Thursday, 29th.March

Great excitement during the week as my ticket for Bough Beech arrived; I decided I have to get over there and have a good look before my first session. With the camera and plumbing rod in the car, I left home in the sunshine full of expectation!

By the time I got to the reservoir however it had started to rain and the place looked a very dark, dour, forbidding place. No fishery looks its best in such conditions and my mood reflected this rather depressive aspect. I was determined to have a plumb though and found eight feet at eight wraps, straight off the Dam Wall, the water’s edge being only a metre from the foot of the wall. This of course will fall during the following months and in my head I put in place plans for fishing it. In a southerly wind it would be nice and sheltered and this fact immediately began to change the way I thought about my approach to the place…

Even though I had yet to wet a line in Bough Beech, how to fish it had occupied my every waking thought. I had put in place a detailed appraisal of all the factors affecting the whereabouts of the carp and the tactics likely to succeed; but here I was immediately facing a harsh reality - these plans were futile because of the sheer size of the place, the lack of access to 90% of it, and the distances needed to reach fishable areas from car parking facilities. Standing at the Dam looking out at the vastness of its waters I realised all these plans would need to be re-assessed in the light of what I was seeing.

The eight feet in depth was a pleasant discovery. All along I was hoping to be able to fish shallow water, at least in the Spring when the reservoir was warming up and eight feet fell well within the sort of range I was looking for. I decided to explore the other side of the Clubhouse and walked on through the field into the first part of the reservoir we are allowed to fish where there are nice, natural banks.

This is an area known as Three Trees (since there are three trees growing in a group!) and I noticed in the Syndicate log book at the clubhouse it had already been fished recently by a member. Once again I found eight feet at eight wraps and deduced this must be a typical ‘slope’ of the bottom around the reservoir. Bottom conditions seemed ‘clean’ with no problems and I felt a bottom bait was fishable. Whether the carp were willing to pick one up was entirely a different matter however. Bough Beech carp receive relatively little bait considering the size of the place and the accepted wisdom is that boilies do not form part of their diet.

I walked on a little further to the end of the field and tried another cast with the plumbing rod but curiously, the lead detached itself from the Marker Kit. How this was able to happen I don’t know; the lead is affixed by a Quick Link to a large ring and I imagine what must have happened is that eye of the lead swivel must have worked its way out of the clip. This was an irritating event as I wanted to complete a quick assessment and get back to the car as it was now raining hard and I was getting very wet. Since I had omitted to bring spare leads with me, that was the end of my depth-finding investigations.

I had seen enough of the East Bank fishing and drove round to the West Bank and parked at the Fisherman’s Hut. By now the rain was increasing in intensity and I hung about in the car for a good long while in the hope it would stop but reluctantly decided to brave the conditions. I had only had the briefest of views on my initial visit and I wanted to explore the potential of this bank, particularly the area known as Crickle Cross and Hump Bay. Unfortunately, due to high water levels these areas are completely inaccessible and would have to wait for much later when the water goes down. I managed to wander northwards towards the Estate Yard Bay and stumbled across a very old acquaintance, Pike Fishing. Bob Morris looked very comfortable under his brolly but sadly, had nothing to report.

Bravely, I continued on up the bank in the mud towards Pete’s Bay and decided it didn’t appeal to me as much as the Clubhouse area - although granted, in such foul weather, nowhere could be considered to have much appeal. I was by now soaked through to the skin and I made a mad dash back to the car where I sought refuge from the terrible weather and took stock…

Despite all the research and planning I had done, it seemed that the fishing at Bough Beech was driven more by the practicalities of fishing there - rather than any theoretical or scientific factors pertaining to the fish and their feeding habits. You have to fish where you can reach on foot and these possibilities are extremely limited. Only a very small percentage of the reservoir is reachable unless a boat is used and whilst this would widen the extent of angling possibilities, I decided the practical difficulties of managing a craft in very bad weather did not merit the attendant risks. Not for me anyway. I am clumsy and inept enough on dry land without compounding the potential difficulties by being on the water as well!

I decided there and then that my fishing, at least to start with, will be guided by sticking to basic methods and tactics in places I could fish comfortably. Fishing well in a bad place was preferred to fishing poorly in a good place.