Dear old Ray Clay, a one time member of the Northampton Specimen Group, died some years ago. He was, I believe, a distant relative.
The NSG was formed just after my own Northern Specimen Group and comprised some very capable anglers in it's time. Fred Wagstaffe, Bob Church, Cyril Inwood, Bev Perkins, Keith Robinson, Frank Cutler, **** Shrive and a few more.
Most of my carp history facts are gleaned from Kevin Clifford's great tome:
A History of Carp Fishing
This is a book every British carp angler with a sense of history should read.
And although Walker's fame grew mainly because of an incredible fluke (his words) - the capture of the record carp, he was never a carp fisher for all that long. After the capture of Clarissa and a 34 pounder he took in 1954, he virtually gave up carp fishing.
He admitted to me in a letter and in his Angling Times Column ca 1978, that there was a danger that carp were being over-populated in many English waters. These days I tend to agree. The stocking of thousands of small carp and F1 type hybrids into small fisheries in my opinion is not an ethically sound idea. A few big carp is a good idea, along with other interesting speicies in the same water.
Another interesting fact is the growth of the Redmire fish. In just over 15 years these fish were all over 20lbs in weight, some of them reaching twice that figure and more, all on a diet of daphnia and bloodworms. Remember carp anglers did not use high protein baits such as boilies in those days. Only bits of bread for most of the time.
---------- Post added at 13:18 ---------- Previous post was at 13:06 ----------
I knew there was some Clay in there somewhere lol
I'm interested to hear more of this "any species lazy fishing"
And so would I.
Although I formed a specimen group in 1962 and did spend a lot of my time after what are termed - specimen fish, I eventually became more interested in catching a wide variety of species, salt water too.
And of course I grew to love fly fishing and all it typifies.
