With the onset of short daylight hours and the ever increasing pressures of travel costs I thought this might be relevant to a lot of anglers, and just what is it about urban waters that hold such a fascination for some anglers…Or is it just me?
It’s a real privilege to spend the vast majority of my time on attractive waters which are often located in quiet, rural surroundings but I suspect that I’m not alone when I spot an urban water and dare my imagination to wander just a little.
But what is it gets us on to these waters and testing our imagination against the reality?
Well in this case I’m probably being a touch fraudulent in that I have fished this particular water on and off from the age of nine and I am therefore working more from an acquired knowledge, rather than my frequently overactive imagination, but the principle is roughly the same.
The venue itself is a stream-fed and heavily silted, small mill pool which sits just off my local town centre, nestling between a football ground on one side and a retail park on the other. An Indian restaurant with beer garden borders the surrounding footpath and only a few yards away an industrial dry cleaning depot sits immediately behind the peg I fished on the day of writing this; the depot churns out such vast amounts of steam on a cold winter’s day that it rivals a scene from the industrial revolution.
It’s on these days that you can appreciate, some one hundred and fifty years on, that maybe the scene is not such a far cry from the pool’s history where an eighteenth century mill once stood and the water provided the power for its cotton doubling and thread manufacturing.
Despite the unlikely location of this particular ‘urban gem’ you soon seem to forget the low hum of nearby traffic and the occasional passing siren as you plumb around the shallow, time-forgotten pool desperately trying to find more than a couple of feet of water. The frequent dog walkers say “hello” and display a look of total bewilderment before indulging themselves in the occasional glance back to have a look at what you’re doing; but before you know it you’ve become entirely engrossed in the job in hand… catching a few fish!
Amongst countless other changes, this water has witnessed my graduation from being a child snatching the odd obliging gudgeon that would snaffle even a badly presented maggot on an oversize hook to, more recently, an angler catching some good mixed bags of bream, chub, perch, roach, rudd, tench and the occasional carp. All of these fish have quietly and happily bred under the noses of the neighbouring townsfolk in their own natural environment and they are there for those who are willing to give it a go.
But what would this short afternoon session hold?
I think it would be fair to say that the pool hasn’t experienced an over exposure to sophisticated angling techniques during its long history so it was a fairly basic approach with a tried and trusted favourite: nipped tail end of a worm alternated with the occasional pellet on a size fourteen hook to 1.7lb bottom, which in turn was suspended beneath a 2BB waggler at around three rod lengths out.
This presentation would just about see me clear of any submerged shopping trolleys and I planned to hand feed finely chopped worm over the top, owing to the fact that the swim was shallower than the length of my rod handle! Depth-wise this is about as good as it gets on here and I figured that hand feeding loose offerings might present less disturbance in the clear, shallow water than binding them in a light ball of groundbait – despite me having to stand up each time to get the distance I required. I never was much good with the catapult!
As is often the case at this time of year there was little sign of life for the first two or three casts but in went the feed regardless and after around fifteen minutes the float dipped back in response to a sharp, provocative twitch of the worm and a small, angry perch was soon putting up a dignified fight on its way to the net.
Back in again with just a quick one handed flick of the rod and the float barely had a chance to settle before it slipped away once again. A sideways strike to keep the fish low and hurry it away from the shoal resulted in a satisfying bend in the rod, which was accompanied by the tell-tale sharp jagging in the rod’s tip to middle section and this time a nice ‘netter’ of a roach, around 8oz, was soon flashing around in front of me, having fallen to the same pinch of worm as the perch before it.
And on went the pattern…
A nice rhythm of feed, cast and bite soon developed and, considering the time of year, I began to amass a respectable bag of fish and it was only afterwards that I became aware that there was no sense of time, or era, or anything at all really, other than the pleasure of catching in what was no longer a small oasis amongst an urban sprawl but instead my own little paradise devoid of all distractions.
Alas, as so often the case on this tiny mill pond the bites became less frequent with time and the swim eventually dried up, so I resorted to scratching a few fish down the inside whilst continuing to feed the original line. By the time I got back out on the initial line the fish had returned and were feeding confidently once again, this time resulting in a seemingly endless string of roach.
Cast after cast brought quality, scarlet-finned and scale perfect beauties in the 6 to 12oz bracket that had probably never seen a hook in their lives. There were also a few well over the pound mark and even an unseasonal tench made an appearance to round off this short session nicely and, as the afternoon began to draw to a close, I reluctantly thought about packing up, leaving the keepnet until last in the hope of asking a passer-by to take a picture for me and, sure enough, I didn’t have to wait long before a dog walker was happy to oblige.
The dog sat patiently as I showed the lady which button to press on the phone before embarking on the pleasure of swimming the fish down the net, the satisfying sound of mass splashing telling me that maybe I had enjoyed a better few hours than I had first realised before lifting them out for a quick picture, which was kindly snapped by the unsuspecting and equally surprised passer-by before I carefully released them back to their unlikely home.
All in all the afternoon wasn’t about achievement in terms of the size of individual fish… I had enjoyed the numbers with a good stamp of fish in terms of size too and I had done so in the company of nobody other than myself; and at the sparse cost of half a kilo of worms and a handful of pellets, not even the price of a day ticket was paid and I had thoroughly enjoyed it!
Like many of these ‘urban gems’ the challenge was in doing what many would perhaps have overlooked, and the results had justified the means, but ,as is so often the case, there’s always a drawback – although occasionally this can be just as pleasant as the fishing…
The drawback in this particular case was that the usual reflection on the day’s events, which traditionally took place during the drive home, could not possibly materialise in the five minutes it took for me to get home! However, the silver lining laid in the fact that this would now have to be done at home with feet up, a cold beer to hand, a very contented feeling and a huge smile to match.
