01925 732 848 [email protected]

Meet The Team

Dave Lane

Age:58

Occupation:Angler and Consultant

Region: Suffolk

UK Mirror:55lb 0oz

UK Common:37lb 37oz

Foreign Mirror:52lb 0oz

Foreign Common:42lb 0oz

I have been carp fishing for around forty years now, which is quite scary when I actually see it written down. I started on the Estate lakes and ponds in the Sussex countryside and graduated to the larger gravel pits in the Chichester area, catching my first twenty pounder in the early eighties. From here I moved straight into the Cone Valley, fishing much larger gravel pits such as Harefield and pit four. It was at Harefield that I landed my first fish over thirty pounds, a proper old warrior known as ‘The Orange Fish’ and I followed this up the following season with yet another, this time at thirty four pounds. In those days a fish of this size was a true whacker by any standards. Over the ensuing years I fished Horton and Wraysbury, adding some historic and much revered carp to my tally, including five over forty pounds and then my first fifty pounder in the shape of Mary, on the first year that the closed season was abolished. No trip to the Colne valley would be complete without a visit to the Mere, mine lasted for seven years, on and off, but eventually it ended with the capture of the famous Black Mirror at fifty three pounds. During that period I also travelled the country a bit and made my acquaintance with the Two-Tone carp at Conningbrook, the great Sonning Eye and a few other notables along the way. Cambridgeshire was my next stop, angling all through the St Ives area, where I banked the mighty Fat Lady at a little over fifty two pounds, along with such memorable fish as ‘Black Jack’ from the huge expanse of the Meadows and Fiords over the road. I had totally fallen in love with big gravel pits by this stage and most of my carp fishing was done on their banks. In more recent years I obtained a ticket for Burghfield, chasing that most elusive of creatures, The Burghfield Common. I was fortunate enough to come to grips with the lake quite quickly and, in ten weeks, I had banked around forty carp, topped off by the great fish herself at an equal personal best weight of fifty five pounds. Burghfield was a hard act to follow but that winter, fishing near Peterborough; I came across a fish that could pass for the commons brother, a fifty one pounder on my birthday in December. Since then I made a return to St Ives, fishing on the only one pit in the chain that I missed the first time around. After a sustained attack lasting a year and a half I managed to bank most of the lakes big carp and eventually slid the net under my latest target fifty pounder, a fish known as ‘Colin’ a huge, deep bodied mirror carp. About twenty years ago I was also fortunate enough to swap my job as a self-employed builder to a fishing consultant and soon expanded into tackle design and manufacture, travelling the world in search of the perfect rod/bivvy/hook etc. I still work within the industry today and also write for many magazines and websites as well as having just published my third book ‘Fine Lines’.

Fine Lines by Dave Lane.

Fine Lines is Dave Lanes latest carp book full of stories of humour, disasters, bizarre occurrences and ultimately success.

CARP FISHING IS NOT WHAT WE DO,

IT'S WHO WE ARE!

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