Hi Cypryhrenia ...don't take offence but that is one horrible looking carp...they never looked like that in the old days!!! and that one beats DW's in weight - and Clarissa was a nice looking carp I saw it live in London Zoo and I saw it stuffed when dead!The best photo of Clarissa was the one Dick took of Pete Thomas holding it at Redmire. I have a photo of it somewhere from when I used to fish Dick's hut on the Upper Ouse back in the seventies. Nice Barbel. Super looking brown - the browns that I have caught in that sort of colouration have been in Montana and Colorado a lifetime ago. Ron - nice looking striper - is the other a sturgeon?
The Brownie came out of the River Aire in Yorkshire it's a small river that frequently throws up some very large trout and grayling and responds very well to the dry fly which is my favourite way of fishing and as we speak I am tying some new flies for the start of the next season though I suspect it may be a while before they are fit for catching with it having been such a hard winter this year. The Barbel was taken trotting in the River Ribble which is my home river and one which has a big population of these fish nowadays. As for the carp it was French and was one of a number of big carp I had on a weeks holiday fishing on the La Val Dore fishery as you say not particularly pretty but it went well.
