Silver at the End of the Road

Literally two minutes drive from my house is Meadowlands Fishery, Ryton, strange then that I had, until last week, never set foot on the place preferring in the past to visit either the excellent Jubilee Pools which is a similar distance away or Stockton Reservoir for fishing sessions with my Dad.

While Meadowlands is not the prettiest of fisheries it does offer the angler plenty of water to go at, there are two sizable lakes with parking available in various strategic locations around the fishery. Fishery blurb mentions carp to thirty odd pounds, tench to nine pounds, three pound roach and sizable bream and barbel all for seven pounds a day.

We set up in the larger lake close to the main car park, not really knowing what to expect I plumped for an open end feeder rig fishing maggot on the hook while Dad started on the float.

In no time at all I had hooked and lost two decent fish while Dad was picking up odd small roach then the skimmers moved in on the feed. We started catching ten to twelve ounce bream regularly along with odd roach to about six ounces and for variety I had a perch of around a pound and a couple of small carp.

I enjoy this sort of fishing and while we weren't about to threaten the record match catch for the water which stands at 200lb+ we caught well and both had a nice mixed bag of fish.

Spot the Difference Competition

                                   



   Last Week                                                          This Week




We were back there yesterday for another crack at the same pegs both starting on the float this time, Dad was on maggot while I tried bread. Again I hooked a good fish early on this time netting and weighing a carp of six pounds, then the skimmers were back on the feed.
We caught fish steadily although not as quickly as the previous week so we both changed to feeder set ups and caught spasmodically throughout the session. Mixed bags for each of us again including roach, perch and skimmers I had the one carp and a rogue tench of about a pound and a half while Dad had a carp of about three pounds on meat late on.

I like fishing for silvers and when I know there's plenty of fish in front of me I just want to catch as many as possible I appreciate though that to others a shoal of voracious skimmer bream snaffling everything from a single maggot to a big chunk of luncheon meat would be a nightmare scenario.

Hooray for Henry

The excitement and sense of achievement experienced when catching your first ever fish as a young angler is a moment never forgotten and as an older angler the opportunity to teach and advise a youngster and subsequently help them catch their first ever fish is priceless.

A three night camping trip at Greenhill Farm in Oxfordshire along with my sister and her three children, Oliver, Imogen and Henry during the recent glorious weather in the half term school holidays presented the perfect opportunity to get the kids fishing again. This is the same site we visited last Summer and is an ideal location for young anglers, there are two relatively shallow, well stocked lakes in a separate field alongside the main camping area, the bottom lake is stocked with silvers while the top lake is a carp pool.

Once we had set up the tents and settled in we were soon at the waterside and fishing the bottom lake. A little earlier Henry, by far the keenest of all to try his hand at fishing, had listened intently as I helped set up his starter set of tackle alongside the ten foot glass leger rod I had taken along explaining as I went what purpose the individual items of tackle served. At the lake I helped Henry plumb the depth and explained the principles of loosefeeding and then we set about catching some fish.

As I mentioned earlier these are very well stocked lakes and it wasn't a long wait before the bites started in fact the float was rarely still and after only a short time Henry was landing his first fish a small skimmer bream. A great moment.

Imogen and Aimee both had a brief go and even our Jess took the rod long enough to catch her now customary single small roach before becoming bored but it was Henry who had the bug, his enthusiasm grew with each fish he caught and he was learning to do more and more for himself.

In the short time we had together Henry and I made three more trips to the lakes, concentrating on the top lake where the small carp were more than obliging and where he also hooked a couple of larger specimens which he unfortunately lost.

It had been a great trip, nice to see my sister who I seem to see all too rarely these days and nice to relax with Sheryl and the kids in the blazing sun, we had a barbecue each evening and ate bacon and eggs each morning, My nephews and I threw a rugby ball around, Aimee and Jessica loved spending time with Imogen and we even tried (unsuccessfully) to fly a kite but most importantly of all we enjoyed the simple pleasure of catching some fish.