New British carp Record perhaps....

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Shaun Harrison
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

Post by Shaun Harrison »

If they existed or not, quite frankly the tackle they used to use wasn't really up to the job of landing monster carp from a weedy water. Dick Walker had lost his record - Pete Thomas rescued it from inside some brambles and Chris Yates had practically lost his had it not been for John Carver wading through extremely thick silt to rescue it.

Chris had stormed off thinking he'd lost it. came back and John and Barry had it on the bank. John told me this story several years ago and I have always kept quiet about it for fear of shattering a few peoples illusions. After all it isn't how the story was told and just like Pete Thomas, John Carver played a massive part in landing the record carp. Chris didn't even have a landing net with him and I truly believe both of these fish would have been lost if the anglers had been alone. But now John's story of the capture of the one time record has appeared in print elsewhere, from John's own words...

Suddenly and without warning the fish waddled forward, the net arms shot up a foot or so and encapsulated the fish and at the same time Chris’s line fell slack. Chris went spare; he thought I’d messed up the netting.

“You’ve ‘effing lost it!” He screamed.

“You ... you’ve lost it”!

Now you have to understand that Chris rarely, if ever, swore and if he did it was always fairly mild, like ‘bloody’ or ‘sod’, but never a four letter word. I turned around in disbelief and watched him throw his rod down and storm off. As he got level with me on the bank, I called across to him.
“It’s in the f---ing net, Chris!!!”

Chris was now obviously in some distress and had no doubt blanked out my call and off he stormed to the car park. I was now stuck up to my waist in silt with a record carp and around 50lb of silt in my net. I couldn’t move.

Barry then appeared.

“You lost it then, mate?” He called across.

“It’s in the f---ing net, Barry, but I’m stuck. I can’t move!” I growled back, starting to get just a bit annoyed.

Barry was soon in the silt with me and between us we somehow managed to get the net and fish, complete with its coating of silt, back onto the bank. From somewhere Barry produced a bucket of water and tipped it over the fish. We were stunned into silence when we saw her; she was huge!

An apologetic voice whimpered from behind us.

“Oh, you’ve got it?” Chris said.

I just stared, but you could never stay annoyed at this lovely man.

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Trilob
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

Post by Trilob »

haha that makes it even better!

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Bob Brookes
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

Post by Bob Brookes »

That disappoints me somewhat. Not what happened, but that it has taken such a while to be recounted and then not by Chris Yates himself.
Is it just me that feels that way?
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Gary Bills
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

Post by Gary Bills »

It makes Yates seem more human, but less divine.

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Bob Brookes
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

Post by Bob Brookes »

Gary Bills wrote:It makes Yates seem more human, but less divine.
Gary, that is very true indeed. I retract my previous comment, he is a mere mortal. :cheers:
"You do not cease to fish because you get old, you get old because you cease to fish"

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Dave Burr
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

Post by Dave Burr »

There are those (especially some on here) Bob, that would say someone wading out to land a stranded carp off the mud ain't cricket. I suspect that the story was sweetened to prevent controversy or allegations of trawling for spawning fish.

It is a bit of a disappointment that it was kept quiet but then again, the release of the facts does suggest a spectacle of chaos and humour around the most significant carp in decades and to me, that makes it an even more interesting catch.

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Mark
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

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This has not just come out Dave, I read about this years ago but can't for the life of me think where.
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

Post by Shaun Harrison »

Unless someone had betrayed John and told the story that was always told in confidence. John finally decided to tell it himself in the first edition of Sub Surface - The Angling and Culture Journal.

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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

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Shaun Harrison wrote:Unless someone had betrayed John and told the story that was always told in confidence. John finally decided to tell it himself in the first edition of Sub Surface - The Angling and Culture Journal.
What year would that have been Shaun.
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Shaun Harrison
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Re: New British carp Record perhaps....

Post by Shaun Harrison »

Issue 3 was released in November 2015 and it was produced as a annual, so I'm guessing 2013. I've had a look in it and can't see a published date. https://vimeo.com/146491331

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