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Out 'N' About - TERRY HEARN

It’s been a while since I’ve done anything for the website, so I thought I’d do a bit of a ‘catching up’ piece and write a little about what I’ve been up to so far this year.
  
Though most of my writing is about fishing for carp, nowadays I do tend to spend a lot of my time fishing for other species, particularly through the colder winter months.

Without doubt it’s still the carp that take up the most rod hours, but rather than sitting through the grimmest of winter conditions, nowadays I like to pick and choose my sessions more carefully, and there were plenty of times when going fishing for something else seemed the better option. 

Towards the end of November 07 I was lucky enough to find a group of barbel living fairing locally in a small tributary of the River Thames. It’s funny how it happened, but I found them quite by accident whilst trying to catch minnows for perch fishing. Six barbel I hooked that first evening, though on the light float set up that I was using only two made it to the bank, fish of 9.14 and 7.13. By national standards they weren’t monsters, but considering I was using a 2.6 mainline to a size 16 hook it was quite an achievement to have got them in. Of the fish I’d lost I knew that at least two of them felt bigger, and from the size of the bow-waves bouncing off each bank every time I hooked a fish and spooked the shoal, it was clear there were a fair few fish held up in the swim.

Once I’d found those ‘secret barbel’ I could think about nothing else, and over the next few days I kept a regular supply of hemp, halibut pellets and 10mm Source boilies going into the swim. The very first time I fished it with proper strong barbel kit I caught two, a small one of around 6lbs, and a whacker of 14lb 5oz, a new personal best for me. With bait going in on an almost daily basis the swim just got better and better, and by the first week in January I’d been lucky enough to catch 26 barbel, 12 of those being doubles, with braces of doubles on both Boxing and New Years day. It was an incredible bit of fishing, made all the more special by the fact that they lived in a very quiet stretch of river, and so I was easily able to bait up regularly with little worry of anyone dropping into my carefully pre-baited swim.

In-between the barbel fishing I was still fishing a night or two each week for carp on a big pit local to home. The previous winter it had fished well running up to the Christmas period, but this year the weather had been a bit colder and the fishing seemed ever so slow. I’d fished eight nights in all between November and Christmas, taking just one fish, a fine mirror of 29lb.

Then, after over a month of inactivity, on a quick overnighter during the first week of January I caught a nice dark mirror of 25lb. I’d been keeping a couple of kilos of boilies, Fresh Fish with Robin Red, going into the swim at least twice a week since early November, and so to suddenly catch one was a good sign. Suddenly the barbel fishing was forgotten about and the carp head went back on.

The following trip was a three nighter, and this time round I managed three takes, landing fish of 23 and 18lbs, and unfortunately losing what felt like a much bigger fish. Still, in mid January on a huge difficult pit it was a good result, I just prayed I hadn’t lost the carp I’d been hoping to catch most, the big scaley mirror known as The Kingsmead Fish. The previous year she had been caught twice, the first time in May at over 51lb, and then again in August after spawning at 44lb. I guessed she’d now weigh somewhere in-between, a huge fish to catch at any time of the year, but in winter from a big difficult pit it really would be something special.

Just a few days later, during the last week in January I was once again lucky enough to get amongst the fish, this time landing the pits second biggest at 45lb 15oz, a lovely fish that I’d met once before the previous year. Obviously I was well pleased to catch him again, and he looked incredible in his orange winter coat, but it did make me wonder what I’d lost a week or so before. I’d known it was a very heavy fish that I’d lost, and in my mind I was sort of hoping that it was the second biggest, but once I had that fish on the bank I could see that its mouth was mint with no other hook marks at all. There were other big fish in the pit that it could have been, but it had felt very weighty and the more I thought about it the more likely it seemed that I’d already lost the number one prize, The Kingsmead Fish.

I carried on fishing the Big Pit pretty hard over the next couple of weeks, but it was difficult fishing and by the middle of February I’d added just one more fish to my list, a pretty mirror of 17lbs. With any big pit the most important part is being on the fish, and at the end of February I managed to find and get on them big time. I won’t go into too much detail as it’s a story best saved for when I’ve got a bit more space, but fishing through some seriously windy conditions I managed five takes the first time I fished the new spots, landing three lovely big pit mirrors up to 28lbs. This was on a Friday, and though I would have loved to have stayed the weekend the wind was just too strong for me to get the baits out the long range that was needed.
After two frustrating days waiting for the wind to ease I was finally able to get set up again on the Sunday evening, and at dawn on the Monday morning three baits were again towed out the mega range to where I just knew the bulk of the lakes carp population was held up. Five more takes came to the rods that day, with four fine big part carp gracing my net, the other making its escape in a snag. The last of the takes proved to be the one I’d been hoping for, the big mirror known as The Kingsmead, and at a weight of 47lb 10oz it marked the end of two of the most enjoyable winters carp fishing I’ve ever had. Obviously one day I’ll write about it all in greater detail, as for sure there’s some good tales to tell, proper man against nature stuff as let me tell you that big old pit beat me up on many an occasion. Oh, and I nearly forgot. When I un-hooked the Kingsmead Fish I checked its mouth for other hook marks, and other than the one I’d just made I found it to be perfectly clean, so what I’d lost a few weeks before I can only guess.

What next? Well, after finishing up on the Big Pit I found myself heading further south to fish an old haunt of mine, Vinnitrow in Chichester. When I last fished there some three or four years back the best bait I found was a single balanced tiger nut, and all this time on it was as though nothing had changed and still the tiger nut approach seemed to be the best method. I wasn’t lucky enough to catch any of the real big fella’s, but by keeping my eyes peeled and casting my single Monster Tigers to the milky spots, whenever they appeared, I managed to get amongst the fish most trips. The fishing wasn’t easy, the busier big fish waters rarely are, and in order to secure the better swims I found myself having to fish longer and longer sessions. After several weeks hard fishing I’d had enough and suddenly realised I wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as I should have been. Don’t get me wrong, the lakes got some nice lads fishing it, and I was lucky enough to bank some lovely carp over the few weeks I was there, but there’s more to carp fishing than catching carp, and I desperately wanted a return to the peace and quiet.
   
This is when I had a bit of a result. Back in the winter I was asked whether I’d like to spend five days fishing and filming a DVD on Chad lakes Home Pool up in Gloucestershire, home of the famous Black Eye. An instructional type Atomic Tackle DVD was going to be filmed on the day ticket water alongside the Home Pool, and the idea was that I would spend a few days fishing for Black Eye, and the cameraman would just pop in every so often to catch up on what I’d been up to. From my point of view it was a great chance to fish for a carp that was otherwise only fished for by a very exclusive and small syndicate of anglers. The chances of me catching it on my first session seemed pretty slim, even if it was going to be a lengthy five day trip, but even so it had to be worth a go. And so the date was set, and the filming was due to start on May 12th.
   
Most of what happened is best saved for the DVD, but by the end of the trip I’d really started to get a feel for the place. Luckily for me the owner, Dave, allowed me to carry on fishing there after the filming. The plan was that I would gather some material with my own video camera, and should I be lucky enough to catch Black Eye I’d be able to get some footage for the end of the DVD, even if it was from my own amateur hand.
   
Over the course of six long trips I gradually worked my way through the lakes stock of carp, once again catching regularly on the Monster Tiger nuts, but fooling the one that mattered most was the most difficult part. In the finish it was a change of bait to an 18mm Fresh Fish boilie that seemed to make the difference, and on the evening that he finally paid me a visit I had two rods placed just a few feet from the bank not ten feet apart. One was on a tiger, the other on a boilie. Of the 39 carp that I’d already caught, 36 of them had come to tigers, two on floaters, with just one on a boilie. Needless to say it was the tiger rod that I was most confident in, but I’d had a niggling doubt about it being the bait to catch the big’un on from day one, and the fact that its last two captures had both been on boilies made me think it was time to make the change.    
   
So many times I’d been close, and several times I’d seen him approach my spots just as I was lowering in my tiger nut hookbait, yet every time the buzzer sounded it was from one of the other fish. In the finish it was obvious he liked his boilies, and when it was that rod that signalled a take I had a strong feeling about which one would be on the end. I best not say too much as it really is best saved for the DVD, but old Black Eye spun the needle on the scales round to 50lbs, and so finished another lovely bit of fishing in a beautiful part of the country.
   
So now what? Well, it seems the time has finally come to have a crack at what to me is the most challenging of them all, Burghfield. For years I’ve thought about it but for one reason or another I’ve always shied away. Why now I’m not sure, but just lately I can’t stop thinking about it. Obviously the big commons ever increasing size has a lot to do with it as it’s nice to be fishing for a personal best again, something I’ve not really done since Wraysbury’s Mary, and also the thought that the longer I leave it the harder it’s likely to become. One thing for certain it’s exiting, and though as a write this I’ve only fished the one trip, I know I’m really going to enjoy my time there.
I’ll let you know how I get on,

Tel.