Interview With CAG President
Phil Nathan
and take a read…..below is an interview
with The President. Iain, at the time, was
on his way from the incredibly successful
ATC fished on Ladybird Lake Austin Texas
to Dale Hollow in Tennessee (jealous me
not!!). At the end of our chat I took the op-
portunity to ask him those five questions I
asked other top carp anglers last year…….
here is what Iain had to say…..
So when did you get into carp
fishing?
The reason you are reading this magazine,
this article even, is that you have an interest
in and are involved in carp fishing. Some of
us have met in person. Some of us meet up
in the many internet social areas and com-
ment on happenings, fish, and tactics. One
person who has had a dedicated interest
in Carp and many other types of fishing is
Iain Sorrell. Iain is the current President of
the Carp Anglers Group. Some of you may
have met Iain. Some of you may have chat-
ted with Iain in any one of those social me-
dia areas and indeed have him as a friend.
Some of you may have fished with Iain.……
however what many of you may not know is
how Iain got into carp fishing and what now
drives him to develop CAG as the leading
body to support anglers and the sport. What
inspires him to produce what can almost be
described as the most significant accessi-
ble carp fishing opportunity anywhere in
this hemisphere of the globe? So, sit back
I guess my first expedition was when I fished
a lake in Kent in southern England near Fol-
kestone with a friend. I think this was when
I was 12 in about 1969. I had seen fish near
the surface. At the time I was just float fish-
ing and put out a second rod with a floating
crust. I had read in the angling papers how
to have the bomb sliding on the mainline
and slowly pay out line until the crust was
on the surface with the hook buried deep in
the bread. I was so focused on my float fish-
ing I barely noticed out of the corner of my
eye a carp’s lips sucking the bread down. I
went for the rod and struck but missed the
fish. That started my intrigue. It took some
time for me to catch my first fish, in fact,
another three years.
The fish that really grabbed my attention
was my first mirror. Unbelievably it was
late in the year, and I was fishing for pike
in North Harrow, Springwell. I was fishing
a pretty standard pike set up with a small
dead-bait on the bottom when I got a run.
I struck, played the fish and was absolute-
ly amazed when a mirror carp fairly hooked
slid into the landing net. The fish was 16lb
and had taken an actual fish bait.
So when did you get that crav-
ing for more carp fishing than
other fishing?
In 1979 I was at a party, and I was intro-
duced to Mike Wilson. We spent a lot of time
talking about fishing for catfish, the Europe-
an Wells, and it was after a while that Mike
started to show me some pictures of what
was then colossal carp caught at the fa-
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