Steam poured from the electric kettle in the kitchen as Terry made tea, already he was excitedly re-counting tales. I was lost in a bygone age, devouring images of old. The corners of the photo albums were browned and the spines falling apart having seen much better days, but the faded prints still reeked of history and atmosphere under their protective slips, the steely greys of Darenth mirrors still resonating all these years on. Flicking through the pages felt like I was privilege to something sacred, something no one had seen before. I left Bromley that day with a head full of magic, and feeling like I’d just learnt something profound about carp fishing. The following is the abridged version of the conversation we recorded that day (back in 2012)
Up until recently, Terry Dempsey’s name had held a staunchly mythical status, the average angler would probably know nothing about him, and even if you moved in the right circles, you probably still wouldn’t know that much. Since the release of his incredibly well received book, The Urban Myth, Terry has entered the popular consciousness with a few interviews and pieces in other publications. I’d spent an afternoon with Terry at Dinton earlier in the year though talking about everything from the Buddhist idea of taming the ‘monkey mind’ and tuning in, to rolling 48 egg mixes a day on the banks of the Tip Lake and swapping bait for baccy. I knew I wanted to dig a whole lot deeper, to enter into what is still clearly a magical world for Terry. Despite the fact that we know a bit more about the urban myth now, really we still know nothing as even after 34 years of angling, for Terry, carp fishing is still a world dominated by myths, and always will be…his story has only just begun.
Sub: You talk very fondly in your book about the early days, the Perch Pond days. How important was your angling to you as a kid growing up in East London?
TD: Oh, it was everything, it really was. When I say ‘everything’ I mean my whole life was based around it. Once I’d seen a carp being caught, I just knew that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be there every minute of the day.
Sub: You skipped the very early days in your book and went straight into your carp fishing, but had you done much angling previously to that?
TD: I’d done loads; I’d fished the docks, I’d fished all my local ponds and park lakes for roach and perch and the usual smaller species, but I didn’t even think you could catch carp. It wasn’t even something that had entered my head. I’d seen pictures of them in encyclopaedias, because that was all we had back then, but they just weren’t even in my thoughts.
Sub: Did you know they existed in the ponds and venues you grew up fishing?
TD: No, not really, not until I started fishing the Perch Pond and then once I’d started fishing up there, I did begin to see anglers who were ‘ultra-cult’ as we used to call them. That was the first thing that struck me; these anglers with their huge nets, the early, old, canvas bivvies… it’s hard to explain but these guys just had a different aura to everyone else. When you walked past their swims, you walked past it ten times quieter than anyone else’s.
Sub: Did you try to talk to these guys?
TD: I did, yeah, but they never talked to me! You’d get mugged off, or just a shrug of the shoulders. It wasn’t until one day when I finally saw one of them catch a carp that I found anything out, or even really knew what they were up to. My mate Tony was with me that day, and it was an eight-pounder that the guy had caught, I remember. In some ways, it was Tony that got me into it really - he was so keen.
The following day he was back there with some Jack Hilton’s on one of his match rods that he’d gone and bought that morning when the tackle shop opened. The Perch Pond was a really hard lake, and it had a low stock - even for back then - just a handful of wildie-type commons that weren’t really bait eaters, and then the two mirrors, so it was far from an easy prospect, you know? So, looking back, the lads fishing it would’ve been proper anglers; they would’ve known the score.
Sub: That’s a tough introduction to carp angling. No one would dream of starting their carp fishing on such a low-stock lake these days. How long did it take you to catch one from there?
TD: Ages, absolutely ages! I didn’t do a huge amount at first, but I did have a fair few trips, and I had two runs that first year, and didn’t hook either of them. Early on, I’d started to suss out where they were. If you looked, you’d see them even though there weren’t many. You’d see them bubbling or jumping at first light and I started to fish for them with luncheon meat. Back then, we just used to fish one rod for carp, and the other on a feeder. The carp rod was just a cut-down leger rod as well, just a feeder rod with the tip chopped off, and the reel would have been from Woolworths or something. We never had any decent kit back then. The second year on the Perch Pond I had bunked an afternoon off school, ended up fishing around the back of the islands, and hooked my first carp on float-fished luncheon meat. I wasn’t even nearly prepared for it and it just tore loads of line off me, took me through about ten snags and even though I had a net with me I was still screaming for help. I’d usually fish with a mate - Tony would often be with me - but as I’d bunked off, I was on my own that trip.
Sub: Where did you get your inspiration and motivation from, back in the early days?
TD: It was all just from our experiences really, and seeing that eight-pounder on the bank motivated us beyond belief. There was no information around and the only thing we had was Rod Hutchinson’s book, but we didn’t even own a copy of that. Tony and I would take out the copy they had in the local library and share it. That one book influenced a lot of our early thinking. We were introduced to the magic of Redmire Pool and Yates’ monsters. We found out about the Bishop, and that Walker’s record had fallen and wasn’t really the one recognised by proper carp anglers now Chris had caught that one. That was also where we found out about particle baits, so we’d started going over there with black-eyed beans and all these other particles that we’d read about in Hutchy’s book. The funny thing was we never caught anything on ‘em, nothing!
'There was no information around and the only thing we had was Rod Hutchinson’s book, but we didn’t even own a copy of that. Tony and I would take out the copy they had in the local library and share it'
Sub: Any idea why in hindsight?
TD: I’m not sure really. They were really strange, old carp, and of course, the low stock didn’t help, but it was a really silty, old lake. I don’t think that helped either. The bloodworm was rife and you’d see them bubbling and fizzing all the time, but the carp were very much natural feeders. I did catch them in the end, once I’d worked it out, almost all of them in fact, but the key on the Perch Pond was the margins. I never caught anything more than a rod length from the bank on there. I think the fact that the silt wasn’t as deep in the margins played a big part in that.
Sub: What was it that you loved so much about carp angling to result in you leaving school at 13?
TD: It was just unbelievable. It was the excitement of being out angling for carp, hooking carp, and just being out in nature, away from the city and not having to do my school work; that came into it as well, it was an escape. I never really left school as such, I just drifted away from it, and then when I did go back at 14 I was like a stranger, so I hardly went back after that. It wasn’t done in a malicious or negative way at all, I just had so much love for the lakes and my angling that the two just couldn’t exist together in my life. Just being there was so special and looking back now, they really were the best days, by a mile.
Sub: You talk a lot in the book about just watching fish. Everything is so focused on catching these days, but you talk ever so fondly about your time spent watching them.
TD: That was what it was all about. I learned that early on. It was all margins on the Perch Pond as well, so you’d see them all the time if you looked hard enough. I’d seen all of them and watched them for hours. I knew everything about them in the end. I knew their movements; I knew where they fed… I was just so in tune with them. I had a brilliant interaction with carp fishing at that time as well because I had two different lakes I was fishing; the Perch Pond, which in my eyes was like my little Redmire, and then I had another lake that was on the other end of the scale entirely.
The Perch Pond was all paste baits in the edge, looking for the reeds twitching, and creeping around Yates-style. You would be immersed in the angling there, whereas the Meadows couldn’t have been any more different. Tony’s sister lived up that way and so we ended up fishing there and that was all boilies, peanuts and Optonics… ultra-cult carp anglers with matching three rods.
Lake Meadows was my earliest recollection of anything that resembled a circuit water, and in fact, it was probably one of the first circuit waters in the country. People would travel from all over Kent and Essex to fish there because it was a prolific doubles water. That place would be packed to the rafters with canvas bivvies, Mitchel 300s, SS 6s and Clooper rods, you know? It was a complete contrast to the quiet and mystery of the Perch Pond. All the technical things I learned were from watching people at Lake Meadows really; the hair rigs, the bolt rigs, the beads… whereas all the natural instincts that I learned about how to fish came from the Perch Pond, so putting the two together worked wonders. I could use the technical, and I understood about the magical.
Sub: Aside from the obvious things, what do you think being so involved in angling taught you at that age?
TD: It taught me about nature, and about people. You are learning all the time, especially when you’re young, and by fishing all these different places, you’re meeting people from all walks of life, and of all ages. I feel privileged to have met so many people through angling. Growing up in East London, for a lot of my mates it was either school, or hanging out with the same old crowd down the snooker club. Being out angling meant I was being exposed to so many different types of people, from different areas with different stories and different views. It taught me a lot.
Learning about nature was so important for me as well. When you’re out in it, I think you revert to your real nature you know? You can be quiet, and listen to the stillness and then you can start to feel the rhythms and to sense the subtle things that other people miss. Those things are so important. Once you quieten down you listen to yourself. As a carp angler, you learn a lot about yourself; you either go mad because you can’t handle that, or the quietness helps you to get back to your real self. You learn so much as a carp angler if you let it teach you, and don’t forget that in those days we were chasing the girls as well; it taught us a bit about that, too!
'Once you quieten down you listen to yourself. As a carp angler, you learn a lot about yourself; you either go mad because you can’t handle that, or the quietness helps you to get back to your real self. You learn so much as a carp angler if you let it teach you'
Sub: Is that why you were always so sharply dressed in your old pictures?
TD: Yeah! We always had some decent clothes on. There was no camo for us. We were showing off to all the girls! We all had girlfriends we met down at the lakes, especially the busier park lakes. I couldn’t have afforded the camo even if I’d wanted to wear it though, in reality, I’d have loved one of the old Kevin Maddocks-style jumpers, but you just wore what your mum had bought you for school, because that was all you had! Last year’s best school clothes were this year’s new carp clothes, and that’s just how it was.
'Last year’s best school clothes were this year’s new carp clothes, and that’s just how it was'
Sub: Who would you say was most influential to your angling in those early days?
TD: There could only be one person, and that would have to be my mate, Tony Moore, because really it was him that got me into it, and he was there all the way through. We fished together a lot and when there are a couple of you doing it, I think you progress quicker; having said that, there were a lot of other people as well. There was probably seven or eight of us in our little gang. Tony and me were the youngest, but we were all roughly the same age, all carp mad, and we all bounced off each other. One of us would have a better rig or bit of kit, and one would have a better bit of bait and we all just pooled it and bounced ideas off each other. Without that crew of mates, I don’t think I’d be sitting here talking to you now. That’s how influential they were.
'Without that crew of mates, I don’t think I’d be sitting here talking to you now. That’s how influential they were'
Sub: Hainault must have been a big step-up in your angling. How did you feel before you started on there? What attracted you to the place?
TD: Hainault was beyond anything we could have ever imagined. We’d fished Meadows, the Chase lakes, the Ressies… we’d caught from lots of different lakes, but Hainault was a totally different kettle of fish. That was where the big boys were playing, you know? We knew it was going to be tough and a serious challenge, but at the same time we also felt like the time was right. We knew we were ready for it and it was just a case of biting the bullet. Making that leap was hard, and some of us never did. Out of our little group, only three or four of us ever had the balls to go there. At the time, all the big, known names in Essex and Kent had fished there and people travelled from all over the country to fish Hainault. I could list a fair few really big names who did a lot of time and never caught a thing from Hainault, it really was that hard.
Sub: What was the stock in Hainault at the time?
TD: You had eight mirrors, and a few commons. It was only about six acres so, not huge, but it was really, really silty and above all that, it was the most pressured lake you’ve ever seen in your life. People talk about the pressure that lakes like Darenth had (back in the day), and Yateley’s Car Park, but this was totally different. There were no rules on Hainault so you could do what you wanted really. You could use as many rods as you wanted, there were no bailiffs, and it was basically a free for all. I tell you what, no word of a lie, I’ve seen 20 anglers on Hainault before, with almost half of them being full-timers. On six acres, that is a phenomenal amount of pressure.
'There were no rules on Hainault so you could do what you wanted really. You could use as many rods as you wanted, there were no bailiffs, and it was basically a free for all. I tell you what, no word of a lie, I’ve seen 20 anglers on Hainault before, with almost half of them being full-timers. On six acres, that is a phenomenal amount of pressure'
It was on the borders of East London in the ‘80s though; there was no work, no one had any jobs, kids were leaving school with no jobs to go into, and somewhere like Hainault provided refuge. I suppose, for those who loved their fishing. They could sign on and go and live at the lake all summer, and why not? There were loads of people doing that back then. The banks were just full. There’d be bivvies lined up along the banks; in all the pictures I have of Hainault it is always surrounded by bivvies. The only time the pressure would drop off was when it fished really hard and nothing at all would get caught for maybe a month, then it’d be quiet until they started coming out again.
Sub: The lake had a really bad reputation. Was it as bad as it was made out to be and was that off-putting, or did you see it as a challenge?
TD: It was actually worse, believe it or not! There was all sorts going on. You had big gangs meeting up down there, I had my kit nicked, a few mates had their kit nicked, anyone that had a car down there probably had that nicked at some point; if you left one overnight down by the gate it was a goner for sure, but despite all that I loved it. It seemed like everyone you met was an amazing character and it was brilliant back then. I was fortunate in a way, insomuch as I got the bus down there, or if my mum was free she’d give me a lift.
Sub: Were you doing a lot of time back then?
TD: I suppose my average session on Hainault would have been somewhere between six and 12 nights. I only fished it for a year and a half, though. I fished it in ‘85 from the August until October, pretty solidly apart from when my kit was nicked which took me a little while to get back together, and then a bit again the following year up until I caught the 30, so I actually fished it for about five or six months in total, albeit doing some serious time. I caught all the mirrors apart from one, in the end.
Sub: In hindsight, what was it that caught you those fish, do you think?
TD: If I look at what I’m doing now, which is maybe one or two nights a month, then obviously the time was a major factor, of course. From an angling sense, though, there were other people who were doing huge amounts of time and not catching them. I’d caught a few, but I’d say I really cracked Hainault when I started to swim the particles out on to the clear spots. I’d found these clay humps out in the middle, using my feet, they only came up a foot or so and there were only a couple of them out there, but once I’d got that sorted and started swimming out and laying the peanuts and tigers on there, everything changed.
'I really cracked Hainault when I started to swim the particles out on to the clear spots. I’d found these clay humps out in the middle, using my feet, they only came up a foot or so and there were only a couple of them out there, but once I’d got that sorted and started swimming out and laying the peanuts and tigers on there, everything changed'
People were catching one or two a year and the first week I did that I caught five and the second week another two. I was going out there with all sorts; they got hemped, and I was even pouring tubs of live yoghurt and milk on the spots, along with all the nuts. In those days we couldn’t afford many boilies, but the ones I did have were the business. Only the finest Dutch casien, German lactalbumin, all the best gear, you know? I learned a lot from Martin Cowls who was selling bait at the time, and through talking to him I met a lot of good anglers at Hainault Forest; lads like Kim and Paul Pynan who had fished up at Yateley and caught from all over the place, Mickey Richardson had a big influence at the time, and there were a lot of lads that I learned a lot from at Hainault. My baits were mustard in terms of quality, and they way they tasted. They were beautiful, you could eat them. I just couldn’t afford to use a lot of them back then. I’d fish the particle or the nuts and just fish a dozen or 20 boilies over the top.
Even then we were paying about £5 a kilo for the Dutch casein, and the milks were expensive. It’s probably closer to 30 quid a kilo now, but all the ingredients were expensive apart from the soya, so you were looking at about three or four quid a kilo, so they weren’t cheap. It was only when I got hold of the Sluis CLO that the baits became more affordable. By the time I got to Darenth, I was already bulking the baits out with CLO and they were a lot cheaper. You could get five kilos from the pet shop in East Ham High Street for a couple of quid, and it did the same job as the other ingredients, was really digestible and you could afford to make loads of it! That was the thing with Hainault, you were only round the corner from Weald and so from day one, from being only 15, we were plugged right into the scene and rubbing shoulders with Dickie Caldwell’s mates, and lads that were fishing the Walts and Sav you know? Loads of Savay anglers fished Hainault during that time.
Sub: What were your fondest memories from your time on there? Where did that electric atmosphere come from that you mention in the book?
TD: I think it was a few things. The fish in there were so powerful, they had this energy, and also the pressure and how badly everyone wanted them, made the lake really powerful too. There were loads of magical stories around the place at that time. There were all the stories about the beast, as well. Loads of people had seen and heard strange things but it always remained a myth. No one ever found out what it was, but to this day if I meet another Hainault angler they’ll always talk about the beast, or have their own stories about it. There was a geezer who we used to call Duracell, because he had the biggest, battery-powered torch you’ve ever seen and he used to go around every night through the woods looking for the beast. It was such an amazing, magical place, I could tell you stories all day long about stories from Hainault.
Sub: So where did you head after Hainault? Was it straight to Darenth?
TD: No, it was a while before I went to Darenth, actually. I’d met Kim and Paul Pynan on Hainault, and they’d started to tell us about other places. I’d caught a big 30, which back then was an absolutely huge carp, and so I started getting interested in other lakes, thinking about where we could go next, and so started looking at Leisure Sport waters. We’d put our names down for Darenth as there was a waiting list, and we got ourselves a Yateley ticket. The whole complex was about 17 quid a year back then, something like that, but the lake we ended up fishing was the Royston in Cambridgeshire.
Until then, it had always been park lakes, lakes not far from council estates and lakes that were surrounded by anglers and were so busy it was ridiculous, and then suddenly here was this ten-acre lake right out in the middle of nowhere in Cambridgeshire, just off the Ouse, and it was like heaven. Getting there was a problem for me, but I’d met a couple of lads at Hainault who were giving me lifts. They’d said it was tricky, but going from a lake where one mirror a year was considered respectable and what most were aiming for, I didn’t think it would be too hard. The first trip up to the Cambridge lake, I had five mirrors and lost a few, and they were all good fish for those days. It was lovely fishing up there, and then the following year our Darenth tickets came up, at the start of ’87, I think it was.
TBC.....
Head back for Part 2 next week