Big Carp Magazine Big Carp 233 Back Issue

Off The Beaten Track 5
If someone had told me thirty years ago that one day the backdrop to some people’s carp captures would feature office blocks, factories and high street retailers I would never have believed them. Surely carp angling is an escape to the countryside… to quiet meadows far away from civilisation? Yet today more and more urban carping exists. Park lakes, wharfs, rivers and canal systems within the city itself have become home to some monster and scale-perfect carp. Carp will take advantage of their surroundings; it makes no difference to them if they are enclosed by willow and oak or skyscraping tower blocks – if the water can sustain life it will be occupied. It’s much like the peregrine falcon, once facing extinction as its natural habitat disappeared due to man’s ‘progress’, but now thriving on the rooftops of London’s high-rises, introduced in many cases to extinguish the severe pigeon problem facing our capital. It’s a far cry from the pines of Scotland, but equally as incredible, beautiful and impressive as any raptor could be in its natural surroundings.
Today’s city-living carp anglers did not grow up creeping around secluded pools, and although Richard Walker may be spinning in his grave at the sights he would see nowadays, urban carping is here to stay, and more and more people will be taking advantage of it. The growth in river and canal carping has been phenomenal in the past decade, and it’s still growing – much of it done in towns and urban landscapes.