Chasing
the hot spots
I’m so glad that I was in at the start of the specimen hunting scene
some half a century ago when some of the anglers who were around then
realised that catching above-average sized fish was not just a matter
of luck but could be done deliberately.
One of the things that one had to do was to discover and concentrate on
those fisheries that offer an above-average chance of big fish.
Nothing is constant in angling and certain fisheries spring to prominence
for certain species of fish, and the good times may last weeks, or a few
years before a decline sets in.
Several species of fish grow to previously unheard-of sizes nowadays,
especially carp and barbel and tench, but you still have to fish the right
waters to be in with a decent chance.
Highlights of my specimen-hunting period included regularly visiting Hornsea
Mere in East Yorkshire in winter.
The big roach that the mere was famous for had disappeared but the big
pike still remained.
The pike that the late Ray Webb and I caught averaged 14lbs apiece then,
with some 20-pounders and over among them.
Then the tench sport at Garnafailagh in Ireland. In those days we considered
a four-pound tench a good fish, but these Garnafailagh tench all weighed
over the four-pound mark, with most of them considerably heavier than
that.
Carp that were considered big in the old days were persued by fishing
the power station warmed water in an offshoot of the river Nene in Peterborough
in the depths of winter.
Our barbel exploits nearly all took place on the Yorkshire rivers though
modern anglers are lucky in having the good-sized barbel present now in
the Trent and Derwent.
It’s fortunate, because fishing for smaller species has badly declined
thanks to those rapacious cormorants.