Club Waters, Canals and small Commercials

I've always liked belonging to an angling club. As a boy in my formative fishing years I was a member of the Forest of Dean Angling Club. At that time it was the only way you got to fish as day tickets and commercials didn't really exist. I currently fish the waters belonging to Kendal and District anglers. We have two still waters and a couple of stretches of the Lancaster canal. One of the still waters is Banks Pond and this year it has blossomed due to the removal of large areas of weed. It's also much easier to get to now due to the construction of a hard track as a result of a wind farm being built nearby. In the past it was always a bit dicey as to whether you would make it across the two fields via a very slippery and muddy farm track.




The wind farm with Banks Pond down in the wooded hollow
 

I have been a frequent visitor this summer and my catches have eclipsed all my previous visits. The cutting back of the weed has really meant that the pond at last lives up to its billing on the club website as a 'terrific water'. Fishing aside it is also a place of wondrous solitude and peace with rhythmic whoosh of the wind turbines and the sounds of sheep and cattle providing the only background noise. There's rarely more than a couple of anglers particularly if you fish during the week as I tend to do. So what of the fish?
Well it has roach, perch, tench, carp, rudd, bream and gudgeon. The water quality is very good and produces common carp that look as though they have been cast in bronze, quite the most beautiful commons I've ever seen. They don't run particularly big- there's plenty around 3lb but boy do they fight.

Around 2lb but what a fighter!

As you can see from the above photograph I've been using an old porcupine quill that I fish attached top and bottom with a couple of AAA shot around six inches from the hook and the depth adjusted so the floats sits in the water at an angle of around 45 degrees to the surface. I call it laying on though I'm not sure if it is actually that. Anyway whatever it's called it works a treat fishing about a rod length out next to the lily pads. This approach has brought numerous carp and tench as well as the odd greedy gudgeon all falling to either sweetcorn, luncheon meat or bread. The bites are great from small ripples appearing around the float to the float sometimes laying flat or classic sail away ones.
For the roach, rudd and perch I've usually fished maggots or casters with a slim antenna float and a small hook and have found the clear water around two lengths out to produce the best catches. Of course gudgeon turn up here too and I do love catching them.

A brace of gudgeon dwarfed by a small roach

I think the thing I've most enjoyed about Banks Pond is the fact that I've fished with no expectations and have tried to tap into the young angler I was once that was happy with any fish he caught. It was Bernard Venables  who described three stages of an angler's evolution. In stage one you just want to catch any fish, as I've described above, stage two you want to catch big fish and finally you progress to stage three where it is the manner of the catch that counts at which point it can become a much more intellectual challenge. Luke Jennings mentions this in his excellent book Blood Knots but goes on to apply it to his quest for urban pike. For me I think all three can apply although I probably spend most of my time wavering between stages two and three as the desire to catch a big roach is never far from my thoughts. That said it's great to give yourself a day off and be happy catching small hard fighting tench or carp or to enjoy the exquisite colouring of a small rudd which nowadays seem to be a rare fish to catch.




No idea why this is orientated like this- a beauty!

As for the canal I 've had a few worthwhile evenings where some roach to around half a pound have graced the bank. However, I seem to have developed an almost uncanny knack for catching bream and have had at least five fish to 2lbs from a variety of swims. These are pretty good fish from the canal but I can't help thinking they are forcing the roach out of the swims. I've tried different approaches to feeding and groundbait but once they arrive there seems little I can do to get the roach back.
My other issue has been that my favourites spot seems to have really gone off the boil and I've struggled to catch even three skimmers when before roach to 12oz were always a possibility. This has meant going off in search of other potential spots but so far I've found nothing that matches the previous catches either for size or quantity.
As Autumn arrives it may be that the roach will reappear so I will definitely go back and try again. I still believe there is the possibility of a fish of more than a pound but it could take all of Autumn and Winter to catch it.

In the mean time I have decided to spend at least one session a week on a small commercial that has so far given me three roach of more than a pound this year. I fish on what I call Lake 2 and have discovered it contains a really good head of roach with half pound fish commonplace. Of course bream are present too but generally speaking it is possible to get the roach going by feeding hemp and fishing breadflake over it. I have a favourite swim that has been very kind to me so far and believe I may well of lost a roach of over one and a half pounds just last week. Although gutted by this it does at least fill me with optimism for the coming months.
I intend to start an Autumn roach diary from my next session and to publish it on here each week.
Thanks for reading and enjoy your Autumn fishing wherever it may be.

Where's your big sister hiding?