoir after our hasty orientation walk clutching my joining forms, as happy with life as I’ve been in a long while. I simply cannot wait for April when I can get started. I have only one word to say in answer to the problems of fishing Bough Beech - Zigs.