Bag-up On Border

Being one of the few fisheries in the area to remain open duringthe foot-and-mouth crises, it led to this visit – and the discoverythat we should have fished there long before now.

It started with Dave Pickering (of Pickerings Tackle Shop inBurslem, Stoke on Trent) and me moaning about how the foot-and-mouthcrises was affecting angling. Dave was saying that trade was poor andalthough he had every sympathy with the farmers there should be somethought given to the angling industry and the tackle trade inparticular. Lots of small tackle shops would go under and to a greatextent this could be avoided.

I agreed with him, for just down the road from Dave’s shop theTrent and Mersey canal runs past the old Shelton Steel works, longsince closed down, and the canal, totally surrounded by industry, isclosed to anglers. Closed to everybody in theory, but it’s onlyanglers who are keeping away.

All the people who use the towpath to get to work, the dogwalkers, joggers, bikers, etc, are all going about their business asusual. Has anybody given a thought to the fact that anglers walk ashort distance along the canal and then sit in the one spot forseveral hours? And that everybody else who uses the towpath commutesup and down it to a far greater degree.

“Is anywhere open not too far away then Dave?” I asked.

“Border Fishery is only up the road from you isn’t it? That’sopen.” He replied.

‘Up the road’ was about five or six miles from where I live, inthe village of Balterley (bordering Betley village), with Crewe inCheshire being the nearest big town. Border is one of the newcommercial fisheries that have been dug out and landscaped. It has amatch lake with 45 pegs, a ‘canal’ with 64 pegs, and a specimen lake.It lies next door to a new golf course.

I told Dave I fancied a session on the pole and wanted plenty ofbites, so which lake on the complex would he recommend? “The canal,”he answered straight away. “You’ll get plenty of bites there. Not bigfish, they go to about 3lb, but big enough to be good fun on thepole.”

So that’s how Dave Colclough and I ended up at Border Fishery. Wedrove over disinfected straw matting and then had to wash our fishingfootwear and landing nets in a disinfectant dip (no keepnets areallowed except in matches and then they’re supplied by the fishery).Jeff Moors, the fishery manager and a PAA coach, then showed us around the complex and I must say it was very impressive. These commercial fisheries arenot everyone’s choice, many preferring the wilder side of fishing life, but there are plenty who want everything organised and that’s exactly what you get at Border.

The swims are easily accessible, pre-cut, boarded, flat and comfortable. The tracks around the fishery are first class, and Jeff, when he’s not too busy, will often run your gear to your peg on his quad bike and trailer.

The Meridian Canal, where we’d chosen to fish, is a huge moat-likewater specially designed and dug out to be as fair as possible tomatch anglers, with even depths and no extra deep holes or ledgesanywhere to make it ‘peggy’. It’s two thirds of a mile round and has64 permanent and comfortable pegs. You can drop a bait next to thefar bank vegetation with an 11m pole. The centre ‘island’ has 7,200trees planted on it and will, with maturity, look a real picture.

Dave isn’t, and probably never will be, a pole angler, so chose tofish with rod, reel and waggler. I’m well up for pole fishing thesedays, having realised what an efficient and enjoyable method it isfor many kinds of fishing. Pole fishing is something you never willappreciate until you’ve actually tried it. The presentation isunbelievably efficient and the feeling of having a reasonable fishbouncing around on the end of a length of elastic is somethingelse.

There are all kinds of little tricks you can do with a pole thatare not possible with a rod and reel too (unless you’re fishing underthe rod tip of course). Being able to lift the bait off the bottomwithout pulling it away from the baited area is one of them. Holdingposition with a mid-water bait is another, and feeding the swim witha pole pot every time within a circle no more than a few inches indiameter counts for a lot. And don’t forget that you can drop a baitalongside, and sometimes amongst, far bank reeds, where it would beimpossible to cast to.

The cross-section of the Meridian canal is ‘U’ shaped, but with the uprights of the ‘U’ sloping away to the bank. The fish usually feed right up against the far bank reeds, or at the bottom of the slope on either side. Occasionally right in the middle. I chose the far bank slope and Dave selected to fish in the middle.

I started with a 2lb line to a 16’s barbless hook, fed caster, and fished a single caster for the first hour or so and had a few fish. Then Jeff came along and said try sweetcorn. I put a single grain onthe hook and couldn’t go wrong from that moment on, getting a bite, and usually a fish, every time I lowered a bait in.

I swapped from the far bank shelf to right up against the reeds every now and again,feeding the two spots with caster and red maggot, and finished the day with about 25lb of fish which included common, mirror and ghost carp to about 2lb, and roach, chub, tench and ide to about 1lb.

Dave struggled for the first hour, trying to fish the far bank. As soon as he came right in and fished the near bank shelf he caught regularly. Funny thing was that he couldn’t get a bite on corn, only on red maggot. Yet me and two others on the next two pegs did best on corn and struggled with caster and red maggot.

That we thoroughly enjoyed it goes without saying. It was good tobe out there when much of the fishing in the area is closed due tothe foot-and-mouth epidemic. Border Fisheries is well run,comfortable, has plenty of fish, and the price is veryreasonable.