I went out to an old ex-estate lake at Stevenstone for a couple of hours last
evening after the
"wildies". I settled down fishing at the lake side
after closing the shop at about 5pm
only to attract a herd of bullocks. As I
was politely asking them to leave me and my
tackle alone, one waded into the
lake right where my bait was and started to drink.
At this point my high tech
silver paper bite indicator slowly moved up to the rod.
I thought the cow had
caught my line but struck anyway and caught this carp - not
one of the wildies
at just under 10lb, but a good looking fish from right under the cows nose.
It must have
been attracted by stirrings in the mud. After that, a shoal of rudd moved in
and I caught a succession to about 6oz until I packed in at dusk. No wildies
but a very
pleasant evening.
The lake hasn’t
changed much in the near 60 years since it was netted to remove the
coarse fish
just after the war, with a few hand grenades thrown in for good measure
to
clear any that they may have missed. It was then stocked with trout for fly
fisherman.
Seems to have
been unsuccessful as I have only had one small brownie in all the times
I fished
it about 20 years ago, but the wildies (and a few stocked larger carp), tench,
rudd (too many) and perch are still there.