Nash Tackle Off The Hook Podcast - S2 Episode 36 - Nigel Sharp

This week the podcast welcome “Yateley Legend” and all-round big carp machine Nigel Sharp.

For the real carp fishing connoisseur Nigel’s carp fishing photo album has to be regarded as one of the very best! It features some of the rarest, hardest to catch and finest carp that have ever graced our waters.

Starting back in the early 1990’s Nigel’s talks about how he came to start fishing Yateley after meeting the likes of Ritchie Macdonald years before whilst walking the complex. He started on the Match Lake where despite its rock-hard reputation Nigel set out catching from the start with alarming regularity. He then moved onto the Copse Lake and in true “Sharpy” style he ticked of his targets in a matter of weeks.

His early exploits had led to him not only striking up what would be lifelong friendships with the likes of Terry Hearn and Lewis Read but also, he himself was very much the talk of the carp fishing grapevine after his incredible start. A meeting with Jeff Pink then led him to meet Kevin Nash and join Nash Tackle which was his first entry into the commercial word of angling and sponsorship.

Over to the big boy side of Yateley and Nigel recalls targeting the infamous Car Park lake. There was no change to his routine and unbelievably within 16hrs he had “Heather” (the most famous leather carp pf them all) in his landing net. He went onto catch a host of the A team including “Arfur Tail” or as it was come to be known more commonly in later years “Arfur” which had been on the missing list for a number of years prior to his capture.

Onto the North Lake and Nigel set his sights on “Bazil”. With adaptations in tackle and rigs he once again managed to capture one of the most renowned of tricky carp in just 26 nights.

There were a few more Yateley chapters featuring the Pads Lake and back to the Match Lake but by 1997 he had completed one of the hardest complexes in carp fishing and was onto pastures new.

Still to this day one of the finest fish that swims in the UK has to be the Burghfield Common. Nigel thought that it would be another one he could tick off his list in a relatively short period of time initially, how wrong he was. Burghfield being a big vast expanse of broken channels, islands, back bays and islands proved a much more challenging prospect. Of course, Nigel caught fish from the start but despite feeling like he lost the common early in his campaign it would be five years until that incredible moment finally occurred. We will leave that incredible episode for Nigel to tell in his own works but at 50lb+ the capture was breath-taking in so many ways.

Finally, Nigel speaks about writing his book “Living The Dream”, his fishing now and also about his thoughts and opinions on carp fishing now. There’s simply so much history that we are sure to get him back on to talk about some other incredible captures which we simply didn’t have time to discuss.

If you like carp fishing history, incredible angling and an insight in to exactly what it takes to be top of the game then look no further.
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