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    Big Carp Legends
    Big Carp Legends
    Big Carp Legends
    Ebook207 pages2 hours

    Big Carp Legends

    By John Harry

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    About this ebook

    To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Big Carp magazine, this series of books entitled ‘Big Carp Legends’ will encompass the greatest names in carp fishing history over the past two decades. The content of the books in this series will be a mixture of articles from the archives of Big Carp, life histories of famous anglers and original articles specially commissioned for the series and never before published. One by one these books will build into the greatest collection of modern day carp fishing history ever printed; a collection that every serious carp angler will want to own.

    John Harry’s love affair with Savay Lake has spanned over thirty years. He has seen and been part of every era this historic lake has been through.

    John fished alongside Lenny Middleton, Kevin Maddocks and Andy Little during the birth of the hair rig.

    When Rob Hutchison wrote ‘The Carp Strikes Back’ and enthralled the carp world with his tales of Savay’s monsters, John was by his side.

    ‘The Famous Five’, ‘The Loonies’ and ‘The Toads’ offered John the utmost respect. John’s black cab became synonymous with Savay and part of the scenery.

    Alongside Peter Broxup, John fished for three decades; his dedication, his enthusiasm and his knowledge – second to none.

    Savay’s stock changed several times throughout his tireless campaign, and when the new regime came into power at the hands of Tom Banks, and Peter eventually passed away, it was John who remained at the helm, fished on and rewrote the record books.

    His bestselling book, Savay, came out almost twenty years ago, so don’t think for one minute that you have heard this story all before – you have only heard a fraction of this tale.

    John is not only a great angler but also a great thinker, or do these facets walk hand in hand? Never one to sit back and hope, John’s mind led him to come up with methods, tactics and ideas never before published... His latest ideas regarding hooking arrangements and leading will astound and educate even the most successful anglers who read this book... this I assure you.

    This book starts at the beginning of John’s fishing life at the age of ten, long before his Savay days, and continues up to the end of spring 2013. His last season produced an extraordinary number of big carp – mainly down to a specific method and a never-before-seen hooking method. Sit back and enjoy John’s fishing life – the man who knows Savay and its residents like the back of his hand.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBigCarpMagazine
    Release dateJul 17, 2015
    ISBN9780956980069
    Big Carp Legends

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      Book preview

      Big Carp Legends - John Harry

      Big Carp Legends

      John Harry

      First published in 2013

      By Bountyhunter Publications

      © Bountyhunter Publications 2013

      All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

      system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the copyright owner.

      ISBN 978-0-9569800-6-9

      Printed in Great Britain

      Foreword by Rob Maylin

      Whenever the word Savay is mentioned, one angler above all others comes to mind – John Harry. John’s passion and perseverance at Savay stands head and shoulders above any other of Savay’s famous anglers. His bestselling book published almost twenty years ago is regarded by many as one of the best carp books ever written, but John would be the first to admit that writing does not come easily to him. It is a hard slog, but the end result is always spot-on, because one thing is for certain – if John sets out to do something, he won’t be happy until it’s right.

      His first book describes only his first few seasons at Savay. Since he wrote it, he has now spent another twenty years on Savay’s banks. He knows every nook and cranny, every bar, every fish… everything like the back of his hand. You would have thought that he’d caught every fish that swims. Yet despite catching hundreds of thirties, John is convinced that there are still fish in Savay that are yet to see the bottom of his net, and who could doubt him? After all, he’s spent most of his life there!

      I first met John in 1982. I found him very down to earth, but also very fair. He commanded a great deal of respect from the syndicate, as did his fishing partner, Pete Broxup, and he still does, some thirty years later, virtually running Savay since the sad passing of his great friend Peter.

      John’s dedication to Savay is probably unequalled by any other angler in the country to one water. His passion never wilted, and his drive never diminished. John is as keen today as the first day he cast a line into its hallowed depths. A London cabby by trade, recent ill health has meant that John does not drive his old black cab any more, the cab that was so familiar to me when I was lucky enough to fish Savay during one of its most exciting times in its history.

      But this extra free time has meant that John has found time to fish on rota for most of the 2012-2013 season; a season that has brought some incredible results for John – as the last chapter of this book will bear testament.

      John is a ‘thinking angler’. Never sitting back and hoping, John is always inventing, searching for the ultimate edge, the irresistible bait, the killer method that will catch him a special fish, not the ones he’s caught several times before, of which there are many, but one of those he’s seen and not caught before. He’s caught a couple of those recently, on a method he’s come up with that is ingenious and totally original. John has generously divulged his new method in this book, not because he’s finished with it – far from it. No, John would like to see what others will make of it, and providing they set it up correctly, John is convinced that some of Savay’s mystery fish will slip up and get caught.

      I am pleased to say that John is currently writing a sequel to Savay… Let’s call it Savay Part Two because I don’t think is has a name yet. I can’t wait to read it, and I’m sure you can’t too!

      My first Savay carp, caught from the reeds.

      Introduction

      I made a decision there and then to sort out acouple of waters and see if I could catch one

      My fishing goes back to when I was a very small child. My father and my grandfather were very keen anglers; they made most of their fishing tackle themselves, including split cane rods with cork handles, finished to a good standard. In fact other than hooks, lines and reels, they made the lot.

      Our holidays were always spent fishing, and would you believe my mother loved camping? She would look forward to going just as much as we did. Back in the 1940s and 50s in the streets where I grew up in Paddington there wasn’t a lot of money about – only the well off had a car. In those days, in my neighbourhood, holidays were either spent hop picking or camping. When my father was in his early twenties he worked in Magdalen College, Oxford as a handyman, and from stories he told me, he had the time of his life. As you may know, the River Thames runs through Oxford, and at Magdalen Bridge there was a boathouse where you could hire punts. Some of the punts had a series of metal arches that ran down the punt with a canvas sheet rolled up across the top, so when you undid the canvas it ran down the arches and made a perfect floating tent. My dad used to hire one out on his days off, and he got to know the river and backwaters well. In later life when he was living back in Paddington and married to my mum, we spent many a lovely holiday in one of these punts at Oxford on the Thames.

      By the time I was six years old I could tackle up properly. My dad had taught me how to tie a blood knot, a grinner and a whipping knot, and by the age of nine I was no longer a pain in the arse; I was quite a competent angler, and I knew how to bump a bait along a riverbed and fish by feel, and what’s more I was as keen as mustard.

      Another place I liked to fish as a boy was in Surrey on the River Wey. My dad was friendly with an elderly farmer whose farm was in Ockham, next to Ockham Mill. The River Wey ran through some of his land, and he gave us permission to camp there. My dad and this farmer got on really well; my dad knew his son, who was a student at Oxford, and was at Magdalen College when my dad worked there. We used to leave all our camping gear in one of Farmer Jim’s barns, which was well handy. In those days we never had a car, and to get to Ockham from Paddington we would go by the Green Line bus to Ripley and then walk across the common to Ockham. It was a good mile walk, but when we reached the farm, Jim would hitch a trailer to his tractor and take us and all the gear to the river. Jim’s farm was at the end of a cul-de-sac; the road stopped at the mill, and after that it was just a small track that went around the millpond to a gate with a stile, and then onto another footpath that led us to the River Wey.

      The river was about three quarters of a mile from the gate. All this land belonged to Farmer Jim; it was all meadows, and he kept cows on them to graze, as his farm was a dairy farm. The small river at the mill is a cutting from the River Wey, made especially to power the mill, and it also acted as a relief channel for the Wey. This cutting must have been a couple miles upstream and on private ground, as I never saw that end of it. At the mill it passed under the road in a brick culvert built just like an old sewer, then into the millpond, then out into a small stream that ran alongside Jim’s meadows, and then after a mile or so swung back to the River Wey.

      The chub fishing there was fantastic, and there were some good roach to catch in the Wey and in the millstream. Sometimes my dad and I would fish in the millpond at night for eels, and it was in this little millpond that I caught my first carp. I was only about nine years of age at the time. I was fishing with a split cane ledgering rod my dad had made and an old Starback reel, which was wooden with brass fittings. I had worms as bait and a bell clipped onto my rod top with a clothes peg, which was the norm when eel fishing in those days. I thought I had hooked a pike, as I had caught a pike from there before on worms. My dad shone his torch and said, It’s a mirror carp. It weighed five pounds four ounces, and I have still got the old spring balance I weighed it on; it hangs in my shed to this day. This millpond is a fascinating place – at one end there’s a high wall built to take the small road or track that runs over two brick culverts, and if you look over the wall into the millpond, the water is coming out through the wall, from seemingly nowhere. At the other side of this little track stands the mill and a big old house with a high wall going all the way around. One of these culverts has a good steady flow of water, and at times it would really gush out of there; however the other culvert was only a very light trickle.

      My dad thought it a bit strange this little mirror carp was in this millpond. When he told Farmer Jim about it, Jim said that it probably came from Lady Stokes’ house, the big house next to the mill. He went on to say that she has a really big plot of land, and there’s a small lake over there, which had been made many years ago by damming a small stream. He said that there was a sluice by the dam and that’s what the other culvert in the millpond was built for. To cut a long story short, my dad did get an intro to Lady Stokes. She was a nice old lady if my memory serves me well – she was ninety years of age.

      My father caught several fish from her lake: two of them were mid-doubles, big fish back in those days (1952). As I remember, we never fished after dark – that was one of her rules. However the fishing there was short lived. I can’t remember exactly, but I think she had to go into an old people’s home. My dad and I were gutted; we really did like the old girl, but I am afraid after she left that was to be the end of our fishing there.

      Dick Walker had caught the British

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