Like Stuart, my fishing or newting started in the local pond and progressed from there.
I can remember the days fishing for roach with hemp in the Essex gravel pits and the thrill of getting the occasional 3or4lb carp take me for a trip around,but I have to say I never have in my 40+ years purposely fished for carp,but have caught them by accident up to 14 1/2lb.
That was until last Friday,I was invited to fish an estate lake in a charity match.Now,I'm not a match fisherman so I stuck to my usual waggler approach with a big hook and relatively speaking, a big bait hoping for Tench or maybe Bream.
Anyway as I expected,this did not give me a great deal of success and people around me were pulling out tiddlers,as you would expect in a match.
Carp were crashing about all morning,so in the last hour, rather than scale down my tackle,I scaled up to go after the carp,with my baitrunner and braid to a size 4.
I had a tin of spam in the bag so hair rigged a good sized chunk.Within minutes the baitrunner was screaming and I had a heart thumping battle adjacent to snags with a 7lb pasty.
I caught a couple more after that, but, my heart was thumping in anticipation in the way it felt fishing for Barbel/Chub at Adams Mill last season.
So,to the point,I think I will continue to fish the way I've always fished,that is hoping for the big one, but, I think it's the hope,or the anticipation that keeps me going.I am sure that feeling would not happen,if I was to go out expecting to get the big one.
Oh yes, I came second in the match!