Re: Martin Gay's Historic Carp Captures - THIS is 'Overwhelming Evidence'...
Well that was a lot of work to put that article together and for what? no answers to questions I was promised answers to, just more (this time more scientific) put downs of the CS and PS. Nothing about why the committee members that saw the photographs before they were messed with thought the water was English.
I would have thought that there have been enough posts in the other thread to give an inkling that posters are not at all interested in what was said by the CS or PS, not then not now not ever, its where these fish were caught that most if not all posters have been interested in, I cannot see any overwhelming evidence in any of the article of where those fish were caught and before I am accused of skimming over it I have read it twice before deciding to post a reply.
Early in the other thread I said that I believed that a possible reason for the water being kept secret was because the water was private, fishing was not allowed there and MG had poached it, the last paragraph in the piece sums that up for me I reproduce it below.
This is what Chris Yates had to say.
“I’m fed up with some of the carp anglers of today, although some are very nice. But I would certainly like to see Martin Gay beat the carp record. His large common carp is an absolutely genuine British capture, and I hope he returns to the old private reservoir where it was caught to catch an even bigger one
The statement above is something that has been newly introduced into this discussion, if it had been in the original then I would have thought even more that the photographs were altered not to protect any fish but to protect the angler from being accused of catching them where fishing was not allowed, no wonder the committee members thought the water was English, it was, just not one where angling was allowed. If this is not true then Mr Yates has only to come to this forum and name the "private reservoir " where he believes the fish were caught.
I now believe that MG hated the modern Carp scene so much that when he caught these fish he just could not stop himself using them to rub their noses into the fact that he without any of the modern methods had managed to catch a huge and momentous catch of Carp. I also believe that this is the reason for publishing accounts of the captures he just couldn't help himself and when he was accused of catching them elsewhere he couldn't come clean with where the water was and clear his name as the illusion had gone to far for him to stop the rolling snowball that was getting bigger and bigger.
This for me is a prime example of what can happen when an angler doesn't like the way that other anglers fish, the extremes that some will go to in order to show that their way is the right way, it wasn't exclusive to MG or those far off days, it hasn't stopped its happening today and always will until all anglers understand that they don't have to like how an angler fishes but that as long as the fish are coming to no harm they have the right to fish in a manner that they enjoy.
This is my one and only post on this thread, there is no point in continuing, there is nothing more that will convince me that what I now believe happened did happen, please Eddie and Cliff just let it go, there is no overwhelming evidence.
---------- Post added at 20:31 ---------- Previous post was at 20:28 ----------
This is from one of the earliest posts on the first thread from someone who only posted once and never posted since
I grew up in Chelmsford and it was well rumoured locally at the time that Martin's fish came from Hanningfield Reservior, a 600 acre trout lake that can be seen from the road, in fact the road pretty much runs alongside it all the way round (google map it!). Back in the early nineties I used to going canoeing there and regularly saw huge carp crash out that would break most people's PB. I also remember a photo in the Essex Chronicle in the late 80's of a carp (I think around 30lb) landed by a fly fisherman there. This doesn't prove that Martin's fish is British, but carp definitely resided there at the time, it was close to where Martin lived, it wasn't fished by carp anglers (and to my knowledge still isn't) and could easily have produced an uncaught 50lber - even back then!
and this
This is what Chris Yates had to say.
“I’m fed up with some of the carp anglers of today, although some are very nice. But I would certainly like to see Martin Gay beat the carp record. His large common carp is an absolutely genuine British capture, and I hope he returns to the old private reservoir where it was caught to catch an even bigger one”
Sorry to repeat some of your post Tony, you must have posted while I was typing.
