stevetheangler

Tuesday, 15^th January, Liz and I set off to Patshull Pool, a local pool on an estate that belonged to Lord and Lady Dartmouth in the 50’s/60’s (and probably earlier) but then had to be sold in order to pay death duties on their demise. And in those days if you donated 2s 6d to the Dartmouth’s charity then you were allowed an annual family pass to fish the Great Pool… and my grandmother, who ran a pub, donated to the charity and every Sunday after she closed the pub at 1400 she, my step-grandfather, my parents, uncle and myself set off to fish for a few hours before the pub was due to be re-opened at 1900.

In those days, it was bank fishing only for a small stretch of about 200-300 yards of the 75 acre pool – all very wild and natural too.

These days, more of the banks are open, fishing platforms in places, punts with or without electric motors are hireable… but it still is a beautiful place. And £8.50 for a day ticket is not unreasonable really.

Also see: Patshull Park Fishing (PDF File)

So, we left home at 0830, arriving about 0900. After parking up and getting our day tickets and having a brief reconnaissance of the banks we elected to fish pegs 48 and 49 … and an initial scan with my Deeper Sonar indicated that we weren’t short of fish in the vicinity, the streaks being ‘fry’ sized fish,… the deepest section being around 18’ deep.

So, first casts were made around 1000-1030’ish with Liz fishing one rod, static ledger, baited with 2 sprats on a standard twin treble wire trace and myself I fished two rods, one with a ‘popped-up’ orange fish and the other rod fished with a static ledgered sardine (later switched to a half herring)….

Unfortunately, neither of us, nor another angler on the opposite bank who seemed to be floatfishing livebaits, had any joy at all … with Liz and I not even getting so much as a single tweak until we packed in at 1500 and headed, as usual, to our local hostelry. Heyho … that’s fishing.

Anyway, Liz had been reticent to suggestions of fishing from a boat but now she’s seen them maybe I can persuade her to have a session afloat… they are proper flat bottomed punts and as such are exceptionally stable craft.

I had intended to be out again yesterday (Thurs 17^th) but circumstances have been such that I don’t think I’ll be able to get out again now until the week beginning January 28^th.

WATER TEMPS:

Steady at 6’C all day…