In my life I have always relished the idea of trying to catch the most "difficult" fish, sometimes irrespective of size.
I am mindful here of the carp of Redmire Pool.
It seemed that one or two of these fish were "mugs" as Mark describes them. Chris Yates record carp was caught umpteen times before by such anglers as Jack Hilton, Tom Mintram, Pete Thomas, Roger Bowskill and a few others. Yet for a period there seemed to exist in that water a couple of huge carp that were seen but never caught.
**** Walker once decribed to me in detail how he visited Redmire in early June. He noticed that the carp were spawning and sat there watching them. Then he spotted a very big carp that had beached itself in the shallows and seemed to be in difficulties. He went back to his car, grabbed his net and a hefty spring balance, waded out and netted the fish.
It was a fully scaled common.
He carried it up to the dam wall and after nursing the fish some time, he released it. But before he let it go he weighed it in the net. Subtracting the weight of the net, it went 53 lbs! This took place in the 50s by the way.
Of course he never published that story for obvious reason, but he reckoned he had saved that fishes life by doing what he did.
It did seem that Redmire at some time had a few very large but "uncatchable" fish.
