Nineteen eighty-eight, now thirty seven years ago, and the thought of how much has changed since then is quite staggering.

I don’t think I ever really felt like I should have been there, at the Forest lake, as I stood at the water’s edge with my rod hooped over and the tip being bent in the direction of what was to be my first ever capture there. I felt a little like an interloper, a spy, slipping stealth-like under the committee’s radar in obtaining membership to what I still think many would consider to be a very special and exclusive water, away from the crowds and totally off the regular circuit of ‘known’ waters. I didn’t really know exactly what was in the lake and can’t now even remember who first pointed me in its direction, but I’d gathered it was a bit special and that just added to the mystery; in all honesty, the scenery and setting was enough to begin with. Somehow I had managed to convince the society who ran it, that I was worthy of also having one of the highly coveted night-tickets too, which afforded me the opportunity of lengthier stays. So there I was, hyperconscious of being the new kid, and at only twenty one years old, significantly younger than the majority of the membership, but intent on keeping my head down and my powder dry.

The lake, or pond, wasn’t very big by any standards, maybe a little over six acres. It was heavily cloaked in a mixture of mostly pine and alder trees and a general low-level spread of bracken, which made it feel very secluded. I remember the whole place had a kind of muted stillness, the ambient sound sort of deadened much like you’d find in a recording studio, a consequence of the surrounding pine forest having furnished the ground over time with a thick carpet of pine needles. It was accessed only by a unmade, gated track, perhaps a mile long, so apart from the distant white noise of traffic rumbling past beyond the pine forest, it felt deceptively remote; a genuinely beautiful setting and I loved being there. The water was generally very clear if not slightly tea coloured, so the fish were often visible, gliding between gaps in the weed and lilies which at certain times of year covered nearly half of the lake’s surface. It was the perfect place in my opinion, and if I were to design the ultimate intimate pond, that for me wouldn’t fall too short.

Thankfully on that sunny July afternoon, I seem to remember I had it all to myself, so I had both the luxury of a little time and the absence of any critical scrutiny, to carefully thread what was on the end of my line, through the patchwork of lilies in front of me, a creature eventually materialising a few minutes later in the form of a rather lovely looking dark coloured, fully scaled mirror, almost jet black across the back with gold edged scales. The fish was rested in the net as I hurriedly set up my camera in the swim next-door and a few minutes later, my prize was hoisted, duly weighed at a few ounces safely over 20lb, recorded and slipped back, and apart from a few images now secretly stored on celluloid, any other evidence of a capture was rapidly drying and disappearing in the summer sun. I was chuffed to bits, and safe, for now.

I remember sitting back after all the excitement, contemplating whether or not to share my experience with any one else who might wander past that afternoon, but I felt lucky to be wetting my lines in a water reported to hold as many good fish as it did and I didn’t want to jeopardise that by putting any of the regulars noses out of joint with a capture on my first visit. I had been told that this was a very tricky venue after all and I may not even be lucky enough catch anything all season. Perhaps, in retrospect, that’s why my membership application had been successful and I probably wasn’t perceived as much of a threat. The regulars seemed very proprietorial over the place and the practise of carp fishing there, and the ‘noble’ art was considered something only those who had done their time, were worthy of practising with any measure of success, an almost Jedi like attitude not uncommon in 80s and 90s. But I was keen and diligent and had been pursuing that particular quarry since I was ten years old and had learned enough in my relatively short apprenticeship, and all subsequent captures on that particular water, I think bore testament.

I think I only fished another two or three sessions that season, acutely aware that constant appearances from me might not go down so well amongst the old guard, so I satisfied my hunger and enthusiasm with trips elsewhere, in particular to unfinished business on another lily covered lake I had been fishing with a friend for the last two years, but that is another story.

The season of nineteen eighty nine and June 16th could not come around soon enough. I had been biding my time during the close season, fine tuning my approach, experimenting with various baits and additives and as the Summer inched closer, I was itching to get back to the lake in the forest as soon as my new job allowed. I was now working as a graphic designer full time and living in suburban South London, so the lake was not as conveniently located as it had been, but looking back at my scribbled fishing log, given the relatively limited time I had, together with the lake’s reputation for not giving up its prizes so easily, that season proved to be a fairly successful one for me nonetheless; a sprinkling of double figure fish with a worthy tally of seven over twenty pounds, the biggest being a dark orange coloured mirror of 25lb 12oz. I was far more bothered then about fish weight than I am now, and whilst that was half the weight of the record then, the famous Bishop, caught seven years earlier at Redmire, I still felt it was a respectable capture for the time, and I was definitely on the right track. But without a doubt, with all the fish I had caught so far, the weight seemed almost immaterial as each fish was a jewel; perfectly proportioned bronze commons and deep coloured mirrors with purple backs that looked like they could have come straight from the Redmire mold. I did learn later that Donald Leney himself had been president of this particular Society, and not living a million miles away, had guessed that these fish had probably been stocked directly by him from his holding ponds at the now renowned Surrey Trout farms; I felt quite privileged.