stevetheangler

Monday, March 14th, after a week’s deliberation of where to fish I decided on a club pool (AA-HP/I) that I’d last fished around April of 2021. I had thought of, it being the last day of the fishing season for flowing waters and some SSI sites, venturing to a local small river but due to rain over the previous few days, not enough really to affect river conditions but more to do with soggy trouser bottoms from the access to, I decided against … and then there were various other canal and pool options considered but at the end of the day this pool won over the opposition mainly due to it being a while since I’d last visited but also the pool is in the process of a makeover with new pegs being created and with stockings of various species. An established pool, and a day ticket pool up to 2016 when fishing was stopped by the new owners of the time, it seems ownership again changed hands as pieces of the large estate it formed part of being sold and the new owners were amenable to leasing to our club and the contracts, delayed in the exchange from the planned April 2020 to July 2020, due to covid I believe, were signed. Originally we had the lease on two pools within 50 yards of each other – a small shallow carp pool and this larger, deeper (30+ foot) pool – but the owners decided to keep the smaller pool as a duck/nature sanctuary. In return, our pool had very high (6+ feet) and very sloped banks, so the owners had diggers come and scoop out ‘holes’ on which our pegs could be placed.

There are 16 pegs and as can be seen in the lower picture, far bank, we have builder’s bags of hardcore ready for a work party to be held on Sunday 20th to create the final pegs. In actual fact, there are already 6 finished pegs existing thanks to the efforts of the club’s committee and helpers … I should have taken a photo really, wonders of hindsight apply, but the floor of pegs are surrounded by concrete slab edgings filled with hardcore … and the access down to each peg is via wooden steps laid down the steep banks … The pegs are quite spacious and I noted one that is easily a double peg which would be good for a member to fish alongside a friend or spouse or for giving tuition to a learner. A good job has been done so far and I hope there is good support for work party to make a big dent in the work required – but unfortunately I am unable to make it age and health now being an issue…

OK … that’s the pool … now the fishing …

A solo trip out – Liz had housework she wanted to do … and she did actually get a lot done … so she was due an award … see later :)

As said it was almost 12 months ago that I last visited, making 3 trips in as many weeks as I recall. And I never had a single nibble and never even saw any sort of fish activity nor any other angler…

Back in its day ticket days I’d heard that it produced good size bream and perch, a lot of rudd, and on some carp fishing forums it was said to have carp to 40lb although those statements were contested by others saying up to 20lb … I suppose a case of the “12” long but weighs 5lb” tales that happen… BUT 5 years without anglers, ie lack of introduced feed, was always likely to affect fish stocks and sizes .. and probably they’d wean over to natural foods viewing unnaturals with suspicion or lack of recognition as a foodstuff…

AND, twixt my last visit and the latest the pool had received a stocking of F1s (2000+ I believe) along with small bream and silvers so there was a chance of a bit of action despite the cold weather of recent times…

0700 I set off from home with the car thermo telling me its 3’C … and I arrive, first there, at the pool at around 0730 and select my peg for the day…. gear is transported the short distance from the car peg and a few items placed to my liking before getting out my spomb rod and spomb … and sending out 3 large spombs of feed (crumb, barley, rice, maggots, corn,..) into my intended fishing area – which as I recall from my Deeper Sonar readings of last year is about 12’ deep. The rest of the ‘station’ is laid out with rod pod, landing net, unhooking cradle, chair, table, etc as I liked … then the rods were set up…

Grandeslam 11’ Avon type (1.75lb TC), 8lb Diawa Hyper Sensor mono mainline with 6” 8lb braid hooklengths, 1/2oz (14g) flat grip leads on running 6lb mono links with Enterprise Tackle type ledger stops – say ‘type’ as these are identical to the real thing but from AliExpress in bulk – so whilst a pack of 4 of the real thing costs £1.99 (ie 50p each) the AE version is £7.49 for 100 ie 7.5p each – so needless to say they’ll last Liz and myself out!

One rod was terminated with a size 6 Kamasan Animal barbless hook, the other with similar hook but a size 12.

Baits … on the size 6 hook was bread coated with soft cheese/garlic spread to appeal to the bream and even the F!/carp would have been acceptable on the day … the size 12 was baited with 2 dendro worms and the hooks tipped with maggot to prevent the worms from squirming off.

First casts were made at around 0845…. and over the rest of the day extra feed was either catapulted or spombed out…

Results… well, the day ended in a blank … again! But there was improvement over my previous visits … saw a few (small 1lb-2lb) fish roll/jump in the area of my baits (but as water was 12’ deep they were a distance away from my baits!) … I had a couple of good pulls on my bread rod and one on my worm rod but missed all, the first one being due to having a cup of coffee in my hand at the time and having to put it down… plus a few of what looked to me as line bites… smooth short rise and fall.

Also a few others arrived to fish … not sure of what they caught if anything but nothing of note whatever … two arriving about 30 minutes after myself who fished together in one peg, and one other chap arrived about 1200 who fished the opposite  bank … and we all seemed to pack up at the same time, myself being the first out of the gate…

On getting home, Liz helped unpack the car … and suggested popping out for a beer before teatime. As said she’d done a good days work in the house and if she’d have come out we’d have gone for the beer anyway – and I had no objection! So a quick shower and change and we headed off to a local brewery pub – Beacon Hotel in Sedgley – the home of the Sarah Hughes’ Brewery. We’d not been there for quite a while despite the fact we live probably only 1 mile away – and the reason for that is mainly due to what lies in that one mile – the Beacon or Sedgley Beacon to give it its full name – and to give you an idea of it, if you stand on top and face east the next land area of equal height is in the Urals! Bit of a climb if you decide to visit the pub walking and by the direct route! The visit was MOST enjoyable not in the least for being able to get a pint of Sarah Hughes’ Dark Ruby Mild! Over the pandemic it’s not been supplied to any other establishment and has been only brewed for inhouse and so its been quite a while since any has passed my lips … and the first sip was like PARADISE in a glass, I’d completely forgotten how fantastic a beer it is especially in the Beacon, the brewery tap, as its always seemed to be, at least, so much better than when acquired elsewhere …. manna from heaven, in fact… AND whilst there, we discovered it seems to oil the brain well too – Liz’s anyway – as she said its so much better to unload the car and get showered/refreshed, etc before the pub call as you can relax all the more for not having to think about the slog of unpacking, etc when getting home when calling at the pub first as we have been doing in the past – and it does make even more sense to unpack/shower/pub in that order as, usually, going directly to the pub we drive within a couple hundred yards of our house anyway. SO… a new post-fishing plan has been officially debated, considered, voted upon and accepted by an all in favour!! HIC!  LOL!

TEMPS:

WATER (‘C):    7.9 –   9.9
AIR (‘C):          6.9 – 17.4

TEMP TRENDS:

PLANS:

I won’t get out again this week – garden/fence/shed work to be continued but next Monday looks even better weather wise so will be out if that’s the case – the question is where? Again I’ll be alone as we have guests coming to stay over the following weekend and Liz wants to get things in order for them…