''The myth of the local monster''.

Isn't it true that when you were starting out almost every water had its resident monster. Well it certainly seemed that way to me in my formative years of fishing. And the stories of those legendary monsters fueled our young minds with unbridled enthusiasm and excitement.

In my own particular area those stories usually revolved around Pike of gigantic proportions. One in particular was resident in a large reservoir near Barnsley, where according to the local elderly anglers he betrayed his presence when on the hunt by the sound of the spinners hooked in his jaw having broken away from those lucky enough to have set a hook in him. ''Just like Christmas chimes'' they would say.

Reflecting back to those times we were naive, but for all that it exerted such a powerful influence on me, that I have continued the pursuit to the present day.

Do you have any experiences of a similar kind?

Lots of unsubstantiated myths Derek but the strangest one I ever experienced was a couple of years ago around May time.

I was roving an old local lake of around seven or eight acres and by mid-afternoon I stopped for a break and just to admire the lovely, sunny afternoon whilst propped against the trunk of a tree which offered some welcome shade.

I know the corner of this lake well and it's fairly deep at around 8' close in and dropping off beyond that.

As I sat there looking across the water a small object very slowly rose up and gently broke the surface of the water and I can't recall why but I initially thought it was an old, mossy, upturned and slightly cocked plastic bottle but it was strange that I hadn't noticed it drifting in.

As I watched, the object gently bobbed over until another one identical to it surfaced several inches away and as it levelled in the water it rose enough for me to see that it was the tail fork of a manky, rotting bream around 3lbs in weight.

I was just wondering what the chances were of being there at the exact moment that a long dead fish had gassed up and risen to the surface when the dead bream seemed to bob very deliberately as it got knocked a couple of times from below and then there was a very silent but almighty swirl and roll of something very big and very dark before the manky bream disappeared out of sight.

I couldn't make out the colour of the large fish that rolled as it was in the shadow of overhanging trees and the whole surface just looked dark but it is rumoured that a large catfish, which had come out occasionally at lower weights many years ago, has grown to huge proportions and still resides in the lake.

An account of a respected local pike fisherman with an unstoppable fish which eventually broke him prior to almost getting spooled backs up the suspicion.

A very odd thing to witness on a glorious May afternoon, I'm fairly convinced it's a huge moggy especially with the decline of the once prolific tench fishing at this lake.

I was thinking that I would reply that many of the myths originate from the public who are passing on folk lore generated by angling acquaintances of limited knowledge.

For example, hemp being banned because it drugs the fish, the monster pike that eats all the fish and ducks and therefore all pike should be killed.

However upon reflection I have also observed many anglers that I would call experienced cannot be relied on and for the life of them cannot accurately estimate the weight of a fish.

The amount of 1 1/2 lb roach I have seen that would barely scrape 12 ozs, 5lb tench that wouldn't make 4lb , the medium size pike that are "bloody great things" that have bitten off local club anglers and so on.

I think that a lot of these inaccuracies start the myths and with each telling become more and more outrageous.

All except one that I witnessed last year of course.:wh I witnessed a member rinsing his sticky groundbait fingers in the edge and he was quite badly bitten by a pike requiring stitches.

That perhaps reads that the pike required stitches ....but you know what I mean!!!

Derek

Yes we had monsters talked about in Epping Forest, the Wake Arms Pond was supposed to hold huge Carp, but we never caught one, the warren once held the Carp record, but the best our little group did was 11lbs.

There were some huge Pike in the King George Reservoir, the best we had was 25lbs, but there was always stories of 40lbders, it did of course hold hundreds of Roach over 2lbs, a friend of mine had 120 over 2 in a season, plus a 3, and the Perch were legendary?

But not many over 2lbs and the North Met Pike went to over 20, but the biggest we caught was 16lbs.

Bob

john step said:

...However upon reflection I have also observed many anglers that I would call experienced cannot be relied on and for the life of them cannot accurately estimate the weight of a fish.....

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Or even measure them with a set of scales!! - unless they have been 'specially calibrated' first - see Morespiders for details! mg:

There was a pond in a farmer's field close to where I grew up that all the local kids had fished at one time or another and rumour passed down from each set of kids as they grew up was of the giant pike that lived in the pool.

At one time or another I think everyone claimed to have hooked the pike only to have it break the line during the fight without ever seeing it - I certainly hooked something heavy and it snapped me but it was probably a submerged log but it didn't stop me believing it was the monster pike at the time

There was a couple of lads that claimed to have hooked the pike and reeled it to the surface only for it to look them in the eye and dive back breaking the line and having seen it reported it to be at least 6ft long.

Looking back I realised that a small pond of the size we fished would be very unlikely to hold a fish of any decent size but at the time the thought of such a monster fish was part of the enjoyment of fishing

I guess some of these things give some scale to how "specimen" fish weights - for some species - have changed.

So for example, when I was kid fishing in Abingdon town centre in the 80s, the local legend was a chub that sulked around the front of the upper reaches hotel - at least amongst me and some of my mates. "Lancelot"... I remember seeing this fish a few times (though interestingly no-one ever claimed to have hooked it!).... you couldn't miss it, because he was big - and well, rather scabby! Blind in one eye, battered down one side by goodness knows what - you couldn't miss him. But you couldn't catch him either.

And how big was this leviathan? Rumour amongst the more experienced older kids was that he might be 5 pounds - which at the time seemed impossible, you'd have more easily believed it if you were told he was pure gold!

I think it's probably true that young anglers need these dream fish - just to keep you coming back for more. As our rational minds develop - and we maybe catch a decent fish or two - our requirement of the myths drops away a little, which is a shame really.

That said, it's a tough thing to revisit those waters of your youth where your fishing imagination was first stirred. All too often, the rivers that ran clear and strong back then are a shopping trolly-filled muddy trickle now... (actually, maybe they always were...) And "secret" lakes that you had to push bike miles to are now either filled in or perhaps "modern" commercial fisheries where trees and grass have given way to concrete platforms and carparks.

And by the way, no one ever did catch Lancelot....

Jim Crosskey 2 said:

.... And "secret" lakes that you had to push bike miles to are now either filled in or perhaps "modern" commercial fisheries where trees and grass have given way to concrete platforms and carparks.....

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For me it was the unattainable species in some of the local ponds - rather than specimen size - we used to focus on.

One water had plenty of little rudd & roach - but it was rumoured that there were tench in there! - a local rarity. My friend and I caught 1 each on one occasion after fishing the water almost every day through summer! Never saw another from that pond!

Now filled in with a housing estate built on top of it - guess what - they have terrible problems with the damp! I wonder why?! mg:

On a lighter note, but true – in the early 50’s we used to ‘fish’ for trojans (great crested newts) from the bomb craters in the fields close to Northolt Aerodrome during some of the evenings when we weren’t ‘proper fishing’. We heard tales from other boys of monsters in the water and had seen swirls around the worms (tied directly to the line on a bamboo stick with a matchstick as a float) on occasions.

This led to taking a cane rod, quill and pin along and baiting a worm on a mustad hook this time. All hell broke loose as the monster grabbed the worm ending with a ‘monster’ tench of around a pound and a half on the bank. Those bomb craters had been there slightly over 10 years at the time and obviously had been ‘stocked’ by eggs carried on wading birds feet

I can’t remember if any other ‘monsters’ were taken from there as this was around the time we grew out of newting...............

Some great accounts there.

It reminds me of the comic strip on the junior page of early eighties Angling Times with the legendry Ol' Croc, the huge pike that would occasionally appear and wreak havoc.

Anyone else remember that, was it based on Crabtree?

john step said:

All except one that I witnessed last year of course.:wh I witnessed a member rinsing his sticky groundbait fingers in the edge and he was quite badly bitten by a pike requiring stitches.

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I remember reading somewhere about a pike grabbing hold of a horses nose as it drank from a pool.
It was said that the pike had probably been blind and had struck at what it probably thought was waterfowl splashing in the margins.

I also remember a bailiff at my local reservoir telling me about someone's small dog being snaffled by a large Pike as the dog swam out to retrieve a ball thrown by its owner.

Keith

In all my years of pike fishing I have never seen a duck taken by a pike I know it happens but I have never seen it.
In our local pit we had a legend of a pike called scar face nobody ever landed it. We were told not to go swimming because scar face would get us.
I never saw anyone catch a pike either big or small.

Keith M said:

... a bailiff at my local reservoir telling me about someone's small dog being snuffled by a large Pike as the dog swam out to retrieve a ball thrown by its owner...

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Dya think the Pike worry about how hairy the dogs are?
Millie - come on girl -.....Fetch ........... splash!
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.
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Sorry luv, a pike got her! mg:
Can we get a proper dog now? Like one that could fight off a pike f'rinstance?!

Greenie - you a bad boy!!!

When I was a young kid there was a general sports shop that also sold some fishing equipment and bait, and this had a huge stuffed pike on the wall with a brass plaque underneath giving details of when this was caught from a local lake.

All of the staff in the fishing section would happily tell you all about the number of ducks and small dogs that this was know to have eaten, and would sell you, precisely the same tackle that this was caught on. However, this tackle appeared to vary dependent upon which member of staff served you.

Scroll forward probably 20 years and I got to know a chap who it eventually transpired was the nephew of the owner of the shop which had long since closed. When I reminded him about the pike, he nearly wet himself with laughter, and told me that his uncle who known in the family as a real rogue, and had bought the fish at a jumble sale and spent a couple of quid on the plaque to cover the original one. He said that he made as fortune selling ridiculously inappropriate tackle (pretty much anything that they had over-ordered!) to gullible idiots like me solely based on the stuffed pike!

When i was a kid there was a legendary Pike in the Nene, everybody claimed to have been busted up by him.Irememeber watching Nationwide as a kid and a guy caught these Pike on a thing named a Piker lure, about six inches of heavy red and ssilver metal, i saved for weeks and trudged down to the Aquadrome where the marina lake empties into the river, a couple of casts in, a massive hit and after a long battle the line parted, what rumours i started with that one. In 1980, an accomplished specimen angler, i moved with my parents to an area with a local park, the lake contained a monster carp, Moby, i had him out quite quickly, all of fifteen pounds. Enough of past, i am going to start one, whilst fishing Sywell for Tench some years ago, we fished down a shallow arm fringed by reeds, my brother was annoyed that a log was catching his lines, having a stone bottom for some distance , i went in to move it, it moved, a massive Pike, now i have seen some big ones and seen others catch bigger but this was in a different league, so beleive in monsters, they aint all myths.

john step said:

The amount of 1 1/2 lb roach I have seen that would barely scrape 12 ozs, 5lb tench that wouldn't make 4lb , the medium size pike that are "bloody great things" that have bitten off local club anglers and so on.

I think that a lot of these inaccuracies start the myths and with each telling become more and more outrageous.

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I have found the same, but most i know seem to be match anglers. I think its because they don't weigh individual fish, just the catch as a whole.

I knew one guy and every Roach he caught was a foot long, when in fact he only weighed in just over 6lb with 4 bream, several Roach and Perch, one of the Bream weighed almost 3lb.

Some of the monsters i heard about as a kid, would have been big enough to eat you, thats if you bothered to listen to the stories. It is the same today on some waters around here, Carp go to 100lb, Pike 8 foot long, and Bream the size of a UFO, I have told them a Million times not to exaggerate

steve2 said:

In all my years of pike fishing I have never seen a duck taken by a pike I know it happens but I have never seen it.
In our local pit we had a legend of a pike called scar face nobody ever landed it. We were told not to go swimming because scar face would get us.
I never saw anyone catch a pike either big or small.

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That local pit wouldn't have been the Chase by any chance would it. I grew up next to the Chase and that name "scarface" rings a bell.

Yes, it was the Chase.

Around my way there's The beast of Batchworth which is (allegedly) a big catfish in the river Colne. Recently there was an open competition to catch it using whole tins of luncheon meat on a big hook or any other legal method.
Alas it escaped capture on the day.....

I have no experience of the kind of monsters being discussed in this thread. The only local monsters I have ever encountered are the ones I drink with. Pete.