Redmire Celebration By Tony Meers
IT IS the 29th of May 2018, and Peter Rogers and myself are making our way to the most famous carp lake in the country – Redmire Pool – to celebrate what would have been Richard Stuart Walker’s 100th birthday.
In the back of my car is a very historic item – Richard Walker’s carp net which was used by Peter Thomas to land Richard’s 44lb record carp on the 13th September 1952.
At Redmire, waiting to be reunited is the other half of the famous duo – the MKIV cane rod now owned by Chris Sandford.
As Pete and I pass many familiar landmarks on our way to Redmire, I am reminded of the two previous occasions I’ve been fortunate enough to fish this fabled pool.
The first was in 1994 in the company of Len Arbery.
On the dawn of the trip I was as excited as a child on Christmas morning. I was up at 4am, the car was loaded and ready for the off. There was very little traffic for most of the way to Ross-on-Wye.
A quick stop in the town, for some last-minute provisions, and then I began to make my way through the country lanes, and when I saw the sign for Bernithan Court Farm, I knew I had finally reached my destination – Redmire Pool.
Driving down the hill towards the pool, my thoughts turned back to June 1952 when Richard Walker and Peter Thomas first viewed Redmire from this position, and Peter went on to catch his 28lb 12oz fish. If only they knew how their exploits would affect the countless legions of anglers following in their footsteps.
Len, son Tony, and Barry Arbury (no relation) were already there, so once I had parked the car and exchanged pleasantries, Len took me on a tour of the lake, stopping at each famous swim – Willow pitch, Evening pitch (my favourite), Inghams, Keffords, Cranstouns, Greenbanks etc, and explaining the history behind its naming and of the famous anglers that had fished there and the fish that had been caught. This was so very special, and of course no-one else would have been able to go into such enthusiastic detail.
I was offered first choice of swim, and I decided on the Evening pitch. I took my time setting up camp, savouring the atmosphere of this historic lake.
I tackled up two 10ft cane rods complemented by two Mitchell 300 reels loaded with 10lb line. Bait for the left-hand margin rod was a 50p sized ball of cheesepaste and the right- hand margin rod had two hair rigged 10mm trout pellets. Our first night at Redmire we
sat up till late, and Len told me in more detail the tales of the great and good that had fished the pool in the past – also of his pioneering trips to the Dorset Stour and the Royalty Fishery in the company of Bob Buteux, Bill Quinlan, Pete Cranstoun and Jack Hilton, for winter chub and barbel.
Finally falling asleep in the early hours with these names echoing and re-echoing in my ears, was all this really happening to me?
I awoke very early on the Saturday morning and the pool was shrouded in a morning mist, but as the sun rose the mist turned a glorious gold, and I could see carp rolling towards the dam – time for some floater fishing?
I fired out a few dog biscuits, but the weed growth was so dense that the moorhens were able to walk across the lake, barely getting their feet wet. The weed would occasionally bulge, as a very large carp would take a floating dog biscuit that had managed to land on the water.
Then, all of a sudden, my righthand indicator signalled interest and as I struck, the rod bent and nodded and I was into my first Redmire fish. But then, in a second, it was gone.
I sat back, feeling depressed but reminding myself that there was more to Redmire than catching fish – this was to be a very special social event.
A weekend in the presence of such a notable angler as Len was more than I could have hoped for, so it did not really matter if I caught anything – but, of course, it would have been nice to get my first Redmire carp as well!
A short while later Tony Arbery got his first chance of a fish.
His alarm was screaming, and as he struck I could see from my side of the pool, from the bend in his rod, that he had made contact with a good fish…