Blanks, beer and an obsession with two big carp: Mark Watson recalls an unforgettable year on Elstow

BY MARK WATSON

WHEN THE WIND BLEW, THE CARP WOULD FOLLOW

PHOTOGRAPHY MARK WATSON AND FRIENDS

IT WAS BACK IN 2001 THAT I MADE THE DECISION TO VENTURE SOUTH FOR A BIG CARP.

JUST ONE ROD…

I was looking on a map at where potential target waters were, and many were around 200 miles away, until I came across Elstow. Lying just south of Bedford, Elstow was a lot closer, at around 130 miles, so I investigated some more. I had a big pile of old Carp-Talk magazines and on the cover of one of them was a 43lb fish held by Phil Dasilva. It was a real cracker: long and wide, with huge scales like armour-plating along its shoulders. The fish was The Twin, and one of two, low-forty mirrors that lived in the lake. I had pictures of the other, called The Mother, from an article in Big Carp Magazine by Roger Bacon who’d caught the beast after it had not seen the bank for four years. That one was a classically shaped carp with a cluster of scales on each flank, bright-white lips and huge fins. My mind was made up. I purchased a ticket for Elstow’s Pit 2 for £140 and was about to take my fishing to the next level.

My first trip was a welcome to the reality of fishing a rock-hard clay pit. It was raining heavily when I arrived, but I was determined to do a lap of the lake and get my bearings. With my waterproofs on, Polaroid glasses in my pocket and a coffee in hand, I set off. In the car park was the steep entrance through some brambles to a swim called The Boulders. Three or four steps down the slippy clay steps, I lost my footing. I threw my coffee up in the air and started to slide down the rest of the way until I saved myself by grabbing a handful of brambles… welcome to Elstow!

The lake itself was around 35-acres with depths to well over 30ft, and it had only 18 known carp to chase. Top of the tree were two forties. There were just four other fish over thirty-pounds to back these up, along with a handful of smaller, but just as desirable doubles and twenties.

I didn’t have to wait long for my first encounter with an Elstow carp. I had joined mid-season and was expecting plenty of blanks to prepare me for a full-on campaign the following year. While bivvied up in a swim called The Decoy—socalled because of the number of fish that showed there without getting caught!—I had been dropping bait in patches, in the margins of the weedy back bay behind the swim. One of these spots was being visited and fed on by three carp: a dumpy mirror known as The Pig, and two small, but stocky accomplices. I managed to sneak a rig onto the spot in their absence, but they obviously knew something was wrong. They returned and fed happily without ever coming close to being hooked. I made a few changes to the rig, lead size and hookbait, but each time they came in, they would feed, but would also noticeably avoid the hookbait.

It was a hot day and I was laying on the bank next to the rod about to nod off, when the rod hit me on the leg on its way into the lake. I managed to grab it and had a short, but tense struggle with an angry carp. It was obvious when I netted it that it wasn’t one of the three that had been frustrating me all afternoon. It was a long, stumpyfinned leather which I later found out was known as The Sausage. Looking back, I’m sure that it was hooked soon after entering the swim, not being aware of my presence like the others probably were.

During a stormy night a few weeks later, I was in a swim called the Sunken Island, with a warm, wet wind blowing into me as the fish showed ever closer. Again, I had the pit to myself, and I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d already broken my Pit 2 duck with The Sausage, and it now looked like I was going to get another chance… possibly a big one! I could barely sleep as carp, bigger than I’d seen before, cleared the water very close, and every slosh I heard in the blackness had me up and on edge.