Hello FishingMagic!
My name is Tim Walden and in the future I’ll be putting pen to paper, or finger to keyboard actually, to tell you about some of my fishing exploits. However, before I get stuck straight in I think it would be best to introduce myself.
I would class myself as an all-rounder rather than a specimen angler, as I truly love all areas of our fantastic pursuit be it game, coarse or sea angling and I am truly content when I have water in front of me and there is a chance of catching a fish. Also, to call myself a specimen angler would imply that I catch specimen sized fish, a fact that is often a long way from the truth!
I have fished since an early age and spent some of my most important angling years as a member of the Junior Section of Leighton Buzzard Angling Club. It was here, under the guidance of Leon Hemsley and Brian Wright, that I learnt to be a match angler.
I spent several happy years doing this and was at my happiest pole fishing along the banks of the Grand Union canal and I would probably have been happy doing this forever but for the fluke capture of a 19lb carp on the waggler when I was a late teenager. With another a few weeks later from the canal on my pole the seed was planted that would germinate into a carp angler in years to come.
After finishing university I slowly found myself fishing solely for carp. Initially my target was a 20lb fish, but before I achieved that target I managed the quite impressive feat of catching 19 fish over 19lb, including two of 19lb 15oz! When I eventually did catch my target fish, a common of over 25lb, the next target became a 30lb fish!
My local lake didn’t have a fish of this size in so a few months later I headed to Linear Fisheries in Oxford. On arrival at this venue, I was greeted for the first time by the sight of ‘proper’ carp anglers. I was stunned to see people casting spods at a distance further than I could cast my bait. As I looked round there was an array of bivvies with perfectly matched rods on pristine rod pods sitting outside them.
The weather on this occasion, despite being the August bank holiday, was truly atrocious. I managed to find a boggy, waterlogged swim in a corner with the wind lashing straight into it and by the time I was set up I, and everything I had with me, was soaked. I knew I couldn’t cast to the horizon like everyone else, so I settled to fish close in.
In the 48 hours I was there I saw only two fish caught. One was to a chap to my right who had a stunning mid 30 mirror, and the other fell to one of my rods.
On the last morning the area around my left hand rod was fizzing away, just as it had been the previous morning. As the sun started to show itself the rod ripped off and following a great battle I slipped my net under a 30lb 10oz mirror. Little did I realise it at the time but I was just starting to learn some very important lessons.
Firstly, by having the best bivvy and rod you are not guaranteed to catch. Also, what seemed like the worst spot on the lake at the time, a weedy corner with one clear spot with a very strong, wet, south westerly wind blowing in, I would now pick as my first choice swim!
With a big carp under my belt I decided to broaden my horizons. With the onset of autumn I turned my attention to predators. And so began my first campaigns for pike and perch. I started out by fishing my local canal for perch and local lakes and rivers saw me deadbaiting for pike. I had previously caught some pike when I had gone spinning for them in the summer holidays from school, but had never caught anything bigger than a jack.
From these first fumblings I have now been fortunate enough to bank pike over 30lb and perch over 4lb, but they are stories for another day.
As that winter drew to a close I set about trying to catch a tench in the spring. I had previously caught several fish from commercials on a pole, but this time I would be targeting a reservoir for ‘proper’ fish. It was over the course of this campaign that I learnt the effectiveness of maggots for catching big fish, either fished on home made bolt rig feeders or on the mag-aligner. In addition to the tench I caught several good carp and bream too.
During the course of these sessions I got chatting to another angler who was also tench fishing. This chap, Graham Bangert, was fishing for them on the float and the centrepin and during one of our chats he asked if I’d ever fished for chub and barbel. I had caught a barbel many years before when my friend Chris Hodge’s dad took us to the River Severn for the day, and we both managed a fish of about 6lb. On the chub front I’d caught a monster from the River Ivel the previous summer of 6lb 2oz on a slug. However, Graham informed me there were monsters possible from the Great Ouse and he would be happy to take me along to try and find out.
It was in the July later that year that Graham took me to Sharnbrook to try for my first Ouse barbel. I remember having what I thought was a real whacking bite that I missed; only for Graham to inform me it was probably a line bite! He was obviously wrong, for such a vicious pull could only be a real bite…
A little while before we left ,when I was just starting to drift off, my rod suddenly became intent on becoming water borne and it was all I could do to hold on to it. So that’s what a proper barbel bite is like! After what seemed like an immense battle with the unseen giant I finally tempted the fish to the net, and it was massive. Not only had I caught my first Ouse barbel but this was a beast of 11lb 5oz – my first double too!
Later that winter I was back on the same stretch of the Ouse, but this time in pursuit of chub. Graham once again had been kind enough to take me under his wing and show me the essence of touch legering with cheesepaste. He pointed out some likely looking swims but despite our best efforts we both remained biteless.
Just as the session was drawing to a close I decided to drop into a swim that I had tried earlier on in the evening. For a change I stuck a lump of Cheddar on instead of the paste and the tip had barely settled before it steadily pulled round, and I was into my first Ouse chub.
A short tussle later I had the fish in the net and it looked pretty big and on the scales it went 6lb 12oz. I didn’t think this was too bad a start but judging by Graham’s reaction it was a little more special than that! Little did I know that eight years and countless 6lb plus chub later this would still be my PB. Oh how I long for a seven!!
It was the chub and barbel I caught that season that saw me become a determined all-rounder who pursued big fish and the intervening years have seen me catch fish beyond my wildest dreams from all over Britain and abroad on a variety of methods.
In time, I realised how much I wished I had decent pictures of my early big fish captures, so I invested in better and better camera gear, and from there a passion for wildlife photography blossomed too.
Whether inching a float through a chalkstream on a centrepin, or sitting in a bivvy behind and array of rods, I am most at home besides water, always hoping for that fish of a lifetime.
Tight lines until next time.
Tim
