FRANK WARWICK JOKING APART
This year, due to work commitments, I will not be able to attend the World Carp Classic. For only the third time since its inaugural event around 15 years ago, unfortunately, I can’t be there. This saddens me greatly as I relish this
great occasion and rate it highly as the event of the year for so many reasons. It has become a great coming together of anglers, many of which have become friends over the years, from all over the world. I have a collection of various shirts that I have swapped at previous events, from all over the globe; Russian, Japanese, Hungarian and Polish shirts to name just a few. My clothes cupboard looks a bit like David Beckham’s - obviously minus Posh Spices used underwear “sadly”. It is with great nostalgia that I recall some of the incredible moments of the classic. I guess you could say that I am not
averse to a laugh and some of the classic bits of fun have been during the registration process at the beginning of the event. There are various forms to fill in and one such form has a question that asks, “Do you have a medical condition”. Now this is obviously a serious question but, over the years, much to the long suffering Marianne’s (and the girls who help her) dismay, I have not been able to resist having fun with my answers each year. I guess Chlamydia, Wind, Brewers droop and Alzheimer’s are hardly relevant… On another occasion we had a pre
match party at Madine in France where, as you might imagine, things got a tad out of hand and we drunk far too much as you tend to do when you see old friends. The following day, we were all worse for wear and suffering from the usual hang overs
and wishing we had been a bit more sensible with our drinking when someone suggested we should have a casting demonstration by yours truly. Never one for shirking a chance to show off my casting prowess I agreed instantly. I was with Century, the rod company, at
50
the time and I had been busy designing an ultra long range rod that had a parallel butt section based on a proven winning formula of beach caster rods that, at the time, held all of the world casting records. To apply this technology to a carp rod successfully was far from easy and, to be truthful, a number of proto types had suffered failures. The tests were conducted privately, by myself, and mainly on lakes in the UK with no one around. Each time, it ended up with me back at Century headquarters and us all going back to the drawing board to make
adjustments to the blanks and aim for perfection. I thought I had got it right with the latest
batch as the test rod had been brutally tested and had come through with flying colours. With that in mind I had procured 4 brand new Full Metal Jacket rods made up for the big match at Madine. I must say these rods looked magnificent with their ballistic fibre wraps, futuristic reel fittings and high stand off rings - perfect for the job as in those days it was a casting-only competition. Without further ado I unzipped my
new all singing and dancing rod and made my way to the beach area near bivvy city followed by a large crowd of onlookers. The lake was flat calm under the baking sun and looked perfect. I did a short cast to wet the line then, on the next cast I stepped into the cast and hit the rod hard. There was an
audible gasp from the crowd as the rod disintegrated making a massive bang as it went, the lake was peppered with sections of carbon… there was a short silence then I said “oh dear” or words to that effect. Then, my old Dutch mate Co Schiff donned his trunks and swam out and started diving for the rod sections saying it was a shame to waste the rod rings! I explained to the crowd that these
rods were experimental proto types and these things can happen. I then reached for another rod “bang” same result, then I did the treble with a third rod! I instantly regretted my actions knowing that I had been a bit premature doing testing in front of Europe’s finest and packed up with my tail between my legs. Next thing - and this shows how fast news travels - I had Simon the boss of Century ringing me, going mad,
WORLDCARPCLASSIC.COM
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