In his latest insightful interview, Oz Holness catches up with Paul Forward, who after serving his angling apprenticeship on the banks of the Trent, ventured south to make a name for himself on the bigcarp waters of Kent and the Colne Valley…

AN INTERVIEW BY OZ HOLNESS

In Conversation… Paul Forward (AKA Mr F)

Life on the skyline… roofing is Paul’s trade

PHOTOGRAPHY BY OZ HOLNESS AND PAUL FORWARD

Gunthorpe and 60lb on the feeder

Having known Paul for the best part of 35 years, I just knew I was going to enjoy this interview. Paul has been a huge inspiration on my own angling and he’s both encouraged and helped me along the way through his enthusiasm, drive, motivation and no-nonsense approach to all forms of angling. It wasn’t just with carp fishing, as I clearly remember him turning up on a trout water in the close season before demonstrating his incredible skill with a fly rod. We’ve enjoyed winter trips with the pike rods out, and we’ve spent grey January days trotting a stick float down a glide for quality roach. He’s an incredibly talented all-rounder with a keen eye for detail and a wealth of experience to draw on.

I wanted the interview to connect with Paul’s unfaltering love of angling, and was after a few stories and a little background. I wanted also, to delve into his mindset and explore his solid views on what has worked for him, and what’s helped him catch innumerable huge carp over so many years.

I joined Paul as he welcomed me into the garden of his cottage set in the rolling hills of Kent late one summer afternoon, before we set off on a story that spans several decades. So then, let’s find out a bit more about the man in question, and see just how he goes about his business in what so far, has been a highly successful and varied angling life…

OZ HOLNESS: Paul, let’s first talk a little about your background and your early days in angling in the Nottingham area, somewhere with a rich match-angling history and with the River Trent nearby of course. It must have had a huge impact on you and surely influenced your progression?

PAUL FORWARD: “Match angling was huge back in those days; the banks of the Witham and the Trent were packed on a weekend and also sometimes midweek. All the top match anglers of the day were there and big money was involved - really serious stuff! Those names too… Ashurst; John Dean; Swinscoe; Jan Porter, ‘the Man in Red’ - God bless him. There were maggot breeders everywhere up there, and there was a huge buzz… just massive! There were the big parks too, like Clumber and Rufford that all held specimen fish as well!”

OZ HOLNESS: I know you were involved in the match scene to a degree as we’ve spoken about it many times, but I also know you spread your wings early, into the specimen side of things…

PAUL FORWARD: “I did Oz, and if we go right back, I have Uncle Derek to thank for me being able to go where I did, and for helping me learn the basics, and about the magic of fishing. My dad didn’t really have a lot of patience, bless him, and after an hour’s fishing and one tangle we’d be driving home in silence! Derek however, had the patience of a saint. He taught us to be quiet, to appreciate nature and how to look for fish in the river. We went from gudgeon to dace, and onto decent roach. We learnt about hempseed from a few regulars and how the bait would attract quality fish, so we got on that and caught bags of good ’uns, and that led to me into specimen hunting for the first time.

“Dave Shepard and Ivan Stennett would travel to the Trent and they’d try and cadge livebaits off us. I always had a good bag of roach, so they often came to me. They’d offer me 50p for what I had in the net - 50p back then was a good result! Also, they promised to take me pike fishing. I’d go on a Saturday to catch enough roach for us all, before the three of us piled into a Mini van with me stuffed in the back, to go pike fishing on the Lincolnshire drains. I was only 15 or 16 at the time and they were driving, so we got on these adventures together on the drains, leapfrogging the rods for the pike… it was so exciting. I’d started reading Angling and had read about the guys who were chasing specimen fish all over Ireland, Scotland and the pits and rivers of the UK, and I got the bug!

Lydd Watersports, my first 30 and lake record at 32lb 8oz… what a carp!

“Between us we formed the Sherwood Specimen group. We’d pick a month and would to try and catch a specimen fish to suit. It might be tench one month for example, so we’d be fishing the ballast pits, sitting on deckchairs with isotopes on the floats for - if we were lucky - a fish of no more than five pounds! We also travelled to Loch Lomond in the early spring to fish for pike - they were great adventures!

“I got a real taste for hunting those fish. I went to Knossington and fished for carp with floating bread. We found some local ponds that also held carp and would bait with luncheon meat and cat food. My brother, a great carp angler, was a toolmaker at the time, and he started to make rod rests, rucksacks and holdalls. There wasn’t much kit about and the only shop we had was Trevor Moss’s in Gainsborough. We’d visit after hours to meet with Trevor, who was a specimen hunter himself. We met Gary Bayes, Hutchy and co. there, and we’d buy rod blanks and whip our own rings on. We knocked up indicator heads out of Perspex and just got on with making what we needed or wanted. Nick made leads and all sorts… almost everything apart from line and hooks!

“At the time, I was working down the mines at Thoresby Colliery, on the coal face. They had a big match team and when I started with them it was about the time the chub were getting into the Trent. I adopted a bit of a specimen approach with my match angling, fishing homemade feeders on light carp rods. Dad was a chemist and had lots of suitable containers that made great feeders. I started winning if I got on a good peg. If I didn’t, I would just go and watch someone else who was really good. Amongst other things, I learned how to fish the waggler really well. To my mind, these anglers remain some of the best I’ve ever seen, right across the board! They had huge confidence and their methods worked… they controlled their swim!

“My early days then, were a mishmash of matches, specimen hunting and a general love for adventure and the fishing. It was all a massive learning curve and come the end of my spell in Nottingham, I ended up a bit of a Jack of all trades if you like. The one thing I learned about the carp scene there, was that peanuts were a devastatingly good bait and I caught quite a few on them before I moved away.”