Andy Spreadbury's Fishing Blog

Friday, 16th. November Preparations for the next session I’d already started to think about what I might do for the next session at the end of the last one. A plough through my diaries (which go back to 1978!) reminded me of several stories which had valuable lessons learnt and which I had completely forgotten about. There were two in particular which guide my thoughts now: Back in the mists of time when dinosaurs roamed the earth (1986 to be precise) I was fishing Bysing Wood, Faversham where I had done extremely well, catching over a hundred fish in a season (and in one memorable year, nearly twice that number). In those days, a twenty-pound fish was a real result and were few and far between in any twelve month period. It was a heavily fished water then and had seen some of the best anglers this country has ever produced - Fred Wilton (developing his HNV baits), Gerry Savage, Bob Morris (who became the first angler to officially record a hundred ‘doubles’ in one seas

Notes from my Diary:......... Thursday, 8th.November Giving some thought to feature-finding and I think there is a definite technique to it on The Back Lake. I don’t think the technique will work in all situations because it is dependent on the sharply variable shape of the bottom - in this case, the very steeply rising ‘humps’ which are characteristic of the ‘eggbox’ my pals described. Because the bottom rises so sharply (and then goes down again) it is possible to feel these humps when drawing the lead back (whether it be marker or rig lead). This is the familiar ‘jaggedy-jag’ you get on the rod-tip, or as ’T’ calls them “the knobbly-bits”. We reckoned that the hump was at 7 wraps; this was determined by over-casting a random distance, gradually drawing back and ‘feeling’ the bottom until there was a ‘jaggedy-jag’ on the rod-tip. This indicated the beginning of the slope; popping the marker float up we found about nine feet so this meant the hump was three feet shal

Monday, 28th.October I got a call from an old friend - ’T’ who had been reading the Blog. “I see you’re fishing The Back Lake. How’re you getting on?” I explained that I’d only just started fishing it but I could do with a little help. ’T’ offered the advice that the bottom contours were basically an ‘egg box’ and that he had done well by concentrating on the shallow areas in open water quoting eight feet as the sort of depth I should be looking for. Moreover, he gave me the location of a spot in the very swim I had fished. My baits had been no-where near it. Resolved to try and find it next time I fished it. Wednesday, 31st.October ‘M’ called last night - he’d also seen the Blog and asked how I was getting on. As I said in my writings, my confidence is pretty low at the moment and I’d appreciate any tips on fishing the place. ‘M’ more or less confirmed what ’T’ had said, describing the undulating nature of the bottom and suggesting the ‘shelves’ were the best places to

Wednesday, 24th.October 2018 The Back Lake, (The Lifebelt) 11.00 First job - swim survey. This is my first session on here so I have no idea about the bottom contours: 12.15 So I’m back fishing after what seems like forever. The past couple of months have been extremely difficult and I haven’t even wanted to to go fishing even if I could - and I couldn’t… We finally got moved into the new house although ‘moved in’ only in a relative sense. We are inhabiting the ground floor, upstairs is still awaiting the building work - new dormers, sky-light, stud walls, plumbing and electrics is merely the start of it. At the moment it’s a building site up there. The past few weeks saw me have a ‘crash’… It was probably the stress of living with friends (lovely though they are, it was unfair of me to expect them to put up with my Depression for more than a short while). The ‘Black Dog’ descended and I was in a very dark place. More than once I said to Christine “I wish we had never

Saturday, 21st.July After I packed up at the end of the last session and loaded up the barrow, I decided to investigate the area down by the Dam to my left. The Dam encompasses the southern end of the reservoir where the Draw-Off Tower is located and Google Earth images show the effects of the aeration system. This is manifested by surface disturbance some distance out from the Draw-Off Tower. Aeration at Bough Beech. The area of disturbed water can be clearly seen in this Google image. The red line represents an eighty-yard cast. Drinking-water supply reservoirs use something called Hypolimnetic Aeration and Oxygenation . The scientific basis for this is somewhat complex and beyond the scope of my ramblings - but as far as I’m concerned it’s an Aerator to get more oxygen into the water. This is good news for both fish and anglers as it provides a significant feature to go at. One possible strategy would be to try and fish as close to the aerated water as possible

Friday, 13th.July When in desperate need, help often arrives un-looked for. I was in the fishing shop yesterday and ran into Ray Harris - an old mucker from the past. Ray has many contacts throughout the angling world, one of which is fishing - and catching, at Bough Beech. “Can you find out what he’s using Ray! I’d dearly love to know!” “Sure; I can tell you now. He’s using Webb Baits Squid and Octopus on a fishmeal base and he’s fishing in the car park (?) He bought a motorised barrow ‘specially for the purpose of dealing with the long walks at the res but hasn’t needed it because he’s fishing right near the car!” This is just the news I have been waiting for. It all makes sense. A really smelly bait that gives off a powerful signal through the water column (unlike the ‘Pokernut’ I’ve been using) and fishing where I imagine to be the corner of the Dam. This is one of the places I have investigated and is last on my list of locations to try. Looks like I should promo