Shaman’s Acolyte

British Carp Culture is not a sanitised, robotic approach to angling. It’s a new—but ancient—way of thinking. A return to something primal. This is Shamanic carp fishing: Rooted in nature, guided by instinct, and stripped of the noise that’s come to dominate the modern carp scene.

The Shaman’s Acolyte, is a short film that walks this path. It captures a different kind of carp angling—one that honours the old ways without being stuck in the past. It’s not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake; it’s a living, breathing connection to water, fish, and self.

Accompanying the film, this article dives deeper into that ethos. Less about chasing carp with tech and tactics—more about understanding them. Feeling them. Fishing not just with rods and rigs, but with rhythm, silence, and sensitivity.

The Way of the Shamanic Carp Fisher
By Samuel Haine.

I am often asked, ‘Samuel, how is it that your unerring ability to find carp does not always lead to a wet net?’ In the past I would avoid giving a firm answer, now, in the autumn of my life, it’s time to tell.

This is a time when carp are becoming exploited cash cows, as an aspect of the marketing oozing from the ‘carp fishing industry.’ The embers of the carp fishing magic of yore should be tended & carried into the future; just as our hunter gatherer ancestors carried embers with them, fire being that which both sustained & threatened their lives. Fire may have also been the provider of social time; time that allowed for language, imagination, & therefore, magic to bloom.

The reason, I now offer, that my divining of carp does not always equate to a wet net is, that there is often no hook on the line. The rod, line, bait & other angling accoutrements are elements of ritual, just as the chalice & cross are elsewhere. This ritualistic perspective has its roots back in the aforementioned time of fire. The catalysts for the creation of magic, then & now, is, by turns, an arcane mysticism, an individual’s creation & hunter’s meditation.

Ritual, in the way of the Shamanic Carp Fisher, eases the heart, soothes the soul & grounds the earthly form, drawing it closer to the elements that are the wellsprings of life. The attendant mysticism allows for not knowing & dreaming. The creative element is the development of a ritual that is not governed by the given structures of an elite but by the individual romanticisms of each carp fisher. As it did for our most distant ancestors, the ritual also brings clarity of purpose for moving from the day-to-day to the mode of the hunter; an aspect of this being shapeshifting.

The seminal all-woman band that arose with Punk, The Slits, wrote a song, ‘In the Beginning There Was Rhythm,’ in its scattering of thoughts the lyric posits that all aspects of life arise from rhythmic flows that ripple from our inner & external worlds, just so.

This Shamanic Carp Fisher’s source rhythm arose from a lake side meditation. The precursors were the books read whose words led to a boy’s float cast. I recall overhearing a conversation between one of my sisters & my mother in which my mother was concerned about my angling, ‘It’s all he ever does.’ My sister had insights into what drove me & counselled leaving me to it. I resisted my mother’s pleas to leave the lake for an afternoon at the fair where I might link up with people of my age, there was no question of this happening. The lake beckoned.

As I hurried along the track to the lake a bubble seemed to form around me, it insulated & comforted. I wasn’t leaving anything behind or losing out, I was on a quest, which, on the face of it was about catching fish. Otherwise, it was about a meditation, I felt this but did not understand that, while linked to angling, it was a part of a long-drawn-out epiphany, it would take years to reach an understanding of its soul deep meanings.

Through the heat of that day my meditative gaze remained on a porcupine quill. The sounds of the fair drifted across to the lakeside. The pleas of my mother to go to the fair & be away from fishing evaporated; an inexplicable sense of urgency to be here, at Crowhurst, on this day would not be ignored. The water, the lily beds, the heat, the plop of water voles diving, the scuttle of shrews, the call of the rooks, the minute details of the day I settled on & absorbed.
Beyond, glimpses of something that existed, yet did not. Something that seemed to impossibly inhabit the water, land & air communicated with me in a way I grasped at but could not understand. A coded message was being offered. The atmosphere gently tightened around me. Once the float had vanished into the element that supported it hunter stillness erupted into hunter action.

I had hardly noticed a circling breeze ruffled all within an area around me. Bird song & the buzz of insects had halted. The lake appeared suspended in time. I felt a deep emotional & sensory shift in my being. There was a new connection that I knew was both of the outer & inner worlds we inhabit, a connection, yes, an understanding no.

As I drew my first carp to the net the soaking of adrenaline & dopamine brain & body received opened me up further to the possibilities of the coded message. As I reached for what I thought of as my prize a fat green spark flashed from the carp & seared my left thumb. The initial pain settled into a pulsing throb. Thumb went to mouth for comfort – the taste pungent & earthy, a sense of warmth spread from head to toe. The dashing urgency of my actions as a boy excited & shocked BY THE LANDING OF A GOLDEN CARP, turned to returning this gift as quickly as possible. I sensed this was in tandem with something I could only describe as an observing twin. The twin knew something lifelong was now in motion, it would at times remain acknowledged but dormant, at times it would fill my inner & outer worlds with a gaze that may be seen as spiritual.

As the years rolled by the thinking about, & reading of carp fishing, became an activity understood to be largely meditative. The landing of fish became a lesser driver.
The preparation to go fishing & handling of the totems of angling – bait, rods, reels – came with a sense of ritual. This ritual separated me from my work/home life persona to that of the hunter, attuned to the carp & where it may be. My understanding of the spiritual aspects of carp fishing had reached a plateau. The next step took decades to follow.

My mother continued to worry about my focus on angling. I reflected that this was often worded in the context of being ‘out in the woods’ – perhaps where the faint rhythms of the pagan past lingered? My mother, a High Church Anglican, was known for her dreams. These dreams would often come with a warning to family members that, for example, driving, fire, water or a specific location should be avoided. She would not expand on the dreams or why she took them seriously enough to call people with warnings.

Little Irene had been known to her Irish grandparents & relatives as somewhat fey. I wonder if her concerns about me being ‘out in the woods’ arose from an internal struggle of her own? How did she reconcile her dreams & the urge to warn with her faith in which the fey were often seen as demons & emissaries of The Devil?

The next plateau on the way of the shamanic carp fisher was reached thus:
I was working my way around an overgrown carp pool deep in the countryside of my part of Wessex.

My shape was that of the hunter, work & home were as if in a life detached & distant. I had a sense of deja vu when the atmosphere began gently tensing & flexing around me. I was moving from tree to tree absorbing the signs & symbols that created ‘the knowing’ of where the carp would be. At one point my hands simultaneously reached to steady myself; the left grasped a willow branch the right one of hazel. I became transfixed, the gentle pressure became a not unpleasant weight which I had to brace against to remain upright. A breeze riffled its circular path around me. All fell silent – the woodpeckers rapping, the buzzards mewing, he wood pigeons cooing all ceased – the carp sank from sight.

I had a sensation of what? The sap from both trees flowing through me? In my mind’s eye, or in a reality, I could not differentiate. I saw my hands forming a coracle. The coracle, made of willow & hazel expanded in size. I felt that I was merging with something larger than I could comprehend. The perspective shifted. The coracle now contained the pool, I drifted with it. The element we were adrift in was unknown to me. Faintly heard whisperings urged me to ‘seek the acolyte.’ Fleeting glimpses of my observing twin led me to trust that I should, whatever this meant in terms of action. Other presences, swirled around the pool as coracle, coracle as pool. There was no obvious direction or journey’s end I could fathom.

The pool continued its life as before in one realm, a realm with its intrinsic beginnings & endings; the cycles of life the pool contained, from daphnia to carp wheeled on. Entwined in this was the attention, or intent, of people who moved in & out of its presence. This attention/intent was observed by Castaneda as the energy that moved Shamen through elemental barriers into liminal or infinite spaces. In the realm of The Great Coracle I floated as a mote, an aspect of eternity. The low clamour arising from the forms drifting with the coracle & gentle nudges from my observing twin led me to a thought. ‘All is powered by hopes gaze.’ None more so than the intensity of hopes gaze that an angler has on water?

One winter I stood at the outfall for the Marshes flood water where it roared into the sea. With it, I thought, was carried the angler’s gaze – the hopes, dreams, elation & despair had all charged the water with a force. This is the angler’s intent – a form of magic. This magic rides with the sea’s tides until absorbed & formed into clouds, returning as rain to re-charge the magic of the marsh.

My return from The Great Coracle of the Willow & Hazel pool flagged a warning – amongst many other things – this magic could be both a soother of aching hearts & a thief of hope, depending on how it is used. I snapped back to this reality becoming aware of having stepped into the pools edge. I felt the mute urgency of silt drawing at my feet seeking my absorption into its bubbling life stew. Wrenching myself free I fled, fearful exhausted & exhilarated – there is much to learn about such magic, the angler’s gaze & its intent, The Great Coracle & the observing twin.