Part 1

Funnily enough, it all started with a rant about modern technology. I posted a message to the Internet Angling Club (IAC) mailing list declaring some recently introduced electronic bite alarms, with their camo-covers and hi-tec looks, to be, in my eyes, frankly ridiculous. Later in the thread, I happened to mention that, if I ever went to Redmire Pool, I would try to fish using tackle that was “a bit more traditional”.

Before I knew it, several other IAC members had expressed their interest in fishing Redmire with me and somebody mentioned the words “fish-in”. Well, why not?

An email was sent to Les Bamford who organises the bookings for Redmire Pool on behalf of its owners. A week or so later, Les replied suggesting that, while he normally allowed four anglers at a time on the pool, he might be prepared to allow up to ten of us if we knew each other and wouldn’t be too upset by the reduced freedom of movement (Redmire is a relatively small pool). He simply suggested perhaps a maximum of two rods each would be a sensible rule (normally four rods are allowed) in order to prevent crossed lines and so on.

This was still only around October/November of 2004 and Les wasn’t taking bookings at this time and even when he was, I couldn’t guarantee we’d get one. However, I garnered interest from the IAC and easily collected ten names of those who would be interested in coming. A quick check of the Redmire Pool website told me the day when bookings began – a Monday in early January. I’d already been warned that it was almost impossible to get through to Les on the first morning of bookings, and all of the best dates would be taken very quickly. However, I had a plan – three of us were going to “war dial” until somebody got through. We’d give it our best shot.

January came and on the Sunday night before the first day of booking I fortunately checked the Redmire Pool website again, only to find that booking day had been pushed back a week. So I went to work the next day and changed my day off to the following Monday.

The following Monday came. Neither Mat nor David (my fellow war-diallers) was available on this particular day so it was up to me alone to try and get through. For two solid hours I tried: phone-on, dial-number, engaged, phone-off, repeat. Occasionally I tried a “request ring back” but it was always denied. I guess every other caller was attempting the same thing.

And then, to my surprise, at 11.30am a ring-back request was accepted. Now an anxious wait – all I could do is ignore the phone and pray that it rang (and that my ringback request really had been accepted – never one to trust telephones!!). Around midday the phone really did ring, and I was through to Les.

June was fully booked (the first week of the season is always auctioned off anyway) but would you believe it, Les had some dates in July. A quick check of the calendar and I took potluck and decided that the 22nd-24th July was best. The weekend reserved, it was off to tell the guys the good news. I think they were rather pleased you know!

Part 2

Preparing for any angling trip can be fun but it can also be expensive. As I rarely carp fish, I had only the basic carp tackle and certainly not any of the camping equipment I felt I would need for the two-night stay at the pool. I can count on one hand the amount of all-night angling sessions I’ve done in my lifetime, and then only for a single night at a time. A 48 hour, two-night trip would therefore be a whole new experience.

So I hit the on-line outlets, and eBay of course, and it was at precisely this point that my plan to fish “simply and traditionally” disappeared out of the window. Not sure how often I’ll need a bivvy after Redmire, but I bought one all the same. A new landing net – 42” – for the monster I was unlikely to see, let alone catch. A pair of the latest Fox digital alarms with matching extension box and lead, a camp bed, and a camouflaged (against what? the inside walls of a bivvy??) sleeping bag. Everything I needed to turn me into “one of the carp boys”. I even found myself at one point wondering if I needed one of those carp barrows to cart all of this equipment to my swim. How ever did those early Redmire pioneers cope?

In my defence, I think I was caught up in a desire to give Redmire my best shot. After all it was perhaps my once-in-a-lifetime chance to catch a Redmire carp and I wanted the right equipment to give me that chance. And that said, I did use all of the items I bought, even if I could have survived with a cheaper tent, one of my older landing nets and my 20 year old Optonics.

It was the same with bait. I always make the mistake of taking far too many different types of bait with me and rarely put the time into one bait to give it the chance to prove itself. Boilies, pellets, paste, corn, particles, they all had a place in my bait bag. When I told the others I’d bought 5 pints of maggots they really did think I’d lost the plot.

I hate to think what the total cost of my Redmire trip was if I add up the tackle, bait, ticket and diesel, as well as the usual food and water rations, but it certainly reached the several hundred pounds mark. And speaking to others on the trip, I know I was not alone in this. Not that I mind though, as you cannot put a value on the kind of memories I now have of Redmire.

Part 3

Friday 22nd July 2005 - the big day had come. First task that morning was a final check of my IAC email, only to read that one of the attendees, Steve, had managed to get just 400 yards from his home before his car was attacked by a skip lorry! He was waiting for the hire-car company to open, and was going to be late. Oh dear…

With all of my gear packed in the Audi, I was off to pick up Fred, my wife’s uncle, who had reluctantly (chuckle!) agreed to take a ticket that became spare. I arrived in Milton Keynes at just after 9am, and we somehow managed to load his gear on top of mine.

After picking up some last minute supplies at a local supermarket we set off, and to get us in the mood, I had with me an audio CD I’d prepared the night before. This was a recording of Dick Walker being interviewed on radio, describing how he had caught his 44lb carp “Clarissa” in 1952. How they ever got to Redmire in that clapped out pre-war Ford 10 I’ll never know!

Avoiding the motorways as much as possible, we travelled through pleasant villages and countryside and after a couple of hours we were at Ross-On-Wye. From Ross, we headed through Glewstone towards Llangarron. Then, down a country lane on the right hand side, there it was - the entry to “Bernithan Court Farm”. Redmire is a fictional name of course, thought up by BB in reference to the reddish colour of the surrounding earth.

We parked up at this point – it was still only just past midday and we had nearly an hour to wait before we could approach the lake that, at this point, we couldn’t see. Soon we were joined by most of the others. I’d made name badges for everybody the night before which I distributed. Along with their own name, I’d given everybody an “alter ego” for the weekend, naming each attendee after a famous angler, mostly somebody who had fished Redmire in the past.

At 1pm Matt could wait no longer and was practically dragging us towards the lake, so we agreed to head off. You approach the lake by driving down a track through the cow field, past the white farm cottage on your left. Turn right, through a gate and head across another field. At this point, on my left hand side and through trees, I caught a sight of water. Redmire Pool.

Pulling the cars into the little parking area next to the pool, we all got out and just stood by the water’s edge in awe. So many famous anglers had fished here; so many monsters had been caught. It was a very emotional moment for all of us I think, none more so than for Andy.

Andy had brought his “Redmire Pool [Clifford, Arbery]” book along for me to borrow, we used the map within to identify the various swims. Pitchfords, The Evening Pitch, Greenbanks, Inghams, and the most famous of all, The Willow Pitch.

Dave joined us shortly and we all congregated at the dam. Andy and I had both brought Champagne, and a bottle was shared amongst us, with a little for Redmire too. A fitting start to our visit.

Then it was down to the important issue of swim selection for the weekend. We had agreed that the fairest way to choose swims was to draw names from a bag but, as organiser for the trip, the others kindly let me choose my swim first. They knew how much I had wanted to fish The Willow Pitch, scene of two previous carp records – Dick Walker’s ‘44 and Bob Richard’s ’31. While the old Willow itself had long since died, a new Willow had been planted in it’s place, and the pitch is still clearly identifiable, slightly up from the dam on the left hand side of the lake.

I drew the first name, this being Matt, and consulting the map in Andy’s book, he chose to fish Kefford’s. He then picked out the next name, and so on. The final choice of swims were:

Fred “J Taylor” Boniface chose the old Boathouse Pitch;
Steve “Izaak Walton” Cook initially fished The Island swim, before later moving to Climo's;

Neil “Maurice Ingham” Depledge went to the Style Pitch;
Andy “Jack Hilton” Harper chose Greenbanks;

Mat “Bernard Venables” Hillman braved the haunted Evening Pitch!
Matt “Rod Hutchinson” Hinkley climbed most of the trees around Keffords;
Chris “Yates” Plumb was in Pitchfords Pit;
Richard “Walker” Seal chose the Oak Pitch;

Dave “Pete Thomas” Smith was in Inghams Pitch;
Glenn“BB” Smith settled into the Willows Pitch.

Part 4

I had very low expectations that anybody would catch a fish. Redmire was supposed to be a hard water. The fish had seen it all, they were fished for every day of the season, and a vast quantity of food was being put into the lake and so on. So it was to everybody’s great surprise when Mat Hillman, float fishing a piece of corn in the margins of the Evening Pitch, landed the first carp. Needless to say rods were wound in, cameras were grabbed and we all descended on Mat’s swim. And there it was – a small Redmire carp of about 3lb.

Now it may only have been a small fish, but these days Redmire is more about the experience of fishing where Walker fished, or Hilton, or Hutchinson, or Yates. Every carp angler has their heroes and chances are they’ve all fished here at one time or another. So much has been written about this little pool, so many myths and legends. To find yourself actually there, standing in a particular swim or overlooking the lake from the dam, is quite a feeling. And to come away being able to say you’ve caught one of its carp – any carp – is something pretty special.

Soon, Chris Plumb, fishing two swims down, in Pitchford’s, had another about the same size on a halibut pellet. And then Fred, fishing between the two of them, had one on maggot. This was obviously a hot-spot area and it was easy to see why. There was less weed out in front of these swims and it was easier to position a float between the gaps. Over at the Willow Pitch however, it was thick weed all the way out almost to the middle.

So I decided to set up a stalking rod and wandered up to Climos, which at the time was still vacant. A few hours there brought no bites and soon it was evening and time for a barbecue.

No baked beans and flasks of coffee for these anglers. Finest sausages and home made pheasant burgers, spare ribs and chicken wings, a whole trout, and plenty of salad, washed down with red wine and lager. And all while overlooking the pool on a warm summer evening.

Later in the evening I walked up to the platform just up from the island and fished until dark, again without a bite. Settling down for the night, I cast out my two “proper” carp rods. A rosehip boilie on one rod was cast out and to the left and a 14mm halibut pellet out in the middle, at edge of the weed. In both cases the baits (and rigs, which were simple running leger) were in PVA bag filled with free offerings. The theory was that this bag would sink through the weed taking the hook safely to the bottom before dissolving.

At 1.30am (Saturday) my right hand rod had a screaming run. Fighting my way desperately out of my bivvy I struck and the fish pulled strongly away from me. To my horror, the reel wasn’t giving line – I think I had the line tangled in some way – and the line parted. I have never felt so devastated at losing a fish before. I’m not sure how big it was, nor do I care, I just had that feeling that I wasn’t going to get another chance.

However, another chance did come and at 5.30am another run on the same rod (the halibut pellet) resulted in a small common. As I went to net the fish – I say fish, actually I netted a huge clump of weed and prayed that the fish was amongst it somewhere – the hook pulled. I lifted the net and was relieved to see something moving inside. A quick photo and the fish was returned, leaving me wondering if I really had caught that fish fair and square.

Later that morning I wound in my two rods, picked up my stalking rod – an old Terry Eustace T24 fibreglass carp rod, coupled with a Mitchell 300S reel – and spent the day fishing with maggots. I struggled to float fish accurately so switched to a simple running leger and after losing two more small carp in the thick weed, I finally landed one without incident. This was another common of about 4 or 5lb and I was thrilled.

The threatened rain finally arrived in the early hours of Sunday morning, 24 hours later than had been forecast, and by the time we had all packed up at midday we were soaked. By the end of the session every one of us had caught at least one carp, and in Fred’s case, he’d had fifteen! Dave was delighted to have caught a carp on an old Hardy Egret cane rod and Witcher centrepin and Andy had one on his restored James Mark IV and Mitchell 300.

The bigger fish were certainly there – we saw them basking in the shallows at various times during the day and Andy lost a big fish early that morning, but every carp hooked and landed was around the 3 to 5lb mark. Whether these are the descendants of Donald Leney’s original 1934 stock I don’t know, but I’m told Redmire has never been stocked since. Can anybody confirm this?

Finally I’d like to thank everybody who attended. A wonderful bunch of guys who made the experience very special. And I’d like to thank Les Bamford for relaxing the rules and allowing us all to fish.

Can we go back next year?

Glenn Smith