Bob Richards Record Carp

[Mark]

Today gentlemen, on a dull and foggy day 62 years ago Bob Richards caught his record carp from Redmire Pool which weighed 31lb 4oz.

This was to be the first of the three record carp that were to come out of Redmire Pool, a toast is called for tonight I trust.

[St.John]

And the most important!! It actually annoys me profusely that so many people forget about bob Richards. He 'discovered' the pond and ol' dicky jumped in and eclipsed him-the poaching scallywag!
So BOB here's to you (raising his coffee and Fag in salute!)

[St.John]

There's a goodish debate there.
Gentlemen-I put to you:would walker have got a/redmire, and b/clarrisa if it weren't for ok' Bob?

[Gurn]

Indeed Sin, he appears to have been the true pioneer of the pool. I'm sure I've seen a photo of the set up fish in a display by , I think, Hitchin Angling Club. Does anyone know it's current whereabouts? Do the club still have it, I wonder?

[Snape]

Here's to Bob.
I agree that he's not given the credit he deserves. Had Bob not caught the 31 then RW would have been highly unlikely to have ever discovered Redmire (given how far it as from his house and his lack of car) and so the 44 would not have been caught when it was and carp fishing wouldn't be what it is today.
So it's all down to Bob!

[St.John]

However, to play devils advocate, walker was the 'top man' at the time, so you could suppose that he would have been contacted by someone else.
I think that redmire owes it's legacy to Bob, and I will put forwards some way of recognizing that fact. Any ideas?

[Beresford]

If Bob had kept quiet and slipped his fish back then it probably would have been many years before the pool was discovered. Walker gave us so many great angling gifts but he was also the forefather of the catch-at-all-costs brigade. Walker driven 'progress' especially in relation to carp fishing was inevitably a double edged sword.

Perhaps there should Bob Richard's dedicated bench at Redmire.

[St.John]

The bench is in need of replacing. Any more?
A nice one would be three plaques in the lav for each record.

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

Big wodden statue of Clarissa in the centre onf the pool, carved from the trunk of the fallen oak.

[Gary Bills]

Walker was top man, probably, in terms of the number of doubles he'd caught - over 70 - but he didn't get his first twenty until the summer of 1952 - his Dagenham Common, and some of the Dagenham boys had managed a few twenties by then...
Walker was innovative, yes, and I get the impression that he was the kind of man who, through the strength of his personality, was a born leader. People followed him. Bob does deserve the credit for finding Redmire, and looking at the CCC letters one gets the impression that he resented the fact that his own fairly successful methods - float ledgering with a relatively small hook and lighter lines - were being frowned upon by the Walker set. That method had worked well enough for Bob..
So he was something of an outsider - someone who had been used, to some extent, and I think he knew it. I read somewhere that Bob never "warmed" to Walker in the way that Walker "warmed" to him...