Richard Walker Tribute

~ 29th of May 1918 to 2nd of August 1985 ~

It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to this great man on the 25th anniversary of his death, today the 2nd of August.  Like many other notable figureheads of modern times it’s strange how you remember where you were when you first heard of their passing.  For instance, when Elvis died it was easy to remember where I was… I was fishing.  When Princess Diana died I was walking around a shopping mall in Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory.  And when Dick died I was riding a motor cycle through Greece, on a doomed attempt at circumnavigating the entire Mediterranean… which was quite mad when I look back on it!

For you young gun carpers reading this, you may wonder what all this fuss is about Dick Walker?  Only recently I read on a forum that this golden era of angling, of Redmire and Clarissa is all over romanticised, and that we should move on and forget about it.  I was so angry I was paralysed when trying to articulate a suitable response.  Then, as my blood pressure dropped to less explosive level, I decided not to dignify this morons comments with one at all.  Clearly he had not understood the effect of what Dicks innovations have made to modern carping, and coarse angling generally.  Or the spirit in which Dick and his fellow fishers conducted themselves on the bank… one that is certainly less evident these days sadly.

My personal affection for Dick Walker initially came though his writings, which as a young boy served as a template on which to base my angling apprenticeship.  In about 1968 I saw Clarissa at the Regents Park zoo, and was transfixed at the size of the noble carp.  Up until that moment sticklebacks and minnows had been my main quarry… but after seeing her the carping seed had been well and truly implanted in my psyche forever. This experience at a very young age has slowly magnified throughout my life, to reach its current obsessive level.  All thanks to Mr Walker.

Shortly before I came away on this trip I had read the Barrie Rickards biography ‘Walker’.  Among many facts about his life I did not know about, I was astounded to discovered we share the same birth date, the 29th of May (Oak Apple Day for the historians among you), which I was pretty chuffed about.

I was aware of several of the the tackle inventions which Dick was responsible for, such as the electronic bite alarm, the Arlesey Bomb weight, and his involvement in the development of carbon fibre fishing rods, to name a few.  But what I didn’t know was the extent in which he was involved with the media, through TV and radio shows, or the depth and breadth of his writing on many subjects outside of the fishing genre which he’s most noted for.

When mentioning his name obviously Redmire Pool and Clarissa are the first things that come to mind for most people, but there was a lot more to Dick than this.  His contributions to angling were as many as they were diverse, I doubt anyone else no matter how big a carp they catch will ever be able to size up to the accomplishments Richard Walker achieved in his life – which only makes him all the more unique.  He is the undisputed ‘grandfather’ to carping, though it’s not a title I think he would’ve liked?

However, his capture of Clarissa set the angling world  afire, and it lit a spark of hope for what is lurking in British waters in many fisherman’s imaginations… mine included!  He provided us all with the first tangible image of a truly monster carp, upon which to visualise whilst anticipating the rise of a bobbin or the dip of a float.  What greater angling legacy could one leave behind?

R.I.P.

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