Spring 2005 saw me venture onto the banks of a beautiful mere set in the rolling Shropshire countryside. I did a few recce’s and the flame was lit. I knew nothing about its stock apart from the rumour that it held a mid thirty common. Rumours also suggested it wasn’t easy, mainly because one side was out of bounds and unfishable, and not many anglers were prepared to sit it out. That was all I needed to hear.
My first session in April was during a warm spell, the first of the year, with light easterly winds blowing down and across the lake into the bottom corner of the out of bounds bank. This is where I headed, armed with a couple of rods and four bait stringers. I lashed them out across the bay to my right where a gentle ripple was licking the overhanging foliage. One rod had me wading out, finding a hole between the branches that just reeked of being a little sanctuary. That little tuck back allowed me to place a bait with a tight cast into the hole. All I could do then was sit back, soak up the mere’s atmosphere and spark the kettle up.
Not long after I finished my brew, the rod in the hole in the tree line pulled up tight. I was on it instantly and after a decent tussle I netted my first mere carp, a lovely chocolate brown low twenty common. The perfect start. I sat back thinking, how’s your luck boy, you jammy bastard. Raw instinct had kicked in and I was rewarded for the effort.
There was another angler on at the time who sort of knew me through a friend. He came round to help out and after taking a few shots he commented on how he couldn’t believe what had just happened. I smiled and replied, “just a bit of luck mate.”
The catalyst to a new adventure
Part of carp fishing is about luck, but making the right decisions, having the angling ability and finding edges is what produces a consistent angler. But this stroke of luck came early, the rest I had to graft for.
The old boy John the bailiff would nip down for a chat, always pulling my leg. “Looks like you have it to yourself again Carl”. He who dares wins and all that.
When I come home from fishing I need a break to get over it. I just don’t rest. It is a non-stop pursuit. Constantly looking, thinking and planning are all part of the buzz, but I am all in when my head is on the game. If something needs doing then it gets done right there. It is all preparation for the next session that is the key to my success. Someone once described me as being like a bluebottle trapped inside a bloody jam jar, pinging all over the place. It still makes me chuckle.
The shallows turned out to be my favourite peg, the furthest point away from where I caught my first from the little hole. It was wild down there, but always worth the effort. You could watch the hordes of bream coming in and out, but the carp loved it down there. Otters were present too and I could hear them mostly down to the left in the mangrove, playing in the vegetation.
The mere was very kind to me, not only in captures but in the overall fishing experience. It was the perfect place to immerse myself in hunting carp, tapping into their world and shutting out the modern one.
A classic N/W common and a serious unknown carp for our neck of the woods
It was all about the edge for me and that became apparent after that initial capture. I would constantly walk the banks and platforms, and I would also get the chest waders on to check areas with my feet. I learnt early on that the information you could glean with your feet could not be replicated by the marker rod. I mapped the lake margins in my head using touch. Knowing all those close in spots gave me a massive advantage. Finding the subtle contours and changes between sand, gravel, silt and even clay all built the picture in my mind’s eye. I would even make my own spots, in there with my feet, foot paddling like seagulls do when they draw worms to the surface on grassy lawns. I would spend hours in the margins prepping areas and when a spot was primed it was game on because I had already worked out the best angles to fish them. It was then down to me to perform with minimal disturbance and maximum composure.
Although I caught the largest resident, a personal best common at the time, my favourite capture was the Leather. It was a total surprise when I netted it, one of the mere’s mysteries brought to life. Long and dark, a true classic leather with all the hallmarks of a proper one, a very rare carp indeed and one that had been caught so few times. It is still one that is special to me now.
There were only two areas I would fish at further range, about sixty to seventy yards out. If I saw carp there, I would deposit four bait stringers in the zone and just sit back. This is how I caught the Leather, out in open water on minimal tactics, not over beds of bait.
News later filtered down about how the carp had diminished over the years through otter predation. The club also used Siltex one season and the following year the weed went crazy, resulting in a massive oxygen crash and a large number of carp being lost. It is unclear what remains in there these days. I am sure most of the old guard are long gone, but the memories remain.
Well there is a twist in the tale, because only recently a picture surfaced of that first chocolate coloured common I caught all those years ago. Looks like the old girl has survived another ten years dodging otters, and what a carp she has become. The dream lives on.
Northern Willo
Nov 2025