Quarry Bank Fishery - Part 11
Fennel continues his 12-part series about fishing at the fabulous Quarry Bank Fishery in France, this time the big carp begin to stir.
"Four measures"
Having congratulated Shaun on the capture of his fish, I left him to recast while I walked back to my swim.
Passing behind Tim’s swim, I saw that he was up and moving about on the decking, sorting out the kit needed to make a morning coffee.
“Morning, Tim,” I said. “Shaun’s just had one. 26lb exactly, caught at first light as the fish patrolled the nearby margin.”
“Great result,” replied Tim. “Nice to get another fish on the bank. They’ve been proving tricky to catch, eh?”
“Sure have,” I said, “but the full moon’s waning and the weather’s on the change. It was quite chilly in the night. I’m hoping that this might aid our fortunes.”
“We’re doing everything right,” said Tim, “I know it. We just need to keep sitting it out until we get a pick-up.”
“Looks like you’ve got a plan for passing the time,” I said as I pointed to his portable espresso maker.
“Come and join me,” said Tim, “one can’t be expected to endure yet another day of blissful relaxation without first getting a shot of coffee to awaken the senses.”
“You’re right,” I said, “all this waiting around in the heat has made me feel like a candle left out in the sun. I think I’ll need a double for starters, and then another double just to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?” replied Tim.
“That I’m capable of standing up when the chance arises,” I said. “Playing a fish lying down in a ‘melted’ state would prove near impossible. So, yes. Make it a large one. Four shots of your finest roast.”
“Quad shot coming up,” said Tim.
“Grande-grande,” I replied.
I walked down to Tim’s swim, where he began grinding coffee beans while I filled the kettle and lit the stove. Soon we were both sitting side-by-side, with coffee cups in hand, gazing out across the early-morning pool.
Wishing Tim's rods to spring into action. He'd had more action than anyone, but was plagued with hook-pulls and cut-offs.
“So, what have we got to do to get you a fish?” I asked.
“Dunno,” replied Tim. “I’ve had my chances, and remain hopeful, but I’m knowingly on a learning journey. This big carp fishing is very different to my usual fly fishing, even for big saltwater species. It’s very sedentary, but then all hell breaks loose when a fish takes the bait. The transition between sleepy tranquillity and heart-pounding panic is so abrupt, it leads to a constant state of barely-suppressed adrenaline. This coffee is good, but my heart’s been pounding since I hooked that first fish.”
“That’s the real drug of carp fishing,” I replied. “It’s not about the capture, or even the playing of the fish, but of the constant and almost excruciatingly tense excitement of what could happen at any moment.”
“You’re going to quote John Buchan, now, aren’t you?” said Tim. “The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.”
“No,” I replied, “nothing anywhere near as literary. I was going to say it’s like being teased by a leather-clad woman wielding an ostrich feather. The joy is in the anticipation, being held on the brink.”
“Oh,” replied Tim. “That’s much better.”
“You can only hold on for so long,” I replied. “Eventually, whether you want it to happen or not, the tension has to break.”
“And we have alarms to announce it to the world,” said Tim. “All this time I’ve thought they’ve been saying ‘bleep bleep bleep’, when really they’ve been screaming ‘Yeeeeeeessssss!’ No wonder Shaun’s kit is all black and red, he knows exactly what this carp fishing is all about.”
“Yup,” I replied, “surrogate seduction, with a saucy tickle that lasts for days and days.”
“Cor,” said Tim, “The taunting, teasing, temptress that is carp fishing. Worth every penny – and every breathtaking, shuddering, trembling moment of delight. It should be available on prescription, though it’s so addictive it would probably be illegal.”
“Under-counter carping,” I replied, “though the brown paper bags would probably get a bit soggy, what with this being a waterside recreation.”
“No shame in that,” said Tim, “and no shame in not catching now that I know that prolonging the inevitable only heightens the enjoyment. It increases the release. Ouwm, yeah. It builds...and builds.” Tim looked over at the unhooking gear and said, “I guess that’s what the bucket’s for.”
"Morning rise." Tim was up at first light, contemplating his newfound passion for carp fishing.
Nuts
Not wishing Tim to suggest that a weighing tripod might soon be needed to carry his bulging ‘passion’ for carp fishing, I finished my coffee and made a polite exit back to my swim. Carp fishing encourages a degree of machismo, but there is a softer side. Usually it hangs slightly to the left.
The gentle side of carp fishing was evident to me when I returned to my swim and saw a red squirrel scurrying about on the boards. It was a youngster, a Little Nutkin that was on the lookout for acorns. It didn’t seem overly bothered by my return. Perhaps, given the activities of the wild boar during the week, most of the acorns had been snaffled up by our trottered friends? Nutkin was now grabbing what it could, no doubt stashing them somewhere to sustain it through the winter. So I sat down quietly to study its movements and those of the water beyond.
Settling down
There’s a connection between land and water during autumn that’s nicely ‘settling’, with leaves falling onto the pool that then sink into the depths; and acorns falling from the oaks and plopping into the water. I wondered whether the carp of Quarry Bank would eat acorns, perhaps once the nuts had sunk to the bottom and their tannins had leached away? Maybe, like the boar, the carp would also be snuffling away on the autumn bounty?
The lakebed around my swim was littered with another type of harvest – a mixture of boilies and pellet that sought to attract the carp. I knew that this corner of the lake was where a good many of the carp fed at first light, so I was hopeful of seeing signs of feeding. I could see the odd bubble rising and pricking on the surface, but nothing like the eruptions I’d seen earlier in the week. I concluded that I might only have bream in the swim, and the carp had not yet moved in. I cast out to my baited spots, put the bobbins back on my lines and turned on my alarms, then returned to my bivvy to get some rest. I’d had only a few hours sleep, and decided that I’d try and catch up on some shut-eye before the action started. As I lay there on my bedchair, drifting off to sleep, I began chuckling to myself, thinking: “If Tim doesn’t catch soon, he’s going to need a bigger bucket.”
A change in weather at Quarry Bank Fishery. It became cooler, overcast, more humid, and screamed 'carp!'
The carp move in
I was woken by the sound of an alarm. I threw the sleeping bag from me and bolted upright to see what was happening. The bobbin on my left-hand rod was lowering. I jumped up and ran to the rod. By the time I got there, the bobbin was rising. I picked up the rod and lifted into the fish, feeling two heavy kicks before the line went solid. I reeled down and studied the angle of the line, which had come right in to my nearside bank beneath the overhanging oak. Perhaps there were some tree roots down there that had served as a sanctuary for the fish or, more likely, there was a boulder or cliff lower down where the fish had managed to lodge the lead.
Hopeful that the fish was still attached, I kept a steady tension on the line to feel for any sensations. There were none. I was in the process of slackening the clutch and putting the rod back in the rest, when the middle rod lurched into action. The alarm screamed, as did the ratchet on the centrepin as the reel span furiously. The rod tip lunged over, reminding me of a savage take from a barbel when fishing on the river. I grabbed the rod and pin and lifted into the fish. It felt more like the fish was pulling into me, than me into it.
Playing a fish under the rod tip, when it is thirty feet down and doing its best to hug the bottom, felt like pulling up a heavy anchor from the rear end of a boat. There were no rapid movements or runs, no sudden thumps or kicks, just a solid, steady, heavy resistance on the line; very much an “anchor aweigh” as the fish hung on the line, just above the bottom. One could be forgiven for thinking that the fish wasn’t fighting hard, or that I was pulling up a ‘dead weight’, but the fish was fighting vertically on the line, trying to swim down as I was trying to pull it up, and perhaps constrained by the deep channel in which it was hooked. The fish, after all, was stuck in a gully and surrounded by perhaps twenty feet of rock. It couldn’t escape in usual fashion – swimming as far from the angler as possible – rather its best chance was to trap or cut the line on the boulders at the bottom of the lake. Thus, the fish just wanted to swim down and hug the bottom, whereas I wanted to get it up on the surface.
Holding the fish on a tight line, with the rod locked in a full curve with its butt tucked into my groin and the tip arched over and touching the water, I was able to hold the weight of the fish and feel it circling rather than pulling deeper. Huge patches of bubbles began erupting beneath the rod and then started moving to my right as the carp chugged and nudged its way along the lakebed. It had decided to move down the channel, to escape to my right – perhaps seeking the sanctuary of the road in front of Tim’s swim. I felt the odd dink and twang on the line as it plinked off twigs and other debris on the bottom. But the line held and I was able to turn the fish and heave it back towards me. Eventually the fish was directly in front of me, below the rod tip, and I was able apply more pressure by holding the line and rod tight and leaning back against the fish, playing it more with my lower back than with my arms. The fish began to lift, and I pumped the line as quickly as I could, slowed considerably by the ‘1:1’ retrieve of the centrepin. But it wasn’t a quick dash to the surface, more like winching a heavy weight up through the water. And each time I pulled the fish higher in the water, it would dive back down again, resulting in a tense ‘see-saw’ impasse where I wondered whether the fish or I would tire first.
Hang on!
Being a writer who spends most of his days holding a pen or sitting at a desk, I lack the muscles and fitness of my younger self who had a physical job working in a garden. Worse than this is that thirty years of almost-relentless tapping on a typewriter or computer keyboard have rendered my hands near-useless, with nerve and tendon damage, vibration sensitivity and the after-effects of failed operations for carpal tunnel syndrome that cause my fingers to lock up and become numb and unmovable when I ask them to do too much.
As I held hard onto the rod with my right hand, and cupped the reel with my left, I felt the dreaded tingling starting to happen in my fingers, wrists and forearms. Soon the fingers and thumb of my right hand cramped open and became unbendable. I had to roll the rod into the centre of my palm and over my wrist to hold it. I prayed that my left hand would remain useable so that I could maintain a pinching grip (the hardest thing for my fingers to do) to hold on to the reel handles. Feeling the strength go completely from my right hand, I had to pump the fish by cupping the centrepin with my left hand and pulling directly onto the pin and rod while my right forearm steadied the horizontal movements of the rod.
Having to hold the weight of the fish on the line was enough, let alone being hindered by the slow retrieve of the centrepin and dead ‘banana bunch’ fingers. A better angler would have had the fish up onto the surface much quicker, but I was feeling distinctly disabled by my lack of ability to exert adequate pressure on the fish. I cursed my hands and the ridiculousness of my situation – that I was knowingly fishing for big carp with hands that barely had the strength to hold a pen, let alone a rod, reel, and an astonishing weight of carp.
The fish began to tire and, ever so slowly, I was able to lift it in the water. I continued to pump it up towards me. Eventually the lake’s surface began to swirl and boil in front of me as the fish’s tail created vortices. With the rod and centrepin wedged in the fold of my right elbow, I quickly grabbed my right hand with my left and folded its fingers and thumb around the rod, clamping them as tight as I could. I knew that soon I would have to hold all the weight of the rod and fish with my right hand while using the left to net the fish.
I saw dull a golden glow deep down in the water, which gradually became copper and cream as the fish rose towards the surface. I could make out the scales and flanks of a sizable mirror carp. It was big but not huge. How could such a fish be so impossibly strong? It thrashed on the surface, sending a shower of spray that covered my legs and the staging around me. I moved to pick up the net, but as I did the carp kicked, turned, and dived deep again. I didn’t give it any line, so the rod just pulled down so the tip was well under the surface. I coaxed it back up with my feeble hands; the fish flapped and then gasped on the surface. Keeping its head up, I grabbed the net, wetted it, then coaxed the carp over the drawstring. I lifted the net quickly and sank to my knees just as the carp made an explosive last dash for freedom. But it was in the net. Captured. Caught. Beaten. Conquered. Outfought. It should have escaped, it did everything right to do so, but for some lucky twist of fate I had succeeded in landing it.
The carp is in the net, while I stare proudly at the customised Wensum centrepin that caught it.
Kneeling down and with the rod and net placed onto the decking, I looked down at my hands. My right hand was locked in a claw-like grip, as though I were holding an invisible tennis ball. The thumb and first two fingers of my left hand were locked in their position from holding the reel handle, looking as though they were holding a small marble. I chuckled, thinking that if a spectator could see me, they might have thought that I was contemplating Tim’s tension and the relative influence of ‘big ball, little ball’.
With the carp resting in the net, I rubbed my forearms and wrists to bring some circulation back into my hands and free up the nerves and tendons trapped in the carpal tunnels. “Hmm,” I thought, “this was a battle between carp and carpal tunnel. I’ve got the fish in the net, but I’m not sure who won. Looking at my hands, I think it might have been the fish.”
“Weigh up, Fennel”
Tim, Shaun and Neil arrived in my swim, seemingly having noticed that I’d been playing a good fish. (I’d been oblivious to everything other than the carp while I was attached to it, so hadn’t had the decency to shout “Fish on!”)
“So, what y’got there, Fennel?” asked Neil.
“Actually,” I replied, “I’m not sure. It’s a mirror, probably a twenty, though I’ve not yet had a look in the net.”
I got to my feet and pulled the net slowly towards the staging so that we could all look into it. There, at the base of the net, was a solid-looking mirror carp. The hook was in the corner of its mouth and the bait – noticeable by the bright yellow pimple-pop – was blowing in and out of its mouth as the fish caught its breath.
First view of the carp in the net.
“Good fish, Fennel,” said Tim.
“Same size as before?” asked Shaun.
“Like peas in a pod,” said Neil, “you guys sure know how to catch the small ones.”
The carp was evidently a mid-to-upper twenty, looking almost identical in size and shape to Shaun’s fish.
“The carp looks good,” said Tim, “but I’m not sure about Fennel’s hands. Have you got a transistor radio hidden somewhere? Looks like you’ve been spending too long twiddling knobs?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I replied, “I finally managed to get Carp FM.”
“You certainly ‘dialled it up’ with this one,” said Neil. “I reckon it could be a bit bigger than the one you had before.”
“We'll soon find out” said Shaun. “Fennel, you remove the hook while I get the weighing kit ready.”
I rolled up my sleeves and leant down onto the decking, reaching down into the water in the net and flicking the hook out of the fish’s mouth. I then attached the hook to the butt ring of the rod and tightened the line before putting the rod back on the rest.
“Cor,” said Tim, “you had it on the pin!”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Not a bad fish to christen it with, eh?”
“You don’t do things by half, do you?” said Tim.
“If you’re going to test something,” I replied, “you might as well test it properly. I’ve never put so much pressure on a rod or reel, hence the sorry state of my hands. The tackle held up admirably, but the same can’t be said for my crippled digits. My challenge now is for me to try and hold the fish.”
I lifted the net and carried it to the unhooking mat, which Shaun was wetting with water from the lake.
“Oh,” said Tim, “that’s what the bucket’s for…”
I lowered the net onto the mat and parted the mesh. The carp had a slight nick on its flank, which Neil treated with antiseptic.
Neil treats the carp with antiseptic ointment. Fish welfare should always come first, especially at a lake where grazes from underwater rocks are likely.
I lifted the carp using my forearms and slid it into the weigh sling. Shaun lifted the sling onto the scales and said, “Twenty-seven and a half pounds.”
An upper twenty and our biggest so far on the trip, though we’d hooked carp that were considerably bigger.
“Very nearly your ‘30 at 30’ carp,” said Neal, remembering my hopes for catching my first thirty-pound carp during my thirtieth year as a carp angler.
“So true, and so close,” I replied, “though I’m not disappointed. It’s my biggest fish on a centrepin.”
“PB on a pin,” said Shaun, “that can’t be bad.”
“A personal best centrepin-caught carp,” said Tim. “That’s one for the album.”
Shaun and Tim prepared their cameras while I kept the fish wet with water from the bucket. And then the moment of truth: I slipped my hands under the fish, did my best to grip the base of its fins, then lifted it for the camera. It was a quickly taken series of shots, as I couldn’t move the fingers on my right hand, but was enough to capture the moment.
Moment of truth – preparing to hold the carp, knowing that I couldn't move the fingers on my right hand.
27lb 8oz of centrepin-caught Quarry Bank carp. Not easy to hold with crippled hands.
I placed the carp back in the sling and carried it to the water. I rested it for a minute in the water, then gently released the sling so that it could swim free. It made a vertical dive straight down into the depths.
Returning the Quarry Bank carp. It swam away vertically, straight down into the immense depths.
Live wire
“Right,” said Tim, “who’s for a coffee?”
Shaun, Tim and Neil left me to sort out my rods while they went back to Tim's swim for a celebratory cuppa.
Remembering that my left-hand line was snagged on something, I decided to sort that rod out first. I lifted the rod and found that the line had come loose. Alas the fish was gone. So I wound in that line and decided not to recast, rather to bait up all three areas. I figured that I’d caused enough disturbance playing the fish and that my hands were not capable of playing another carp anyway. So, with the bait out there and the swim resting, I decided to join the guys for a coffee.
As I walked to Tim's swim, I wondered whether I could face another double espresso.
"You bet," I thought. "With so much wireless technology being used, in the bite alarms and mobile phones, something has to be wired. After such electrifying sport and so much coffee already, it might as well be me."
A Chinese Wok-cooking Panda?
Most people would get all serious about knowing that the carp had moved in and were feeding. They’d be hunched over their rods, expecting them to spring into action. Not us. As soon as our coffees were consumed, our thoughts turned immediately to lunch.
Knowing that we had only eight sausages, six hardboiled eggs and some leftover pasta in the fridge, Shaun and I consulted with Tim and agreed that it was time to thank Neil and Lin for their hospitality.
“Fancy going out for lunch, Neil?” asked Shaun. “To your favourite ‘all-you-can-eat’ Chinese restaurant?”
“Oooh,” said Neil as his eyes began to glaze over and a large smile appeared on his face, “yes please. I do like their never-ending buffet.”
“What you really mean,” said Shaun, “is their never-ending dessert trolley.”
“I do like my puddings,” said Neil.
That’s how Shaun, Tim, and I ended up making a hasty attempt at showering and getting ourselves looking presentable, before following Neil and Lin in the car to their favourite 'Panda Wok' restaurant.
As we sat around the restaurant table, watching Neil eat his third helping of sticky toffee pudding, we thanked Neil and Lin for being the very best hosts and providing the most wonderful fishing.
“You haven’t finished yet,” said Neil, as he eyed up a fresh tray of profiteroles brought out by the waiter. “There’s still time to get a big one.”
“A big fish, or a mega-helping of profiteroles?” I asked.
“Fish, of course,” he replied.
“Sure, there is,” I said, “but it’s not all about catching carp. Some might be critical of what we’ve caught so far, saying: ‘you don’t go fishing in France just to catch twenty-pounders,’ but they’re missing the point. Fishing, any sort of fishing, is about connecting with something deeper and more meaningful than just a fish. It’s about being in a special place, rediscovering something within us, and doing what we love, often with our best friends, while trying to compromise as little as possible. It's a search for the ideal. Fishing is France is about doing all that, while having a well-earned holiday.”
“Good point,” said Tim. “Making the effort to travel to somewhere as amazing as Quarry Bank is about treating oneself to the good life. It’s about releasing ourselves from self-imposed expectations or peer pressures, or the misconceptions that ‘biggest is best’ or that you’ve got to catch something in order to enjoy yourself. It’s about being ‘away’, away from all the rubbish that clutters our lives, away from the politics, away from the worries, away from the bills, away from the chores that prevent us from doing what we want; in fact, all the things that constrain us into living a predicable, routine existence and prevent us from treating ourselves to something really special. And once we’re away, we realise that pleasure isn’t something that should be weighed or measured. And it’s not something that should make us anxious about our performance. There’s no ‘end of year review’ or bonus that’s paid when we meet our targets. We have enough of that in our jobs. Fishing in France is about getting away from all that, away from all the bad stuff. And,” he paused for a moment while thinking, “and all the stuff that we might consider normal. This is about experiencing something different, something special, something truly wonderful.”
“That sound’s like a heartfelt thank you,” I said, “which we all share. Neil and Lin, you’ve helped us to have the most incredible adventure and the best of holidays, thank you.”
“And it’s not over yet,” said Shaun, “we still have time for that elusive big fish. Though, as Tim said, being here is really an opportunity to savour something different and very special.”
“When you arrive at Quarry Bank,” I said, “and sense one’s self unwinding and unravelling in blissful relaxation, you don’t fear that things could go awry. You can let your guards down, knowing that you are in a safe place with friends. As the famous gates of La Carrière close behind you, and you drive down the track to the pool, you feel protected and isolated from all the nonsense that stresses us out in our normal lives. That, to me, is Quarry Bank’s true magic, knowing we’re ‘away’ and savouring fishing – and life – as it should be.”
“Worth noting that one for your diary,” said Tim, “because once we’re home, the sense of being ‘all laid out’ will be swept away. So, please, capture it now so that at any point in the future, when things get a little too ‘cooped up’ for comfort and we crave to be fishing, we can think first of Quarry Bank, about being here and – inevitably – of our dreams and plans to return.”
“Agreed,” I said. “Quarry Bank is my new favourite place, my number one haven to visit when I want a proper, all out, no holds barred, ‘feet up with a beer in my hand and my friends close by’ fishing trip. It’s where the carp are bigger than I can comprehend, the wildlife is more majestic than I can fathom, and the company is more welcoming than I deserve. I think, also, that Quarry Bank Fishery is my new number one place to write. It’s my own, personal, Isle of the Lotus.”
“Listen,” said Lin, “don’t go on about being a Lotus-eater when you’ve spent too long chatting and not enough time eating your lunch. You’ve barely finished your third plateful of noodles. Besides, all that philosophical stuff is great when you’re away from the lake, but I bet that each of you will cast your lines back in as soon as you return to the pool.
“Of course we will,” we said with an abruptness that nearly distracted Neil from his fourth bowl of chocolate cake. “We’ll be straight back at it, shamelessly wanting to catch another fish!”
“A bigger fish!” said Shaun. “Remember: we still have time to catch a final, huge carp.”
“Sounds like you’re writing the last chapter,” I said. “Who’s to know, we might do just that.”
“But not before an after-dinner coffee,” said Tim, “though not for Fennel. He’s twitching enough as it is.”
Definitely one for the diary. Quarry Bank Fishery was more than somewhere to catch fish. It had rapidly become my favourite place to write.
In Part 12, the adventure comes to a dramatic and reflective end.
Quarry Bank Fishery is a 5-acre water in southwest France, about a two-hour drive from Limoges airport. It is set within 14 acres of private grounds, which are sensitively managed for their wildlife interest. This makes it a haven for both anglers and fish. The fishery is available for exclusive bookings only, for up to five anglers.