It all started because me and Cakey couldn’t settle our differences over various personal competitions we’d had over best catches and biggest carp, etc. The end result was a session over one of our club waters in Kent. If I won, he’d agreed to unmask his face on the forum and if he won I would go full steam ahead with setting up a 24 hour charity match. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances Cakey couldn’t attend our little fishing trip so we decided we’d go for a charity match anyway.
The venue was set for Hunts Corner within the Linear Fisheries Complex and the date was the 12th June 2002. With eighteen-odd anglers committed to the event we were off. The usual suspects reared their ugly heads, with me, Big Rik (Carp Angler), Gypsy Dave, Brett Webster and Roto all too excited to sleep the night before. Our intention was to get to the venue the day before and set out our stall in arranging everything. We’d originally decided to get there for around 7am on the Tuesday morning and with the Christmas Eve bug set firmly in our 6 year old heads we done the usual excited little boys trick of setting off around 1am as we couldn’t sleep – arghhhh! It was a great start as we’d decided to meet in the little Chef en route and after an hour or so of waiting we’d realised that we’d told Roto the wrong service station (unintentional of course!). After the usual piss-taking and eyeing up of competitors we awaited Roto’s arrival. Shortly afterwards we drove onto the complex to check out the venue. The Venue – Hunts Corner Lake Hunts Corner is a sensational looking lake with beautiful swims. Nine acres in size and depths ranging to about 11ft in places. We set up shop and proceeded with the spodding and pre-baiting. Within the first four hours we’d seen Gypsy Dave move swims four times, looking back we believe this was the flies following him for many unhygienic reasons that I’m not prepared to list here! A Quiet First Day The first day was extremely quiet, we’d been advised the carp had spawned and on arrival found out that in fact this was not the case. No beeps, no bites, no fish resulted in an early evening meet and meal in the car park with Roto’s delivery of the best Thai curry I’ve ever tasted in my life. (Credit to his wife there!). A couple of swigs of port and few beers later saw us all roaming back to our swims to make ready for the evening’s fishing.
Then Some Serious Amateur Dramatics and a Giant Teletubbie! Midnight came and went with no shut-eye for me and Rik for some 36 hours now, so we decided to get down to some serious amateur dramatics on the bank side impersonating Jerry Springer type followers (don’t ask, every time me and fat-head Rik get together, I think its fair to say it’s like two 3 year olds in a sandpit). This merry charade lasted until 3am and saw an exhausted Rik and Stuart retreat knackered to the bivvy, not the same one mind, although it wasn’t for a want of trying on his part! An hour or so later and I was awoken by the appearance of Austin and his son Lee accompanied by Phil Hatton. Now imagine that ugly bunch peering through your bivvy flap at the crack of dawn. Frightened half to death, I emerged worse for lack of sleep but greeted them with a smile (rare for me first thing in the morning). When night fishing I sleep in a big green fleece boiler suit and after managing to get another hours kip in, I rolled out of my bivvy to be sensationally greeted by Stuart Bullard with his thoughtful morning words of ‘F*** me it’s a giant Teletubbie!’ So the 12th started on a high I thought and was soon to go rapidly down hill from then on!
Four hundred cans later and umpteen boxes of wine, we decided to draw the pegs. The amateurs walked off first with best choice of swims, next were the pro’s. My recollection was that only a deadly serious Gypsy Dave strode anxiously up and down the car park shouting out that everyone was a cheat as we deliberately delayed him from getting back to his comfortable pre-baited swim. With all pegs drawn and only half of the anglers settled in their swims, it was now time to get down to the serious drinking! Rik Hugs his Landrover and Barney was Minced I think it’s fair to say that Rik and Barney (Gary Knowles) were heading the herd with boxes of wine dribbling down their greedy fat cheeks. Three hours in and Rik was looking the worse for wear with his continuous clinging and hugging of his Landrover. Sometime later Barney, the witty, fast humoured and lethal heckler was minced into bits and proceeded to change colours from Mr red cheeks into Shrek. Bang, Barney was last seen stumbling over Rik’s bivvy and onwards to his own peg, in which he managed to put up his bivvy inside out and cross his own rods somehow. This left a confused Murray looking down in total disbelief at his fishing buddy Warren, who by this time was also dribbling bubbles due to alcohol abuse and denying he was drunk. Rik became a giggling little girl and all slowly and unsteadily moved towards their pegs. Time now, around 1PM.
Time was fast approaching 3pm when all of a sudden a very strange thing started to happen. Young Warren had miraculously turned from being a merry boystrous contender into FISHINGmagic’s resident Sex Pest! He was trying to get into my bivvy and sit on my bedchair with me in it. Now don’t get me wrong, I think highlighted hair was a great thing in its day, but no way was this Kaja-goo-goo wannabe gonna get settled in with me in my bivvy. A size 9 up his jaxy soon unbalanced him and he was last seen wandering aimlessly towards the next swim obviously in seek of his next victim. Still no bites, still no runs. Mr Serious, Gypsy Dave, was going at it hammer and nail by now and trying to pull out all the stops by fishing for the carp off the top. He was checking in with everyone to garner progress. By this time Big Rik, (Mr. Spawny himself) had crawled back to his swim, cast out and wallop, a 21lb beautiful scaled mirror was on the bank. With me and Mr Marsden ripping the piss out of everything that moved, a very bitter little boy came up to Rik and started throwing his toys out of the pram. Yep you guessed it, Gypsy Dave was on the war path with the green-eyed monster firmly gripped within. It wasn’t until we explained that Rik was not in the competition that we were able to insert the dummy back into Gypo’s mouth. But now it’s the Warren Gaunt – Entertainer! Time now, 4:45 and everyone was lined up back in the car park ready for the BBQ and the ‘Warren Gaunt entertainment Parade’. The next part seems a little shady to say the least. With no witnesses except Austin, Gypsy Dave claimed he caught a 12lb carp off the top on dog biscuit. Now I wouldn’t necessarily put Austin down as a liar but I’m sure when Gypsy Dave told him he’d give him a backhander, Austin thought he meant a reach around and a five minute private session in the bushes. One thing led to another and eventually we had to give the leading fish so far in the competition to spoilt brat Gypsy Dave.
£ 3000 Raised for Charity Time now 6pm and time to collect the charity cash. The majority of whom bought theirs with them leaving a couple of stragglers yet to send me their cheques! After a wonderful raffle and everyone getting something we ended up with a staggering £ 3000 raised for charity, less the lake and trophy fees, etc, and of course my forthcoming weekend shopping in New York – but that’s another story! OI, DO YOU WANT A BURRRRRRRRGGA?????” Time now 7PM and our resident sex pest Warren is on great form. We were visited by the lake owner ‘Biggles’ who was as deaf as a post and mumbled continuously about what a wonderful bit of tucker he had in the officers mess and that he’ll be popping off soon for his evening Gin and Tonic! (This guy was on another planet, a typical sergeant major but about 300 years old). He took one look in the car park strewn with empty beer cans, took a look at the monstrosities being cremated on the BBQ then slowly raised his eyes to the chef! I for one thought he was going to get his shotgun out and turf us all off! But luckily enough our Warren outshone himself with his diplomatic negotiations in shouting at the old geezer at the top of his voice, absolutely out of his head “OI, DO YOU WANT A BURRRRRRRRGA?????” regretfully the old boy declined, clicked heels and marched out of camp, leaving us all splitting our ribs. By this time, someone had mentioned that they’d seen Mr Drull (Roto) emerging from the undergrowth. This is the guy who mutters under his breath but stalks people rather than fish in his camouflage get-up. Nice guy, wrong planet! Yep Mr Territorial was up and about and setting his traps for the evening, a definite Rambo wannabe! Another hour of Warren’s car park entertainment show and we all headed off back to our swims for the evening session. By this time I’d managed to relax with the thought that all had gone well and commenced the task of sinking into a bottle of port. A quiet night as far as the fishing went but awoke to sound of Marsden’s stomach rumbling. Breakfast was served and slowly but surely everyone started to emerge with their hangovers following directly behind. An Annual Event The event was slow regarding the actual fishing, but a great social event I must say. Unfortunately, this does confirm we will be making it a yearly event so more graft for me, me finks! It truly was great meeting you all and I’m extremely proud of the effort you all put into the event and the cash raised. Apart from my wonderful self, Phil Hatton managed to raise the most and tight-arsed Dave Johnson (AKA Chub) was the tight-arse who raised the least. Which of course makes him head chef next year. On behalf of me and Cakey I’d like to say thanks again to you all, it truly was a great trip, with the toasting of young James Farrow through to the award ceremony the next day which I’m pleased to say that the overall competition winner was Gypsy Dave for a well deserved 12lb mirror off the top and the ‘James Farrow Memorial Trophy’ went to Big Rik for biggest fish caught at the event! I’ve been receiving emails for people wishing to take part in next year’s event so I’m looking forward to that already, even if it does have to be somewhere up north! Footnote From Graham Just to close on a sober note, I want to say that Stuart Dennis gave everyone who attended a medal in a nice presentation case. A bit unfair really, because he and his assistant Cakey, should have had a medal apiece for all the effort they put into making this a memorable event. Only somebody who has organised a do like this can appreciate all the hard work that must have gone into it. Warren too deserved a medal for sorting out the grub for the hungry hordes and burning the BBQ in good style. I mean, what’s a BBQ without the blackened food? Seriously, he did a great job. Stu ‘Skive’ Johnson deserves a mention too, for donating malt whisky for the raffle and driving 200-odd miles just to come and say hello. Like Stuart said, the fishing was slow, to say the least, but what can you expect on a 21-peg venue with 20 anglers roaming round in jubilant mood? But this fish-in was never about just catching fish. It was a great occasion for a good cause, and a tribute to a young carp angler, James Farrow, who died recently, and although 90% of us, including me, made bloody fools of ourselves and would never have caught a fish if we’d still been there now, we came away feeling good that we may have helped some under-privileged kid, somewhere, feel better. Well done Stuart and Cakey. You did us proud. |
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