Lockey on phone part 2

Car Insurance day

Ageas or Saga? One or both? Discuss ... 

The Great Escape Yateley

1986 - 1990. 

Fried bread

College Reservoir third trip - August 1989. 

Arrived to find the water level exceptionally low

Roger Stanger, drove down as a passage with Mark. 

Decided to try a lazy sit and wait approach. At random, fancying a try on new part of the lake, I chose a swim right in the middle of the main open area of the res, piled in lots of bait and sat on it. On each of the two previous visits I had moved, three times out of choice the first time to find the fish (3 times) and get away from the excessive weed that year in the shallow bay area, then a forced move on the second 

The fishing proved to be a very slow affair. Mark caught more than I did. We were hopeful even during the post baiting up lull that every day the fish would get more and more attracted to our baited area but it never happened and all that I got were 4 carp, mark twice as many and Roger about the same as me? 

By this latter period of my angling career I had gotten myself into some really lazy habits. By this time I enjoyed just sitting and waiting for the fish to come to me, all well when they did but at other times it ruined any chances of a good catch. When more ?? it was better to hoick your gear round to where the fish might actually be. It was hard work but was better than sitting around twiddling your thumbs as I did for so long during this particular weeks stay. 

Mark set up right alongside me with Roger a little further along the same bank.

desperate dan sized two inch thick Steak ... so large that we often had nothing else on the plate. In truth these slabs of meat were so large that even after Mark had expertly barbequed them there wasn't too much room left on the plate for much else? No doubt a few extra mars bars would be posted afterwards knowing me? I hold the world record for Mars Bar consumption ... the record is lost to me as I write but it would probably be measured in tonnage? 

Helpful locals - bait in freezer etc

I found the bait recipe

7.5 kilo mix

1 Kg Robin Red

1 Kg 200 mesh Casein

500 gram Lactalbumin WG

2 KG Sluice bird food

1.5 sardine (dense)

1.5 tuna meal (lighter/fluffier)

Two 7.5 kg mixes? Didn't roll bait on the bank too often, took most bait frozen in cool boxes. helped out by locals ... a customer in those days. Name long forgotten. 

In the end a very windy storm arrived and Rogers bivvy got annihilated (I think?) so, given that the fishing hadn't really got going, we packed up and headed for home a few days earlier than was planned. 

 Eggs

... oh, and Stonar lake. 88 and 89

Banned from C&DAA left me either looking forward to the occasional long haul trip to Yateley (a two hour drive) ... we had no other local or semi local Carp lakes back then apart from this old gravel pit which had been stocked with tiny Carp in the middle 1980's. These fish were still very small, but I was desperate. The lake being only 7 miles from my front door meant that I could cadge a lift off my dad or even get into a taxi. Taxi fares were quite reasonable at the time. 

I started fishing on Stonar in ??? but only because it would be the only local lake that I had access to. Stonar, famous in these parts for it's Industrial Estate, seen as you pass by headed for Sandwich in Kent,(spelt and pronounced as Snadwich) where it is 'sandwiched hee hee?' between the river Stour and the main road. 

The lake is ??? acres, the water is very deep (50 feet?) in parts and brackish. Any surrounding habitat is sparse, a few pine along the road bank and some overgrown thickets ?? and brambles along the south bank plus the odd bramble along the more open east, or river bank. There are a few reed beds but only in the shallow edges. The water being slightly salty is full of small shrimps and whatnot (whatever they are) the salt seeps in through the gravel banks from the tidal river. The deeper water does attract a few scarce winter bird species and across the years I've seen all three species of Diver, all five Grebe species and some decent diving Ducks including Scaup, Smew and Goosander. On one occasion a Little Auk, a species that breeds very high up in the Arctic circle, even overwintered. By the early 1990's, after I'd hung up my Carp roads, I became a very serious birder. I used to pop in and wander around the lake many times every winter, especially after really cold weather (which moves Ducks/Geese etc from frozen mainland Europe head to the UK as to the warmth of the gulf stream) 

The latter day Stonar had a large security fence put around it in the more recent years making viewing the lake very difficult (over the fence) locked gates C&DAA etc. 

Stonar was rumoured to hold some some large Eels and Bream, the Bream into double figures? I'd now assume the size of these Bream were erroneous or exaggerated but who really knows? If they were there it would appear that the fished had gone AWOL by the 1980's anyhow. There were many silver fish, as in Roach and Rudd, some medium sized Bream, also Perch as well I think? Not that I fished for anything other than the Carp myself. 

At some point on the middle 1980's the a decent head of very pretty little tiny Carp were introduced. These had no pull on me until I found myself stranded after having no more access to C&DAA etc etc but in ??? I decided to have a little try, more out of boredom than anything. I was soon to find out that the Carp were all very small, only into low double figures (by 1990?) but it was quite good fun, it was close to home, and it fished during the winter months too. I pretty much only ever fished during the winter there I think? 

I had the lake pretty much to myself as I recall it? That said I only really fished there during the winter months as I recall? I fished the road bank, almost certainly due to that particular part of the lake was the only part that had any habitat (I put up with the road noise from twenty feet behind me) 

Very snaggy, I caught one rather awesome looking little 5lb mirror and lost a few more and some end tackle due to the rather horrendous snags which I later found proliferated the entire lake. Or at least every swim that I tried anyhow? 

In time (how long?) I eventually found a spot that I fished most times after finding a shallower area of the lake. Even then if you cast to far from the bank there was still plenty of water out there. 

 Fifty years ago

Redmire

A legendary water ... a name that tingled the spine of any Carp Angler of our generation, set the hairs a'janglin' on the back of your neck. Shivered yer timbers? Okay, enough of these badly worded mangled sayings. 

The cover of a book that I once owned ... the history of Redmire Pool 

Photos thanks to Lockie ... 

I took photos but over the years lost them and they have still never turned up. 

Donald Leney Polish carp 1934 - few Carp waters ... legend/monsters RW 44 1952 CY 51 in 1981 and bigger apparently seen. 

Run as a commercial fishery - the death of ??? money ruins most things. 

Les Bamford brummie Optonic sooper duper tuner wizard 

I hear it was drained in modern times (2019?) the progeny of those old Leney stocking ... fifty returned.

The actual years would be lost to me now but as I recall it Geoff thought it might be an idea to go for a few nights? Me, him and Lockie. Quite where my brain would be at this time where the fishing was concerned, well, again I can't recall. The way my memory worked originally was that I packed up fishing in 1989/90, sold my gear fairly quickly and moved on to other things? But seeing as the date was properly logged on Lockies tickets (it was him that booked it I'm told) was at a far later date than I recall and the fact that I still had a bivvy and my Maddock's bed chair (again with photographic evidence as actual proof rather than a mouldy old out of date brain to rely on)  really throws the cat amongst the tigers where all of this is concerned. 

In time (by now a non angler) I decided to go, as the company was top hole as well as being able to set my eyes and boots into the soft mud of the banks of Redmire, a place of myth and legend. 

Geoff ... geoff ... GEOFF!!! Crickey, I am famous! 

weasel with mouse dinner

empty the loo competition.