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Feral Carp (and Carpers)
The term feral is defined as ‘especially an animal or fish in a wild state, un-captive, undomesticated, untamed, unused to humans, resembling or characteristic of a wild animal’. Do you see where we are going with this now? Off The Beaten Track 4 (OTBT) epitomises the feral carp. Feral can also mean, ‘a young person behaving in a wild or antisocial way’ hence my bracketed reference in the title!
The OTBT series has become by far and away our most popular subject; never have I had so many requests for more, more, more of these stories. They captivate the imagination with their tales of the uncaught. They intrigue us with stories of neglected overgrown pools quietly visited in the dead of the night, our feral hunters stealing away before daylight gives them away.
Never before have these prizes been seen by other anglers because these photos were never meant for us to see. These night stalkers leave no trace of their intrusion; they are not the ones who litter our fisheries, smashing down vegetation to erect their 6-man Eurodomes. These anglers are the most respectful of their surroundings, crouch quietly in the undergrowth, scanning the lake surface all night for a precious sign of a carp’s existence. They are not watching TV with a freshly delivered pizza from the local shop, awaiting a call about ‘Gut Bucket’ signalling its tenth capture this season. In truth these explorers are sometimes fishing for myths, for ghosts and for the unphotographed.