During the 2000/01 season, I decided to lay my hands on a Stoke-on-Trent Angling Society card for the sole purpose of fishing Redesmere in Cheshire. This was the only water within about 50 miles of my home where I could easily get a ticket to fish for such an impressive stock of fish. Redesmere holds approximately 100 carp, maybe a few more, maybe a few less. Some people believe it to hold only around 80 carp but the quality and size of the stock is second to none for the county with roughly ten to fifteen carp capable of exceeding thirty pounds in weight. There are also a fair number of those capable of 35-plus at the right time of year, as well as possibly the two most famous thirty plus commons in the North West, the Snub Nose common and the highly prized Male common, which is the one almost everyone goes to Redesmere for. 

At the time I had been carp fishing for approximately four years, and having achieved my goals at my local waters it was time to move onto a more challenging venue. Where I live, near to Birkenhead, there are very few decent fisheries which give you the option of a 20- plus fish, and 30’s are non-existent round here, except perhaps one or two in a very private lake not far from my home, and no, I’m not saying where! Therefore, I had no option but to travel upwards of 50 miles in order to fish for carp of 30lb and above. To start with, the travelling was a bind. Mind you in a four-gear, mk2 Fiesta, going to the shops was considered a troublesome journey at times! In time, it soon became part of the ritual of going fishing, and the more I got thinking about Redesmere, the smaller the hurdles appeared, and thankfully the trusty little blue fishing Fiesta never let me down! So, the new season approached and I did what I thought was sufficient preparation for my new challenge. Little did I know just how wrong I was! In contrast, the previous waters I had fished were no more then three acres in size. I knew Redesmere wasn’t going to be easy, I knew there would be much to learn, but nothing could prepare me for what was in store! 

Another thing I didn’t know much about was sailing clubs and their utter disregard for anglers. You would spend hours working on a swim, baiting-up at range etc., only for the prats to pick up your markers as they passed. Or even worse, they would come so close in that they would pick up your lines, ruining a whole spool and do your reels no good as they spun until they were almost smoking. The end result would normally be a cut-off on both rods with over 100 yards of line attached to the baited rigs, which provided potential death rigs if left in the lake. With so much line still attached to the rigs, it was usually possible to cast a lead at them and retrieve the whole lot.

My first trip to ‘The Mere’ was at the start of the season. I didn’t fish the work party weeks and I never have, as it’s absolutely crazy with every man and his dog trying to ram themselves into one small part of the lake in order to get on the fish. As you’d expect, after a short period of time the fish wise-up again after their close season rest, and soon become almost impossible to hook as they become paranoid of the single pop-up approach most people use in the shallows. Feeding them bait can be fairly pointless as there’s so much natural food down in the shallows such as snails, swan mussels, worms etc. which is the reason they take the risk going down there. Then there’s the swans and the coots! - I arrived to the news that so and so had already had this many 20’s and a 30 to boot. "Great" I thought, "I’ll have a bit of this!" I even thought to myself that the lads had been keeping this ‘easy’ water to themselves, and the press reports were all made up to keep people away from this ‘runs water’. That was a big mistake!

I took a good walk round the mere and after a hot and revealing stroll I decided where I was going to fish. Never before had I been able to watch fish of this size from up a tree and see just how they move around the weed-beds. Come to think of it, never before had I seen any weed in a lake; pads were about as good as it got for me on previous lakes. This weed seemed to attract a lot of fish. I decided to fish on the meadow swim known as The Snag. It appealed to me because there was nobody else on the meadow and it had a bed of weed in front which only went about 25 yards. As I walked across the meadow to my chosen swim, I realized that there were actually two anglers on there, but they were just packing up. These two anglers were Normo and The Hippy (Nibby) and they were very pleasant, not like I had expected, as there were many stories about Redesmere anglers being unfriendly! These two were to prove to be two of the best lads I ever met at Redesmere. As they were about to leave, Normo showed me where there were some clear areas in the weed. He told me that the male common had been stalked and caught at 30-plus just on the edge of the weed line. Despite his best efforts, I never managed to find these clear patches and went home after that session worrying just what I had gotten myself into!

Over the next few months, I started to learn more about the lake and its inhabitants and about the tactics required to outwit these cunning fish. In time, I learned just what a spod was, as well as how to use a marker rod etc. Most of these things I had never needed on the previous waters I’d fished, and were things other anglers used, not me! The season drew to a close for me as the winter approached, and I was tired and fishless other than a number of bream. Undeterred by my failure, I had made up my mind that as I had come so far, I wasn’t going back. I had seen the big fish in there and I knew that sooner or later I would be rewarded for my efforts. I had been told that many new members came and went - never to be seen again. At least I had carried on, which was more than can be said for some people.

As time went by, I realized they actually caught very few fish on these baits and that the single bait approach worked well for a lot of people. To cut a long story short, I decided that I just had to distance myself from the others and work it out for myself. Not that I wouldn’t talk to them or anything like that, but I just had to get on with what I had always done on other waters - do my own thing. This proved to be the best thing I ever did. I would turn up at The Mere and see everyone rammed into the areas that were full of weed, such as the shallows and the new bank. I would then venture down to the roadside and look close in through the woods. This gave me the opportunity to have a bit of space and not be pressured into swims, such was the case in the shallows etc.

After a few weeks of blanking, I finally caught my first Redesmere carp and would you believe it, it was from the shallows! However on this occasion, there were only a handful of people down there and I had seen fish in the mouth of the shallows (an area known as The Neck). It was also a good result, as I had finally realized the importance of being mobile and moving onto fish, that was after a move from the sh*t swim where I had been pestered by coots all night, and was my third move in two nights. The fish weighed in at just over 17lb. A mirror, and although I felt disappointed for a few hours that it hadn’t been bigger, it soon dawned on me that I had finally got the difficult ‘first carp’ out of the way and it was time to start having a few more! I also realized that any carp from Redesmere is special and worth its weight in gold. After this first capture, I felt confident and knew my next carp wouldn’t be far off - but I had no idea just how big it was going to be!

One red-hot Sunday afternoon in August, I had set up in a swim known as The Spinney. I was just along from one of my mates, Jason who had fished Redesmere in years gone by, but had recently joined again and thought he knew the secret to catching from The Mere. Every week brought a new plan and new bait, but that’s another story! About three in the afternoon, Jason walked up for a chat, looking dejected. I thought he had just suffered the dog-stones off the roadside treatment, as he was fishing in duck corner, which is right next to the roadside. - The dog-stones treatment is where an assortment of objects are thrown in the water in the hope that the person’s dog would dive in and retrieve it. Regardless of whether it was good for your swim or not, at times it was funny to watch the dog-walker try to get his well-trained dog to do as he said. Most times the dog would just look at its owner with that "do I look stupid?" face! In this swim you basically fish next to the railings alongside the 1000's of birds (feathered and two legged), boy racers, ice cream vans, burger vans, screaming kids, I think you get the picture! 

As you can imagine, not a lot of people fish these swims next to the road, as they are noisy day and night with the various passers-by. As Jason sat down in my swim, he told me he had just lost one off the railings and he thought it might have been a good fish. I told him to sit down. I almost suggested that I would reel in and we would go and get an ice cream and have a nose around, but instead we opted for a cold beer and a chat about where these fish were hiding. Other than the run from the railings, Jason had seen nothing, and neither had I. With it being the shallow end of the lake, I would expect to see some fish, even if I didn’t catch them. We chewed the fat for about an hour before Jason said he was going to have a look around, and then it happened. We were sitting there in the shade when all of a sudden the buzzer just started smoking. I ran to my rods expecting to see a swan trashing my lines as they had been moving up and down the margin all day, but there were none - time to hit that rod. There was a small amount of weed in the area, but nothing too much to worry about and as I bent into the fish, it boiled on the surface. It was still 50-60 yards away but the way it quickly kited in made me think it wasn’t a biggun’ although I knew I must have been connected to my first Redesmere 20-plus fish.

The fight didn’t last long as the fish just strolled in towards me. Jason waded just down the margin from me, and then he got me worried. The fish was only 10-15 yards away from him now but I still hadn’t a clue how big it was. I shall never forget the way he kept turning round looking at me and giggling his head off like Mutley from the cartoon ‘Catch the Pigeon’! This worried me for two reasons. Firstly, was it actually a fish? Secondly, if it was then why was he so excited? Jason did a good job with the net, and as he scooped up my prize, I asked "how big?" He replied, "Big enough mate!" When he turned towards me, I could see it was a big fish, probably an upper 20. When I took the net from him and lifted the fish from the water, I started to get very excited.

On the mat, it soon became apparent that this was no 20, this must go 30. I had no idea which fish it was and I didn’t care, because on the scales it went 33lb 12oz and was my first 30 and a personal best by over 11lb. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry! Jason held the fish in the margins while I got everything sorted for a few photos (well a whole film if the truth were known). When the moment came to release her in the edge, I stood and watched her gently leave my hands. She swam around my legs before cruising back off into the depths of the Mere. I thought things couldn’t get any better and thanked The Mere for being so kind to me after all I had been through. I later found out this lovely fish was known as the Pretty One and was told it was one of the real prizes, as it only came out once a year if at all! 

The next few weeks saw me bank a further two fish in the shape of a 22lb 8oz common, which I caught from the snag swim (after closely watching their patrol routes along the margin) and then a 21lb 6oz mirror which I caught from the same swim as the ‘Pretty One’. After this last fish, I started to slip into the trap again of not being mobile. Almost religiously, I kept going back to the Spinney and roadside area, and I failed to catch anything else. It soon dawned on me that the fish either just passed through without feeding, or were simply not there! In time I realized that some areas of the lake are only going to produce fish at certain times of the day, and not at others, so if you want to be on fish at all times then two or three moves in a day would be the only option. A little bit much for most people (at times myself included) and I did some massive moves only to catch nothing, but at least I felt satisfied that I’d tried! 

I continued to fish The Mere all the way through the winter and the only fish that were caught came in a crazy 48-hour spell off the new bank, when the ‘Snub’ was caught along with two 20's and a double. Even though I didn’t catch, my time spent that winter was not wasted, and with more freedom of movement I could start laying my plans for the next season by plumbing swims properly. Significantly, I also changed to my mate’s baits, which he had told me to do before I started on The Mere. After a lot of thinking, I started to plan the new season. I realized that a new bait, that nobody else was using, could actually do me more favours than using the ‘going’ baits. I later found out that these produced very few fish compared to the highly visible over flavoured singles and fruity flavours such as pineapple, which were scoring well for people. 

For the 2002/03 season, I decided to use Bandit Baits honey liqueur bird-food baits. Not only did I change the type of bait I used but I also decided on a change of size. Many people used 10-16mm baits but after a talk to Dave at Bandit Baits, I was talked into using upwards of 20mm baits with some hook-baits as large as nearly 30mm. At first, it all seemed a bit mad but who was I to argue with someone who had caught home-grown fish up to 46-plus from Cheshire. So the season couldn’t come quick enough and armed with a new bait and a 30 under my belt, I knew I could get amongst some more of those whackers, and if I could just stay out of the trap of being influenced by others and do my own thing, I felt sure I could achieve my goals. Right after I had caught the Pretty One, I decided to quit while I was ahead and slope off to a local water for the night where I could chill out and take in what I had just achieved. This is exactly what I did, up until a 20lb 2oz common decided to hook itself on my rig in the early hours of the morning. That was uncanny, as I had been chasing a 20 from that water for some years and within 24 hours of my first 30, I caught my first 20 common! At the time, I felt as if I was on fire, and nothing could stop me in as far as catching the next biggun was concerned!

As I mentioned earlier, I banked another two fish that season (along with a number of bream) from The Mere and all seemed like it was going well... that is until I decided that I was going to jump into the even-deeper end than I already had, and do a winter on The Mere. Despite the warnings from the regulars that "nowt comes out in’t winter", and "you’re wasting your time there". Me being me decided that it was worth a crack, and I started to formulate a plan of action for my winter campaign. Well what can I say? I netted a few fish for other people, I had my bivvy blown away in a big wind and my net decided that it fancied a swim in the lake never to be seen again, and I suffered countless soakings moving swims thinking I was on the verge of banking the biggun. There were notes in my diary stating the number of spods and markers lost, and comments to the effect that it had actually stopped raining or blowing a gale, and the number of fish not caught, and not seen, were commonplace. Maybe it was time to give it a rest and go elsewhere... or maybe not eh? I had said I was going to stick at it, and stick at it I did, right through to the end of the season, regardless of the hardships and no fish to show for it.


That winter, four fish (that we know of) were caught from The Mere, and all of them were caught in a hectic 48-hour period when a group of fish threw caution to the wind and decided that they were going to get themselves caught. Amongst those, was the Snub Nosed common which was banked at 34-plus to a Redesmere regular called Lyndon. Top angling mate if you’re reading this and you still owe me for getting my last lot of dry clothing wet to photograph the Capesthorne on that really nasty afternoon, when by rights you shouldn’t have been in the shallows, as the regulars say the fish only go in there when its warm... little do they know eh! Other than resorting to 'mind games' with the mobile phone anglers, which involved some real good wind-ups on people unwilling to do a bit of their own work, the season ended with no other captures. So, after my traditional spring 'Camping Trip' to Colnemere (That’s another story in itself), onto the new season. If the truth were known, it couldn’t come quick enough, and armed with my new bait and hard-earned knowledge I was ready for a proper crack at The Mere. 

I arrived the evening before the 'traditional' start of the 16th to find the lads had been giving the fish a beating in the shallows area. As there was no weed, the fish had no place to hide and got punished for being down there. Because of there being little to no weed, I made a bad swim choice for the first night and opted for a swim which would normally be full of weed. However, it wasn’t, and as a result, the fish simply didn’t hang about as they usually did. The next morning I was up handy, and after reeling in I went for a walk just down the bank to a swim called Sleepy Hollows. Which although it’s on the ‘new bank’ side of the neck, the entrance to the shallows, it gives you excellent access to the far bank, where the fish would basically move into the shallows right under your feet. This is because there was far less bankside disturbance on that side of the neck, and not many people would walk all the way round when you could make a 60-yard cast across from the easy-to-get-to-side.

In addition to that, the more popular side of the neck also had cows in the field, which would drink from the water’s edge (although they never really seemed to disturb the carp as such). Not only that but there were many dog walkers who thought that old rover actually enjoyed getting his favourite stick back from a weed-choked, silty mere.  bet the poor dogs even ended up getting a telling off from master for being all wet and smelly when they got back to the car. Some of the things I have seen when out fishing I never have, and probably never will, understand. It was here that I saw numerous fish moving in and out of the shallows. I even stood in the water, with all the camo gear on, and watched them almost swim between my legs as they threw caution to the wind expecting nobody to be there. At one point, my old mate The Pretty One almost knocked me over when I spooked him a matter of feet from me with two of his mates. It was ‘right’ and I just had to get a bait in there. 

Twenty minutes later, and equipped with just the one rod, I had a bait in place just 10 yards from the bank and I had yet another trick up my sleeve... a bait popped up two feet off the lead so it was bang in front of the moving fish. Certainly, something not many of the regulars seemed to be doing, yet it was so obvious to do. Another lesson learned eh! After a few liners, the inevitable happened and the rod ripped off. After a short battle I netted a really old looking 26lb 6oz mirror. That will do me, I thought. Wrong, just 30 minutes later, I was rewarded with a 20lb 8oz mirror. That was that for the day and as the sun became hotter, the fish became more lethargic and stopped playing ball. The following morning I got into the same swim and after a short while, I was in yet again. After a long and hectic struggle which involved hand-balling the fish in, we netted a large fish, which looked to be pushing 30lb. Then everything went pear-shaped. 

The fish was foul-hooked in the pectoral fin. At this point I would like to say that some people I have met along the way would have counted that fish (you know who you are!), but not me. To say I was gutted is an understatement, as I felt bad about hurting the fish in such a way. Such is carp fishing, where good times can turn to bad like the flick of a switch. After the trauma of the foul-hooked fish I decided to change my tactics, by that I mean I went back to fishing on the bottom rather than baits popped up off the lead which I felt had played a major part in foul-hooking that fish like I did. So I decided to go at the areas which had been left well alone during the summer, which included The Spinney, The Pines and the main body of the lake from the Meadow, and fish them as I like to fish areas... alone, and unmolested by other anglers. 

This gave me the chance to get back into the swims I was baiting and keeping an eye on, while every man and his dog tried desperately to squeeze themselves into the shallows, and the areas where the weed was abundant and fish were present. This despite, more often than not, the fish would be uninterested in feeding and more intent on soaking up some sun on the hot days. OK fish were being caught, but, when you looked at the number of rods hours, the fish losses, and the overall hassle of getting in so called 'hot swims' it just seemed like more of a lottery to me, which any man could have hit the jackpot in, and to be honest that was often the case. I prefer to try to understand why and how I catch fish, and in the vast majority of cases on The Mere, I did just that, but more on that later as they say!

So the next week, off I went over to the meadow, and as it had not been fished much so far that season, the grass was nice and fresh and the swims were not the mud baths they are come late October. All in all, it was a nice place to be fishing and most importantly, I could be left alone to get on with some fishing. That weekend I got myself in the Left Hand Holly and had a nice bream during the night, but it wasn’t wasted time, as I saw fish in the Snag swim, two swims down. Although they were pretty much in the same mood as the fish in the shallows (basically, sunbathing) at least it gave me encouragement that, just like I had thought, not all the carp were down in the shallows. After seeing those fish, the next few weekends were spent all round the lake, with a night here and there, covering many areas of the lake. Although I caught nothing myself, I netted a few of the 30lb’ers for other people and that in itself proved I was close to the action and it was only a matter of time before I was going to have my slice of the cake.

Come early August, the fish had started to spread out about the lake and people started to formulate plans as to where the best place to fish was. There was no answer to that question, as the fish could have come from almost anywhere, and from anywhere is exactly where they got themselves caught. A fish here and a fish there, with no real pattern to the captures. However, this just proved how pressurised the Redesmere fish are, in that they can’t find anywhere to settle and feel comfortable, and this is probably the reason that they are so hard to catch and so difficult to locate. However, the way in which the fish were getting about meant they were active and plenty of fish were being seen in the deeper water in the main body of the lake. With September less than a month away, it would be soon that the heavy baiting in the predictable areas, those being The Meadow, The Stream and The Floating Island, would start, and even though the fish could be cute, but, sooner or later, they wouldn’t be able to resist a good feed. With this in mind, I just carried on fishing the areas I had seen fish in, despite the fact that as soon as a fish was caught from any area they would be mobbed by all and sundry. As predicted, the next few weeks saw a couple fish come from the meadow, and with them came the crowds. 

In the second week of August, I caught a 22lb 14oz mirror from the Oak swim, and although the swim was stitched up for a week, I think there was only one other fish caught from the swim, and it wasn’t a biggun. That, coupled with the fact that The Pretty One and a few other fish got caught from the shallows helped the ‘Blisters’ (these are people who rather like blisters only appear once all the hard work is done, swim slugs as Brett White would call ‘em) move over for me to get back to what I was doing. Having said that, during the week there were even more fish out of the shallows, and even more interestingly, the fish were in front of the sailing club in the shallow water. So I opted to get myself into a swim called Bluebells, which is on the corner of the New Bank where the shallows begin, and would fish where the fish had been seen most of the week. As usually happens when I act on other people’s information, I blanked. So the following afternoon I sat there with another night to go, looking for inspiration, something that’s hard to find at times. Especially on a Sunday afternoon just as all the weekenders headed home for a bath and a Sunday roast followed by a few pints down the pub, but at the same time it was nice to have a choice of swim! By the way, the wind suddenly changed from a breezy Southerly to a Northerly, which meant I could go exactly where I would want to go if given the choice on that new wind. The swim I was thinking of had seen a bit of bait, I knew the fish had been about and I knew where I would like to be on a red-hot day... on the end of a fresh wind. With rods and gear on the barrow and up the New Bank and round to the Oak on The Meadow it was.

I set up on a deserted Meadow, and did what I had been doing for the last couple of trips as far as the rods were concerned. I had a few ciders, and settled in for the night, expecting nothing but an alarm call at 6.30am telling me to get up, pack up, and drive the 50 miles back to work in rush-hour traffic. It could have been that simple, but at quarter to three in the morning, something had decided to pick up my hook-bait and run as if its life depended on it. I was up in a flash, waders on and into the water playing the mighty beast. OK, I tell lies. I fell out of bed, managed to put the waders on the wrong feet, stumbled past my rods after slipping on boards which led down to the water, and into the waiting margin, which did somehow manage to wake me up (can’t imagine why). When the dust had settled there was still a smoking buzzer, honest officer, I only had two pints.

Once normal service was resumed, I was back in control, and after the initial mess, I was finally getting things sorted under control. The fish was now about 50 yards out and then it decided it didn’t like me and steamed off back out into the lake. At this point, I knew it was a good fish, and as the fish lunged back and forth, I started thinking BIG. I got the fish to within 40 yards of me again and it did exactly the same thing, heading off into the darkness at an alarming rate of knots, except this time, it took my other line with it, which I thought was odd, as it hadn’t really crossed my other line. I turned and flicked the other buzzer off so it didn’t keep howling as I played the fish. Eventually, it decided enough was enough, and as it came towards the waiting net, in the light of the head-torch I could see it was one of the two big commons which had drawn me to Redesmere in the first place. As I glanced down into the net, I looked at 30 lb of North West common carp. Elated, I began shouting all sorts of abuse at the lake and all manner of thanks to the carp gods until my world suddenly turned upside-down. The fish was wrapped in line, and I could clearly see it wasn’t mine!... There was a lead on a safety clip, which had been super-glued in, and a shock leader, which wouldn’t have looked out of place on New Brighton beach. The hook was rusty and the whole lot was in the bottom of my net. What the hell was going on?

I got the fish up onto the mat, and much to my relief under closer inspection I found my hook in its bottom lip! After removing the hook and putting the rod against my bivvy, I still couldn’t work out where all the line was from. It would appear that the fish had been trailing another angler’s leader and lead (which as I say was super-glued into the clip) which in turn became tangled around my other line, and caused me all the hassle landing the fish as it was then attached to three leads. To make matters worse, the lead that the fish had been trailing had been hooked in the wrist of the tail, and because it became attached to my other line all the pulling from the fish caused it to tear down the wrist of the tail and mark the fish rather badly (something that can be seen in the photos). To top it all off, in the heat of the moment I had bitten through my other line in a bid to free the tangled fish, and left a 'live one' out in the lake which was luckily reeled in later the following day by my mate Rob. I knew that fishing lakes like this was never going to be easy, but why did it have to be so hard?


Obviously at the time there was little I could do except sack the fish and phone a friend, cast back in and try and sleep for a couple of hours, but that just wasn’t gonna happen now was it? Five times, in the space of a couple of hours, I waded out to check the fish was still upright and safe, who knows how many times the events of that night ran through my mind as I attempted to sleep, but I couldn’t. I think I finally managed a good 15 minutes kip, before the alarm rung signaling that it was time for me to pack up and go to work. However, for a change, there was a small matter of photographing a 34lb 6oz fish known as the Male Common, and depending on whom you talk to, one of the best fish in the North West of England. My mate, Dale, came down and we shot off a roll of film as fish continued to roll in the area I had taken this fish from earlier. If I didn’t have to go to work who knows what might have happened, I could have filled my boots and had a few more. I could have easily blanked for another night also, but I had done what I set out to do, and the ‘blisters’ could have the leftovers. The drive to work was almost as if I was floating above the meaningless people in their cars all rushing to get somewhere, which in their world might have been important to them, but it meant nothing to me. Their puerile existence was almost laughable... I had caught the ‘ultimate’ North West fish, and not even the worst day in work was ever going to get to me.

The following week I arrived back at the lake, on my usual Saturday after work time of 6pm, only to find the whole meadow completely rammed (as I had expected after my capture of The Male). I opted to fish down on the roadside for the night and see what occurred the following day when everybody went back to work on the Monday. On the Sunday afternoon, just as I had packed up, my mate James lost a fish off the roadside, but even though I knew he was packing up himself, there probably wouldn’t be another chance down there until the following morning or afternoon, so I went back over to The Meadow to see what was what. It was pretty much a dead cert that the Oak would be occupied, and it was, and so were the two swims either side of it. I set up two swims further down in the right hand holly, which didn’t do many fish but as it was little-fished it was as good a bet as any. I baited up at the same sort of range as I had been doing out of the Oak swim, which was about 90-100 yards out. I had been fishing one rod on the bait and one rod short of the bait at about 70 yards with a few free offerings. 

My plan was to fish one off the bait and one on it as all the other anglers seemed to be obsessed with spodding out a load of hemp and a few boilies to small areas and banging two baits on the same spot as if it was the only spot in the lake. Me, much to the amusement of other anglers, spodded bait all over the show and hardly ever hitting the same spot twice. Up to this day, I have never been one for fussing over tight spots of bait, as to me, it’s a lot of effort to do it, and to be fair, its nothing short of predictable as far as the fish are concerned. Making them grub about also makes them less wary of lines and hookbaits as they are not looking for danger near to piles of bait which they associate with being hooked and dragged in to the waiting net. Anyway, that night I had a 17lb 4oz common, and like the 22lb 4oz mirror and The Male before it, the fish came from the rod cast short of the bait and away from the heavily baited area. More interestingly, it was caught on the same set-up as those two fish, which was a rather large, let’s say 30mm, air-dried bait on a pretty long hair. To avoid tangles, it was either wrapped in pva tape, or in some cases wrapped in boilie paste, which was that big that when I cast out it sounded like a brick hitting the water! Again, much to the humour of others, but hey, what did I know... apart from since I had adopted that method I had caught carp or bream for a few weeks running. 

The next few weekends not a lot really happened, fish were being seen in the usual areas in the main body of the lake, and the bait was going in by the tonne. Then came the big winds, which at this time of year would blow South/South Westerly. This meant that the wind would push towards the new bank, which in turn meant it was time to start fishing from the Stream, The Island and Snag swim on The Meadow. As you would expect, a few fish came off The Snag and The Stream in the week, but by the weekend, the winds had died down.

On the Saturday night when The Meadow was rammed out, a guy we called Braveheart (due to his flowing locks of hair amongst other things) had The Snub Nosed Common off the Right Hand Holly swim at 34-plus. This he caught from the same sort of area I had caught from a few weeks previously, and the sight of that fish after catching The Male a few weeks before, was awesome. I mean it’s not everyday you get to see the two biggest commons in The Mere. After everybody had gone home on the Sunday I went into The In-between swim for two nights and had five bream, lost one and a common about 11-12lb all on the big baits with paste round the whole lot cast short of the 'going' spots, and over just boilies rather than the usual spodded-out bait of hemp etc.

The next few weeks saw the weather take a turn for the worse, and with the big winds came the heavy rain, which turned most of the swims into mud baths. According to 'The Rules' of The Mere, this was the time to hit the main body of the lake and fill it in with bait. Overall, I’m not one for following the crowds, so I just carried on fishing on my own terms and going where no man had been the day before in an attempt to stay away from the pressure which most of the swims on The Mere saw day in day out. I also learned a valuable lesson whilst doing so which put me in good stead for the coming weeks, that is, expect the fish to be where you least expect them. As I said previously Lyndon had caught the Capesthorne Linear from an area, which was, according to 'The Rules’, only a worthwhile area on a nice hot summer’s day but at the time it was nothing short of a foul, wet and cold day.

The following weekend I decided it was worth looking up in The Shallows, as almost everybody would be busy trying to spod the hell out of the main body of the lake. As there was still plenty of natural food about in The Shallows it seemed like as good a place as any to give it a night or two, as there had been a couple of fish out on the sly, and the angler pressure in the main body of the lake was pretty high. That Saturday night there were three other anglers in The Shallows, and as they were all in the nearest end to the car park, I decided to go up towards The Neck and into the swim known as The Bomb Hole. As it was getting on, I cast a couple of baits out and put about a kilo of boilies on top of each rod safe in the knowledge I was in as good a place as any. At about eight in the morning I awoke with a guy called Steve in my swim, who had moved from further down in the shallows and into the swim next door, telling me about the amount of fish he had seen in the neck which he now had baits on top of. 

I got out of bed and went to have a closer look at the rolling fish in the swim to my left. We watched the fish one after the other, and I was fully expecting one of Steve’s rods to burst into life any minute. I went back to my brolly and as I put my boots on, my left-hand buzzer suddenly burst into life and proceeded to bounce up and down, rather like a bream take would do, which I thought was odd as I had hardly seen any fish in front of me! I tightened up on the fish and it felt like a carp so Steve got the net and we set about landing the fish. The fish came in really easy and as Steve almost had it over the net, it ran off like a steam train and made to my left towards the neck in what looked like an attempt to get back into the main body of the lake. This made life awkward, as there was a tree which grew from the water’s edge, and as I hadn’t had the chance to put my waders on I had to play the fish round the tree. 

As there wasn’t much weed about by that time of year, it meant the fish could run free rather than weed itself up, which although it led to fun and games it also meant it wasn’t going to be a case of handballing the fish in. After another 10 minutes or so of playing the fish, it dawned on me that we almost had the fish in the net after a minute or so, and 15 minutes later, it was still giving me the run-around, so something must have upset the bugger. Eventually we were again in the position to net the fish and it went in first time, and as it did Steve turned to me, and I will never forget these words, and said, "You know when you thought you had caught the Snub the other week and it wasn’t? Well you have now!" I was just thinking, yeah whatever, what is it really? And when I had a look I was shocked to see this great big common that looked like a huge goldfish as it was such a short and fat fish. It really was The Snub, and up on the scales the little critter went 35lb 5oz. 
Plenty of photos were taken and the fish was returned safely to its home and as it was a new personal best carp. I was the happiest geezer on earth and set about partying and giving the lads on The Meadow the V's. Although I had caught The Snub on a popped-up bait, compared to my other recent captures on the big air drieds, it confirmed to me that by being different whether it be using bigger baits, fishing the unfished swims, or fishing off the bait, the fish were there to be caught. 

I had fished in an area which most other people would have ignored, because it was supposed to be a summertime area of the lake which was no good once the colder weather arrived. Although I’m not saying I was alone in thinking that it was worth a shot down in the shallows, as I wasn’t. However, I was alone in that I picked an area which nobody else had looked at, as most of the time, summer, winter or whatever it isn’t supposed to be a known holding area for the fish. They tended to move in and out of the shallows in this area, rather than hang about as they do down in the bottom of the shallows, and as there was no weed it seemed even stranger that they had been there in the numbers that they had. I think it was just typical of the Redesmere carp, in that if they could, they would hang back from the areas which were seeing lines and bait on a regular basis, and stay in an area they felt comfortable with. 

The following week I headed back over to The Meadow, and despite trying my luck in four different swims I had no joy and it wasn’t until the following week that I was in luck again. I returned to The Meadow and fished two nights in The In-Between swim where I caught a couple of bream and a 21lb 4oz mirror, which looked rather like a mini version of The Capesthorne Linear, again on the big air-drieds and off the main baited area. After that, I fished until the end of November with no other captures to report. I binned it off, and returned to a local water for a little play until the end of February, until I went back on The Mere and fished until the end of the season. However, that turned out to be a waste of time as nothing came out at all, but as they say, you have to be in it to win it, so at least I tried. As usual, during the close season I did some camping on the banks of Colemere in my extra-big three-man dome like a noddy would do... but the less said about that the better!

I also got another club ticket through in the post that spring, but as I wasn’t in any big rush to use it, I decided that I was going to return to Redesmere for the start of the season and see how it went. I returned to The Mere full of confidence and felt that I was in for filling my boots this season, and as I had now caught three of the best fish, I thought that it was going to be a doddle as I had it sussed. It’s at this point I must say that a bigger mistake couldn’t have been made, as it was going to be no pushover, such is The Mere, it can give and it can take back for its trouble, and I was about to be on the receiving end of its taking and trust me, it bled me dry!

That season I did about 40 nights through the summer and although I didn’t catch anything but a few bream, I netted somewhere in the region of 18 fish including Single Scale as well as many other good 20's, but always for the man next door. I was so consistently close it almost destroyed me, even though I love to see other people catch and be onboard when it all happens, I questioned my ability as an angler as I couldn’t buy a take despite knowing that I was on the money 90% of the time. 

It’s just as well I’m good with a net, otherwise I would have felt worse as I might not have been involved with any of it. I think it was that love of seeing them, and being part of 'The Dream Team' (Me and my mate Neil, who became top rod that year named ourselves 'The Mental Rota', and had a lot of laughs together) which kept me coming back. As by now I was starting to think it was possibly time to move on to pastures new. I had my Shropshire Club Waters ticket, and I had been invited for a guest on Fen Drayton with Jim Shelley, which eventually led to me getting a ticket there. 

After I had been to Fen for that session I came back to Redesmere with the intention of doing a night, but after spending about three hours walking about to be confronted by bivvy after bivvy, I decided there and then I was going home and I was never going to come back. A few things occurred around that time which convinced me it was time to be giving another water a look, as it was less busy and more unknown, and to this day, I have never been back to Redesmere. Despite missing a few of the lads, I have not missed the place one bit, the rushing about looking to get somewhere before somebody else did, the stitching up of swims, the bad attitude and backstabbing etc... I was no angel, and I never have been, but three and a half seasons on there was enough for me and it was time to move on. To be fair, the tricks I played on people and the things I’d said, were always directed at people who deserved it, as they had done it all to others over the years. They thought that by being the 'household names' on The Mere that they considered themselves to be, they could do what they wanted, and take people for mugs, wrong! 

I don’t want to go out of my way to rock the boat, but let’s just say that a number of people were/are not happy with the way I went about my business on The Mere. Although they were nice to me, face to face (like many people are), they never seemed to get over the fact that I was the way I was, and I caught what I caught. Maybe some of the things I did were sneaky and below the belt, but there’s nothing I hate more than people who try to be the boys when in real terms they are nothing but people who just happened to have fished a water for a number of years and think that they are the best of the best. Put ‘em on a new water all alone and most of ‘em are just average anglers!

That little lot is not an attempt to make me look like somebody that I’m not, it’s been brought on by writing this article and the memories it brought back, most of which are good memories, as I met some great lads, I caught some mega fish, and I had some brilliant laughs along the way. Maybe its paranoia on my part that I think people have been slagging me off at every available opportunity, then again, maybe its not paranoia, because the thing is I know they have been, as I have many friends lurking about listening-in for me. It’s a shame that it’s always the bad things that seem to stick out in your mind and tarnish the good times you had. As I say I’m no angel but at the same time, I’m no idiot, I never have been and never will be!

For anyone considering fishing Redesmere don’t let some of my comments put you off, as it’s a great water with some of the best fish in the North West, albeit a busy water with both moody fish and anglers. To this day, it still gave me my three biggest fish, despite catching many others since and even though I’m sorry to say that since my capture of The Male, the fish hasn’t been in the best of health, and caught at just 26lb. Redesmere is still, and probably always will be, one of the top circuit waters in the Northwest as there are new 30’s coming through, as well as the old boys to keep you dreaming.

Be Lucky!

Note...

Since writing this, The Male common has died. I was gutted to hear the news, but at the end of the day, they don’t last forever, and as it was an old fish, it had to come to the end of its days at some point. It made many people happy during its time, and all I can say is R.I.P. Old boy!

John Moss