stevetheangler

So it came to pass that on the weekend of Saturday 15th to Tuesday 18th April that Liz and I set off on our annual ‘Around Easter’ camping outing to Crew Green – a location that lies between Shrewsbury and Oswestry at Brook House Farm. It’s a handy location for weekend camping for us as it is just over an hour from home meaning that I can pick Liz up on a Saturday when she finishes work at 1100 … be there by 1230 … and with the new air tent we can have that pitched within 15 minutes … and after a further 15 minutes to unload and inflate air beds, lay bed sheets and coverlet … then the kettle is on for coffee by 1400… perfect. Oh… and there’s another thing … it also has its own private fishing on the River Severn although from onsite photos it seems people like to swim in there too but I suppose it’d be easy enough to locate a quiet area. The river fishing was one of the reasons I chose the site to book back in January … and then had a Homer Simpson ‘DOOOH!” moment the next day as I realised April is in the middle of the river close season! Realising that I then looked for alternative fishing opportunities close by and found two – Wigmore Pools and Weston Pools and chose, based on ‘site rules’, the latter as being more for me. Weston has a number of pools that can be fished and I chose ‘Belvedere’…. (£10 day for Liz, £8 for me). BTW the campsite itself also has a small pool right next to the camping field but I’ll come back to that later.

So … I had booked pegs 33 and 1 (next door to each other, last and first pegs around the pool) on Belvedere thinking they were the closest to the car park and facilities but the path to the pool on the site map mislead me and the path is actually a private one to a house and access is actually from the far end of the pool. We were offered to change our pegs by the reception but as it wasn’t a major walk we decided to keep the booked ones.

My peg – 33

We arrived onsite and after booking in, parking up, walking the tackle and setting up we probably made first casts around 0930-0945 with myself fishing ‘lift method’ and Liz legering with a frame feeder…

My baits varied between worm, maggot, sea food (mussel, squid, prawn) and bread with bread probably getting the most attention whilst Liz used maggot and sweetcorn. I loose fed particles, maggots and some cereal feed throughout the session.

We both lost our first fish with hook pulls – Liz said hers was a decent fish and mine felt around 2-3lb …

And over the day I landed 2 carp of around 1lb each and dropped off a roach whilst Liz landed a nice little mirror of around 1/2lb.

I didn’t take my proper fishing chair for the sake of lightness – and paid the cost! I took one of those cheap’ish director camping chairs which early in the session broke when pressing down on the front strut to get myself up and out of it and then the whole chair collapsed requiring me to call Liz to help me get up! The rest of the session I had to sit on the top of the 12″ step down on to the platform – not the best as early afternoon my legs had locked and I was unable to stand and again I had to call for Liz’s assistance …

So, fishing was not the best and was exacerbated by the seating problems…

Anyway, we found the source of some good pub/hotel food about a mile from the campsite for evening meals – ‘Old Hand And Diamond’ – excellent quality and quantity (we couldn’t manage even just mains! Saturday night we had 3 starters between us, Sunday night a starter and a pud each) … and all excellent.

So on leaving the campsite we got talking the lady who owns it and on telling her we’d fished at Weston she said her daughter and son-in-law own that!! And also said that when they sort the fish at Weston they place a lot of them in the campsite pool some good sized ones too! If we’d have known that we’d have been able to fish for free … which will be on the agenda if we visit again.

So back home now, I’ve ordered a replacement lightweight (3.5Kg) but sturdy fishing chair for holiday fishing, my normal ‘home’ chair being a hefty high back recliner type and heavy.

PLANS

I’m now feeling back in fishing mode – a bit more active – and was intending a visit to the club’s tench/bream pool on Monday BUT the weather forecast is dismal with day long rain … however Tuesday is forecast bright and dry and depending if that remains the case then I’ll get out then…