The words ‘legend’ or ‘greatest’ are thrown around like confetti these days and in the angling world, just as in the wider sporting world, there are few who genuinely deserve the accolades showered upon them. In the big fish world in particular there have been few who might genuinely be accorded the status of ‘great’ and even fewer who remained active and at the very top of their game in the specimen scene for decades.
One angler who, despite his diminutive stature, really deserved the title ‘great’ was Dorset’s Terry Lampard and there are few who would argue that he was the most successful and highly respected big fish angler of his generation; some would say of all time.
Having had the pleasure of meeting, and fishing with, Terry on many occasions I can also say he was one of the kindest, modest, most helpful and ‘gentle’ of men you could ever wish to meet. Driven and dedicated beyond the comprehension of most anglers yes, but also totally unaffected by the accolades which were showered (and quite rightly so) upon him.
We are told by the biography on the inside of his highly-acclaimed book First Cast (published by FSH in 2005) that Terry was born in my old home town of Maidenhead in 1947 and, despite the close proximity of the River Thames, fishing was an activity watched but never indulged in, aside from chasing minnows and sticklebacks across the shallows with the obligatory minnow net.
The sleeve notes go on to say that it was in 1960, following a family move to Winchester, when he found himself living with carrier streams of the River Itchen flowing past the ends of his road and the freedom to fish for the local brown trout stocks became an overriding passion during his school holidays.
A chance meeting with a local carp angler and an accepted invitation for a night’s fishing fired an interest in species other than trout…and Terry Lampard the all-round angler was on the way to being formed.
In the late 1970’s a move to Dorset, and close to the Dorset Stour, changed Terry’s home patch and it was the Stour and Avon Valleys which were to be his main stamping grounds, along with regular fishing partner Tim Norman, until his untimely and sudden death earlier this week.
Terry’s list of notable captures was huge: from Yateley’s famous ‘Basil’ at 39lb back in 1980 (and before the fish was indeed known as Basil…) to 8lb plus chub, 3lb plus roach and grayling, 17lb plus bream, 6lb plus eels, 11lb plus tench, 15lb plus barbel and 30lb plus pike… His captures brought him the coveted Drennan Cup on no fewer than seven occasions – along with a few runner up spots – in a record of peer-approved accolade that will be difficult to match.
Angling is the poorer for Terry’s passing; he will be sadly missed but fondly remembered.
