THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

As a sort of prediction as well as a last loose end tie up before I close here, let me say that while it hasn't
happened yet, never the less, one of our more familiar home waters fish, the carp, should not be
completely ruled out here, though obviously not caught in the UK.
In October 2014 I recorded an audio interview with Warren Harrison who lives about an hour away
from me in Manchester. During the September he had caught mirror carp of ninety four and eighty
seven pounds, plus a common carp of ninety pounds, and all in the same session at Euro Aqua lake in
Hungary, where even European big fish can come with equally big price tags.
At that stage, the lake was known to hold at least one fish topping a hundred pounds. Several weeks
later, and reflecting the way in which the water is fed by its owner, Warren's ninety four pounder came
out again, only this time at ninety nine pounds. Since then, fish weights (and presumably ticket prices)
have climbed, and literally at the point of publication, Warren finally cracked the ton with a superb carp
of 101.5 pounds.
Associated audio interview numbers: 154 and 185.
A SHORE CAUGHT FISH IN EXCESS OF TWO HUNDRED POUNDS
Bucket List status – result
Before we go any further on this one, let me repeat that while I regularly have and still do fish from the
shore, I'm not by any definition a proper shore angler, being someone who is more inclined to dabble
either while on holiday or when the weather keeps me from going afloat in the boat.
There's a certain irony therefore in the
fact that I should be a part of arguably
the greatest beach angling catch ever
made, due in no small part to the initial
investigative work of Dave Lewis and
Clive Gammon, plus the excellent
guiding skills of Namibian international
Johan Burger. So all credit to them.
through.
Dave Lewis, Bronze Whaler Shark Namibia
Dave and Clive had reccied this trip the
year before, which was 1998. From
what Dave tells me, they didn't break
any records during that visit. Neither
the weather nor the fishing was
outstanding. But the raw potential of
the area certainly must have shone
Based on that trip, the following February saw a group of ten put together by Dave, including myself
and Dave Devine, make the long flight from London to Frankfurt, then on to Windhoek, where we
swapped to a smaller plane for the final leg to our destination of Swakopmund on the Skeleton Coast.
Swakopmond sits right on the very edge of the Namib Desert, which as I've explained in the full account
of this trip in Part 2 looking at Namibia generally, can be the hottest place on earth, though at times
down on the shore you wouldn't think so wearing two fleece jackets and still feeling rather chilly.
This desolate stretch of south west Africa with its constantly shifting sands merging beach into desert
where some of the inland dunes reach up to a thousand feet in hight, is touched by the Benguala Current
bringing cold nutrient rich water all the way up from Antarctica.
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