BIG CARP. As I sat there pondering the

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "BIG CARP. As I sat there pondering the"

Loraine Allen
5 years ago
Views:

the issue BEN GRATWICKE Words: Ben Gratwicke. Photography: Ben Gratwicke, Simon Scott and Kenny Gates.

.. As I sat there pondering the question and using my fingers to count, my answer was five After another minute or so, Simon also agreed, Yep, I make it five Blimey, five different forty-pounders

not fish that have been imported at a great size, as I am not about to go down that long and winding road as to many cans of worms will be opened! So it s true Brits all the way here, folks!

2 the issue BEN GRATWICKE Words: Ben Gratwicke. Photography: Ben Gratwicke, Simon Scott and Kenny Gates. BIG CARP Oversized carp seem to be popping up all over the place these days, so CARPology got fish farmer, Ben Gratwicke to talk about the past, today and the future of Big Carp... As I sat there pondering the question and using my fingers to count, my answer was five After another minute or so, Simon also agreed, Yep, I make it five Blimey, five different forty-pounders that we know of in this country at the moment that s awesome. These included Bazil and the Harrow Forty, both of which now are sadly dead. As we all know, they do not live forever. not fish that have been imported at a great size, as I am not about to go down that long and winding road as to many cans of worms will be opened! So it s true Brits all the way here, folks! SOLID MANAGEMENT Now within this article are shots of fish never been seen before and I very much doubt they will Big Grange, situated in deepest darkest Essex and run by none other than all round nice guy and World Car Park Wrestling champion, Kenny Gates, who I have had the fortune of getting to know over the last couple of years. Kenny has his own way of doing things and as you can see by the shots, he does it well. This method is solid fishery management and by this I mean double range. The fish we are interested in are the batch he stocked in and the batch stocked in The batch at the time averaged 6lb. These were purchased indirectly from our farm and Kenny being Kenny photographed all the fish that went in 34 in total. Little did he know how well these young fish would do! Over the last 10 years these fish have grown and grown and Fishery manager, Kenny Gates with captor Scott Day. 41lb 12oz Gulp. As time goes by and here again at upper-twenty. At 7lb the stocking begins. Here at just 6lb. The date of this conversation was June of 1992 and how things have changed. There were indeed just five forties we knew of in the country, and it was amazing to think of that many. These days there are more than five in some lakes with a few having into double figures at the right time of year with the odd fifty thrown in for good measure! Now just before I continue, I am writing about fish that have grown to this size in the UK and be seen again as they come from a very special lake with some very lucky anglers fishing it. I cannot tell you how lucky I feel to have these shot and to be given full permission by the man in charge to be able to publicise them and show everyone out there what can be achieved with a little patients, a little money and the right lake. I have not put the names of any of the anglers as I am sure you will appreciate this is about the fish. The lake in question is the the stocking of quality fish into the right lake and giving them the best start in life. The Grange is about 24-acres and has varying depth, but importantly is very rich with lots of weed. Now Mr. Gates has run the Grange since the early 90 s and over this time he has managed to create an incredible fishery. The stocking of this lake is not what I would call heavy by any means, as it now holds 100 fish, 80 of which are big uns and 20 around the upper-single, lowgrown, and today there are approximately 26 left with the average being mid-thirty and the biggest is the 41lb 12oz pictured in the article with the captor and Kenny, which came out just the other day at 44lb 14oz. Wow. The growth of these fish as you will see is quite something and they are all crackers and very much sought after. The one thing that stands out from the above is the way in which Kenny has gone about creating the fishery and this is only half the story. 056 AUGUST 2007

All I want to do is grow And grow Just like that! PICKING THE RIGHT ONES In the spring of 2006, Kenny paid a visit to our farm and purchased a number of carp the average being 3.

I gave Kenny the job of handpicking his own fish from a tank of 250 and I can tell you it s like watching a kid in a sweet shop!

20 of these went into the Big Grange and within eight months the biggest was over 12lb, and although these young progeny were not what the syndicate had joined to catch, they appreciate that these

3 All I want to do is grow And grow Just like that! PICKING THE RIGHT ONES In the spring of 2006, Kenny paid a visit to our farm and purchased a number of carp the average being 3.6lb and two and a half years old, all of which were mirrors with a good selection of linear s, heavily scaled and sparsely scaled ones. I gave Kenny the job of handpicking his own fish from a tank of 250 and I can tell you it s like watching a kid in a sweet shop! By very carefully looking through the fish, Kenny was able to select not only the front-runners, but also the real lookers for the Big Grange and Golden Gates in Essex. 20 of these went into the Big Grange and within eight months the biggest was over 12lb, and although these young progeny were not what the syndicate had joined to catch, they appreciate that these fish will be the future. As I write, several have been out post spawning and at weights of pounds, so within 15 months of going in at 3-4lb these fish are into low-doubles and the future is looking very good. There are many good strains of carp around in the UK at the moment, all of them with the right conditions will do very well, BUT you have to have a little bit of patients as they will not turn from singles to twenties over night it does take time! I still find it very difficult to understand people who buy very big fish from unknown sources and then kick up merry hell when something goes wrong. I have had conversations with these people who have spent there hard earned money on big cheap fish wakey wakey, smell the coffee! Yes, they may be cheap to buy, but the end cost when it all goes wrong can far out weigh anything you have spent. There is always a risk when you stock fish into your pond or lake if you have fish in there already, but you can cut this risk by carefully buying fish from a reputable source and making sure you know the full pedigree of the fish and where it has come from. Kenny took a very, very small risk re-stocking The Big Grange in 2006 with carp from our farm, but by picking a farm that only sells fish from their own site and doesn t buy in and sell you are narrowing the risk right down. AUGUST

BIG CARP The future is bright, the future is bigger carp.

limit? For me being a carp and coarse fish farmer these are exciting times as our strain of carp is being well documented and stockings photographed and detailed growth records kept.

nettings to remove unwanted silver fish, small carp and lowering the stocking levels over the whole lake to give their newly purchased carp a chance to get BIG!

I stocked a lake a couple of months ago which was 1.5-acres and had been cleared of silver fish by draining down and netting them out.

4 BIG CARP The future is bright, the future is bigger carp. If you look through the pages of this magazine and other less superior magazines, all you see is bigger and bigger carp, more multiple catches of big carp, bigger braces of carp, so where is the limit? For me being a carp and coarse fish farmer these are exciting times as our strain of carp is being well documented and stockings photographed and detailed growth records kept. For your average fishery manager what once was a job that meant checking tickets, cutting down trees and building swims has now taken on a new role with the cream of fishery managers arranging nettings to remove unwanted silver fish, small carp and lowering the stocking levels over the whole lake to give their newly purchased carp a chance to get BIG! It is great to be working in this industry when you have people who are really going for it and learning as much as they can to insure the best for their newly purchased carp. I stocked a lake a couple of months ago which was 1.5-acres and had been cleared of silver fish by draining down and netting them out. The lake had been re-filled and left for a few weeks to settle and the group of guys had then purchased 35 three-year-old carp from our farm averaging 3.8lbs. Their intention is to grow these and maybe remove a few in years to come to allow the remainder to grow. I was pleasantly surprised at the time, care and patients they had taken to make sure it was all absolutely spot on for their fish and after talking with them, they had adjusted the rules on the lake to allow the fish a better chance of growing. This was done by limiting the rod limit to one and not allowing anyone to fish on the lake 058 AUGUST 2007 Susan Scott with a 30lber. This fish was stocked at a small size with the intention of growing it BIG. for long lengths of time. Once the fish had found their way and grown, the rules would be changed accordingly and bingo another pond of big carp! Well-done Julian! THE FUTURE So where now? Well, the carp scene is huge with so much money being spent on lakes and Check out the scaling on this whacker. facilities it s looking very good for the future as the understanding of fishery management is preached and taught by many. The lads at Sparsholt have weekend courses for the fulltime workers out there, so that they can get a better insight into looking after their fishery without having to do a five-days a week course. As we do and many other businesses in our trade, we offer consultancy tied in with an order and this allows you to get the best knowledge available for your fishery. Talking to some of the well-known fishery managers when you are out and about fishing will also gain you knowledge of where to buy the best fish and who is reputable and who is From small acorns mighty oaks grow. Just be patient and time and the right surroundings will do there part! wearing spurs and rides a white transit van if you know what I mean! As is the case now, many of the well-known fisheries sell of their unwanted wild spawning or smaller fish that are hindering the growth of their bigger fish and these can often be a very good purchase if they have a great track record. Simon Scott and Viv Shears of Sparsholt College fame also grow and sell carp too. Low-doubles these, so you will have to pay good money, as they are all handpicked and carefully selected not only for their size, but their looks and shape. GETTING HELP I have kind of run out of time and still there is a lot to tell, but maybe another time. I cannot stress how easy it is to produce big carp, as there are so many knowledgeable people out there who will happily give advice. Organisation like

BEN GRATWICKE the issue Tom Downe with a nice scaley mirror from Hardwick Lake on the Linear complex in Oxford. A proper fish from a well-managed lake.

We DO NOT need to import any carp into this country. The damage has been done, so lets just concentrate and protect what we have and also support the British carp industry.

The list is endless and the success come much sweeter when its been done the proper way!

5 BEN GRATWICKE the issue Tom Downe with a nice scaley mirror from Hardwick Lake on the Linear complex in Oxford. A proper fish from a well-managed lake. ECHO are always a starting point as they have so many good people fighting their corner and will be more than happy to help or point you in the right direction. We DO NOT need to import any carp into this country. The damage has been done, so lets just concentrate and protect what we have and also support the British carp industry. Look what we have done so far, look at The Big Grange, look at the Linear complex, The CEMEX lakes Sandhurst and Wraysbury to name but two. Check out Tim Oatley on the Isle of Wight. The list is endless and the success come much sweeter when its been done the proper way! I would just like to say a massive thank you to Kenny Gates who very kindly sent me the shots of the fish in his lake and also slightly altered the rules on the lake which used to have a publicity ban. The reason he did this was to allow me to tell the story and show everyone what can be done. Nice one mate. NEXT TIME Next month I will look at the details on how you do it properly with stocking rates, day-to-day lake management, using bull crap to make your fish grow and all the things that give your fish the head start they need on their quest to get massive! For further details check, out our newly launched website: Ben Gratwicke Viv Shears with one for the future.

A carp will know the lakebed like the back of its fin and we can only build a picture of what it s really like unless we drain the lake!

A carp will know the lakebed like the back of its fin and we can only build a picture of what it s really like unless we drain the lake! THAT S THE SPOT! It s way more important than having the right look it s having a bait where they just have to pick it up Words:. Photography: and friends. SAME SPOTS Hi there, I say to the angler who