Redmire's Real Monster - The King

[Loop Erimder]

When I catch him in 4 weeks time on me new MKIV and I have priority to fish Redmire I'll take each and everyone of you as my treat

Have you by any chance dreamed about it's capture?

Everyone except Matthew

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

Maybe perhaps possibly it is common knowledge to a few that something colossal was caught but quietly slipped back without fuss... Who would know if nobody wanted to tell??

[Beresford]

The Perfect 'maybe' that ensures the mystery endures. It's certainly been hinted at in the past…

For those who really want to catch breath-taking coarse fish I suggest they take up fly fishing and head to the English trout reservoirs. If I wanted to catch a record fish that's where I'd go. Some of the coarse fish I've caught by accident trout fishing have been amazing. I know of boats taking endless bream around the 20lb mark and getting so fed up with them that they've moved off the shoals in search of trout. Sometimes when it's rough you can see the bream floundering in the waves. Often we've found a shoal of big perch and one day I insisted we caught a few before leaving them alone. None were less than 2lb and some over 3lbs. I've never known perch fishing like it. My best roach was taken on a fly – over 2lbs. Then there are the pike. I'm in no doubt that record sized fish of all species, including carp and possibly even catfish (assuming an illegal entry!) are to be found in the English trout reservoirs.

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

Come on now.....even a bream of 20lbs deserves kicking back in without a snap. Smelly and slimy....yuk.

[Barbulus]

Oi. young Loop ! Wadya mean ? I was even prepared to let you have some of my special home made hot Chilli with coriander and sour cream washed down with a decent Bath Ale while we celebrate the capture and release and pass the evening chatting to the other part of the enduring legend of the pool in the Evening Pitch.........

[Beresford]

I do my best to get bream to unhook themselves in the water.


Isn't the evening pitch where the real monster of Redmire lurks?

[Loop Erimder]

Oi. young Loop ! Wadya mean ? I was even prepared to let you have some of my special home made hot Chilli with coriander and sour cream washed down with a decent Bath Ale while we celebrate the capture and release and pass the evening chatting to the other part of the enduring legend of the pool in the Evening Pitch.........

Errrr ok I'll catch him next year when he's put on a couple of pounds

[Loop Erimder]

I do my best to get bream to unhook themselves in the water.


Isn't the evening pitch where the real monster of Redmire lurks?

I slept in the evening pitch last year under the stars without shelter the only monster I saw was when I woke up

[Julian]

I have just started reading The Lost Diary by Chris Yates - He comments that he saw the King at Redmire , a fish he had only glimpsed once, yet knew that is was probably the biggest carp in Europe.

Can anyone shed any more light on this leviathan?

Sorry to break the magic, but the problem with the legend of The King is twofold:

All of the big fish in redmire in that era were caught many times, and photographed, weighed and on many occasions named. The pool is tiny and fished very hard by very good anglers, so this is no surprise. But 'the king' was never caught.


However, there is a great photograph from the 60s which just could be it, emerging from a weed bed .You never truly know, Also, in the 1976 drought, the pool dried right up. The entire population of the lake could be seen most days on the top of the pool, and nobody saw or photographed the King.
despite the evidence.

The magic has not been broken.
Your statement starting 'all the big fish in Redmire of that time were caught many times.................' is completely incorrect, and is information put about by anglers who seriously believe that if a water is fished extensively all of the big carp are seen and caught. Just because Redmire is small ( 2.7 acres is not that small) it makes no difference. There are many waters, some as small or smaller than Redmire which contain carp that are never caught and rarely seen. I believe a lot of the belief about all the big fish being caught may stem from comments on the 'Redmire Forever' film, by a few anglers who can't accept not catching or seeing all the big carp in a water.

With regard to the statement that 'in 1976 the pool dried right up' , it just is not true. The level dropped a lot - as did all waters in southern England , and during that period the Bishop was not seen, nor were any of the other giants, but from 1977 onwards they were, and a subsequent netting in 1979? ( I think it was 79) did not produce the Bishop or any carp over 30 lbs, yet in 1980 it was caught at 50lbs.

Snape's posts on this also make it clear that there is a 4ft plus common currently in Redmire that has been seen on occasions over the last seven years but it has not been caught.....................................yet .

You of course cannot say my statement that the big fish were all caught is "incorrect", because it's just your opinion. My opinion is that the majority of "uncaught monsters" around the UK these days are the product of over-tired, over-active, under-stimulated minds. Or imaginations.

Many credible anglers claim to have seen big carp in Redmire, and I'm not going to discount the possibility that a giant common existed back in the 70s, when tackle was much more basic, which didn't pick up baits. But if I'm honest, given the evidence, I'd say it was pretty unlikely, and even less likely in the modern era. Human testimony is not particularly powerful evidence, given the workings of the human brain in certain situations. Ghost stories illustrate that.

I'd love the monster myths of Redmire, and every lake, to be true, but the reality is that most aren't. But we will never, ever know, and I'm happy for it to be like that. There isn't enough mystery in angling now.

Of course it is all a matter of opinion, but a dozen or so of some of the most famous anglers of their time, all describing the King in a similar way cannot be put down to anything other than a highly likely probability that it existed from the late 50 ' s to the early 80 's at least, unless you discredit them all.

However that was then, but now we have the ' long common' - 4ft plus in length, probably at least a good 50 lb and maybe a lot more, almost black in colour, always on its own, seen occasionally since 2007 to date, by respectable anglers , including at least one on here. Definitely never caught. Fact.

Also, the linear that is 40lbs plus is a known fish that was caught a considerable number of years ago, but has never been caught since. Fact.

So how do those two fit in with your logic that because redmire is fished 24 /7 by skilled anglers all the biggest fish are caught???

[Blunderer]

I'd prefer to look at it the other way: If you look at all the authenticated Redmire big fish captures over all the decades, as far as I am aware each one has a long history of captures at all sizes. Entirely as you would expect. Of course that doesn't prove that there were uncaught fish, but it stands alongside the absence from the netting and 1976 disappearance. But as I said earlier, despite the credibility of some (but by no mean all. Dick walker himself was a noted exaggerator!)of the anglers who claim to have seen things, all that stands as evidence for the existence is human testimony. And any scientist will tell you that is not strong evidence.

We've all seen things which turned out to be tricks of the light or the mind, and a sunlit, clear mysterious pool after not having slept for two days has to be a prime candidate for one or two.

I'm not sure of this, but it think it's what the evidence suggest, that's all. I love the stories and I love the dreams. They are part of being an angler.