The concluding part of Tel's epic interview from 2012, and our sold out Issue 1 Journal. Kettle on, kick back and enjoy. This one is really special
SUB: You’d caught a hell of a lot of good fish back then, from some of the hardest and highest profile waters in the country. Why did you choose not to publicise any of them? Was that a conscious decision?
TD: Yeah it was, absolutely. I suppose it was a few things; unless you went looking for it, no one ever asked for your pictures or for you to publicise anything. I just went carp fishing because I loved it, and my mates and everything that came with it. I wasn’t interested in getting my face in a magazine. If anything, that was the total opposite of what I was about, so it didn’t even enter my head. Another reason was that there was far more secrecy in carp fishing in general. It just wasn’t the done thing to blow your own trumpet. There was a lot of secrecy on the lakes I was fishing and that’s just the way it was. I’d caught 30s from Darenth that no one knew about, they were like rocking horse shit back then, but you just kept things to yourself. It’s only recently that most of those photos have ever been seen.
SUB: Were you getting cheap bait through Geoff? Was he okay with you not publicising them?
TD: I started using Geoff’s gear in ’87. He’d been selling the Premier gear since ’86, I think, but hadn’t really done any advertising or publicity, and then I ended up having a piece in the Angler’s Mail with three 30s that I’d caught in a night from the Tip. One of the blokes that worked there had been fishing next to me and had photographed some of them and asked if I minded if he ran a piece. We thought it’d be good to give Geoff’s bait a little nudge, and didn’t think much of it. Until then, we’d been having such good results that we were keen to keep things as quiet as we could, but of course, Geoff wanted us to sing and dance about it at the same time. I just knew we could take it to other waters and have it make the same impact, but the word soon got out and soon enough, everyone was on the fishmeals.
SUB: You are still incredibly keen these days. How have you managed that through all the changes that carp fishing has seen? Do you think not being involved in the commercial scene has helped you retain that keenness to some extent?
TD: Without a doubt, yes it has. I’ve got a small, tight-knit group of mates who are all as keen as mustard. We still bounce off each other like we did when we were kids, and I think that helps. It’s good to surround yourself with like-minded people. I also think that on the lakes that I’m fishing, and because I’m not doing a lot of time, the challenges now are bigger than they’ve ever been.
SUB: Do you mean in terms of the venues? Or the much shorter time-scales you have now?
TD: A mixture of both; I’m fishing rock-hard lakes with hardly any time. I’m just doing a morning or maybe an overnighter, something like that. I’ve probably not been there for a couple of weeks so I’m not tuned in. It’s like climbing Everest really, and I haven’t got a chance in hell, which I think helps to keep me keen. I still love it as much as ever. I’m the maddest-keen angler you’ll ever meet! If I didn’t have my responsibilities I’d be a full-timer again tomorrow, I really would. When my wife goes away to stay with her mum for a couple of weeks each summer with my kid, I’m off. The cat doesn’t get fed, the goldfish start searching for food… I’m out of the door and gone, and I’m not back until she gets back.
'It’s like climbing Everest really, and I haven’t got a chance in hell, which I think helps to keep me keen. I still love it as much as ever. I’m the maddest-keen angler you’ll ever meet! If I didn’t have my responsibilities I’d be a full-timer again tomorrow, I really would'
SUB: I think that spirit is amazing, especially when I see so many cynical, bored carp anglers out there these days. The interesting thing is that you have nothing to gain from carp fishing other than enjoyment. It is absolutely for the love of it, isn’t it? That shines through way above all else in your book.
TD: It is, yeah. There’s nothing, and no one to please. If I catch one, I’ve caught if for me. I might tell my mates, I might not, it just doesn’t matter, and they probably don’t really care because they’re the same as me. I can’t knock full-time anglers at all. I hear people knocking them all the time but it were not for the full-timers and those people that were so mad-keen that they wanted to literally live by lakes, then carp fishing just wouldn’t be what it is today. That’s how carp fishing started. That was how it all began, with people doing week sessions, and big, long sessions at Redmire. I hear people complaining about anglers doing so much time these days, but that’s what carp fishing was all about. It has always been like that, and if people are loving it and living out their dreams, then good luck to them, you know?
'I hear people knocking them all the time but it were not for the full-timers and those people that were so mad-keen that they wanted to literally live by lakes, then carp fishing just wouldn’t be what it is today. That’s how carp fishing started. That was how it all began, with people doing week sessions'
SUB: How many nights have you fished this year?
TD: I think I’ve done about 20 nights this year, that’s all.
SUB: Most people wouldn’t dream of fishing a pit like Wraysbury with only a minimum of time at their disposal. How do you rationalise that?
TD: I just have no other option. I have to fish for those type of fish. If I don’t fish for carp like that then I’m just not getting the same sort of buzz. I suppose it’s a bit crazy really. I’m trying to do something that I know I can’t, but I just get such a buzz fishing for that type of carp, on the rock-hard places, that I just couldn’t do it any other way. If I could go somewhere tonight and knock three out, I probably wouldn’t go back. I want to do something that I can’t do, achieve something that is out of reach; that is really important to me.
SUB: What are the most important things to you these days? Is it the challenge? Is it the size, or looks of the fish, or the solitude of the big venues
TD: It is a bit of all those things. I just love getting all my kit in the car in the morning and going; that feeling of anticipation of arriving at a water where you can go and explore and actually go and look for the fish. One thing I don’t like about the busier waters is being nervous or worried about whether certain areas or swims are going to be free when I get there. I like quiet, low-stock lakes because it’s just me against the fish, and above all that I’m in no rush. In my heart, I’m in no rush to catch any more carp. I’m more than happy with the carp I’ve caught and it doesn’t matter to me. I’m not out to break any records, I’m not interested in numbers - it’s just me and the fish.
I love catching fish in a certain way, as well. I love setting a little trap and watching them, and catching them like that. I’m not really interested in going somewhere where I’ve got to cast 200 yards and then just sit behind my rods. I love being in close contact with them. There’s no other feeling in the world like spending hours and hours searching for something on a big old pit and then bumping into a gang of them, it’s magical. That feeling has never changed for me either. I still get all flustered and end up in pandemonium when I find them on a water like Wraysbury, just like I did when I was a kid. There’s just no buzz like it. Just seeing them is enough a lot of the time, that’s almost enough for me. If you do catch them then, great, but there’s so much more to it than that.
'I’m not really interested in going somewhere where I’ve got to cast 200 yards and then just sit behind my rods. I love being in close contact with them. There’s no other feeling in the world like spending hours and hours searching for something on a big old pit and then bumping into a gang of them, it’s magical. That feeling has never changed for me either'
SUB: You like them being out of reach then, beyond your capabilities?
TD: It makes carp fishing totally different. I know that if I did a load of time on Wraysbury I’d catch them, without sounding big-headed, it’s just because of how you tune in when you spend a lot of time on a lake. You get closer and closer, and when you’ve got some time you take two steps forward, and one back until you eventually get close enough to get among them, but when you’ve hardly any time you’re taking one step forward and three steps back. When you’ve got a family and commitments it becomes so much different, you can’t just abandon all that to go and chase a carp. I know lots of people who have and good luck to them, but that’s not for me any longer.
SUB: Do you think that level of obsessive carp angling is really sustainable, anyway? There’s a lot of those early full-time anglers who don’t fish any more, isn’t there?
TD: Yeah, there were a few who just blew out. I don’t know though, I still know a lot of mates who consider a three-nighter to be a short session, and wouldn’t consider going for less. I have to make do with doing a morning these days, and that’s when you need to have a completely different mentality, and a different mindset. That’s a mindset I’ve had to learn, and it hasn’t come easily.
SUB: How important to you is your prep these days?
TD: Of course, my prep is massively important, massively. It always has been really important to me though, not just now. It is hard to find the time to invest in prep at times, though, to get out and bait up, or even just to put new line on my reels, or even to sharpen my hooks.
SUB: What do you think needs to happen within the carp scene for things to shift toward a more positive future?
TD: I suppose the scene has broken into so many different factions these days, that it’s hard to gauge. You’ve got the heavily-stocked places where people can just go and get runs, and then all the way through to the low-stock waters that I think are dying out actually, which is a great shame. Carp are being overstocked throughout the country, and while that might be good to bring newcomers in, I don’t think it is necessary. Like we talked about earlier, my first two major waters had two mirrors, and eight mirrors, respectively. I just don’t think people would bother with waters like that these days. For me, on the waters that I’ve been fishing in recent years, my fishing is no different to what it was 20 years ago, nothing has changed.
SUB: Has your fishing changed in any other way?
TD: I’m fishing some of the hardest waters in the country and I’m still using the same tactics and similar baits to what I was using 20, even 25 years ago. I’m using the same rig I caught the Pilgrim on, and that one’s been dead 25 years. I don’t think the hooklinks we have now come close to the old Black Spider Dacron we had back then, so I don’t think things are that much better. Things are just marketed better that’s all, and come in a much fancier packet. The major advantage we all have with bait now is how easily available it is. I’m not sure the bait is actually quite as good as it used to be either, but it is much easier for someone to buy 20 kilos and go and throw it in the lake, whereas in our day we had to roll each and every one of those baits before we threw them in - that was a totally different ball game. Now, if I wanted to, I could put 80 kilo of boilie in a lake just by making a phone call and putting my hand in my pocket.
SUB: When we talked at Dinton back in the summer, we chatted for a while about your ‘feel’ and ‘sense’ about when the carp are near, or when they’re going to get caught. Can you explain a bit further about that?
TD: I just know they’re there, even when I can’t see them. I felt like that even when I was a kid, but I think that is something that everyone has the capability to do, I just don’t think a lot of people are ‘still’, and quiet enough, and they aren’t really listening, or they don’t know what to listen for. A lot of the world now is scientific, it’s all concepts and ideas and about the mind, so everything that’s away from the mind and rationality, they can’t handle because it can’t be seen, or measured or explained. I’m coming from a different place; I could tell you now about dozens of instances when I just knew a fish was coming out. Just this year on two or three occasions it has happened. I wrote about it in the book, talking about how ‘the magic had worked again’ and it did, time after time. We used to say we ‘talked’ them out of the lake. We’d get together in the evenings, talking them out, saying they’d be out tomorrow, and you could pinpoint them. We really believed that the power of the mind could do that, and manifest itself in a real circumstance.
'I just don’t think a lot of people are ‘still’, and quiet enough, and they aren’t really listening, or they don’t know what to listen for'
Only the other day at Wraysbury, I fell on them. I knew they were going to be there though, and I knew that before I got there. It was almost as if the session has happened before it has. It’s a strange thing, but it does happen. My mate had the Big Common from Sutton a few weeks ago. We’d been sitting there talking about it for an hour, this one fish. He hadn’t had a run over there for ages, and two hours later it was in his net. I think a lot of fishing is magical, and a lot of the fish you catch aren’t because of science, or because of your rigs or baits, it is deeper than that, much deeper. When people say ‘your name’s on that one’ if you actually stop to think about that for a minute, it is a really loaded, deep saying.
'I think a lot of fishing is magical, and a lot of the fish you catch aren’t because of science, or because of your rigs or baits, it is deeper than that, much deeper'
SUB: Looking back at your years on the bank, what are the most special things that angling has given you?
TD: I suppose it would have to be my friends, and the friendships. It isn’t all about angling at the end of the day. Life outside of that can be hard at times and the friends you make help you through that. The carp come second to the friends. You meet people from such a range of backgrounds and ages, and in areas where you’d have never met them otherwise. Carp fishing is a bit of a community, and that spirit is important. People like to be in that community, to be a part of something and have that comradeship, the difficult waters attract that as well.
Catching a carp can be a very shallow experience, especially from a non-anglers perspective; you’ve cast out this rig, a buzzer’s gone, the rod bends and you wind it in. At base, and from an objective standpoint, that seems like a shallow experience so you have to have that magic spark in you, for it to mean anything, for it to be anything. You could tell a million people about that and it wouldn’t mean a thing to them, it would just be like dust on the ground, so without that magic, you have nothing, that’s all carp fishing is. I think a lot of people have it, but don’t even know it. It stays hidden behind all the concepts and science and facts, and that’s just not what it is all about. You have to hang on to that magic to make it what it is, or what it can be.
SUB: Thanks, Terry. That is a brilliant place to finish.
'You have to have that magic spark in you, for it to mean anything, for it to be anything. You could tell a million people about that and it wouldn’t mean a thing to them, it would just be like dust on the ground, so without that magic, you have nothing, that’s all carp fishing is'
