Finding that little goldmine...

[Dave H]

You know the ones where there is a large pond or small lake sits there in the middle of nowhere UN touched by a wet line. Flying birds of prey for 20 years across country sometimes leads to me bumping into a few which usually are just flood holes but this specific one i found out was a huge WW2 bomb explosion which was filled in with gravel after the war according to the farmer which had quite a few in Kent and is in the middle of dense thick land out of sight of civilisation. It’s a 30 minute hard hike through jungle but i am excited. So far i have just plumbed it for depth and topography and i had a sight of a few jacks which looked in good condition...

These are the places that turn up huge Perch so here is hoping

I feel like a little kid again

When was the last time you found such a place and how did you approach it and how did it fish?

Edited March 20, 2015 by Dave H

[Rusty]

Don't think I've ever had access to a truly 'virgin' water, the closest I've got to that was a little pond in Frant, Kent. It was next to a country lane and didn't warrant a second look unless you knew that it contained excellent roach and tench, I only fished it once.

[gozzer]

Back in my teens a mate told me of someone who brought a dead roach into a pub to show him, it weighed just under 4lb! He told me that it came from a small pond along side an old clothing mill. We searched and found the pond, asked the guy in the cottage next to it, if we could fish. He said 'yes, but there's nothing in it'. (We knew better). We had a good look round the water, plumbing as we went, found a couple of likely looking spots, and made a plan. We would come down after work, and prebait, but not fish for at least a week. A fortnight, and a half dozen baiting sessions later, we arrived to fish, we did this for a couple of evenings a week for most of the summer, and into autumn. No fish, but several strange, slow bites we couldn't hit. Eventually by ringing the changes and going down to a size 22 hook, I managed to hit the bite, then another, and another! I caught a grand total of 6 newts, and a frog, (foul hooked in the back leg). We did some more checking and found that the pond where the fish came from, was behind a high wall next to another mill, and private. The one we fished had (as the man kept telling us), 'nowt in it', apart from a few amphibians of course.

You could say ours was a fools goldmine.

 

Oh and the 4lb 'roach', turned out to be a roach/bream hybrid.

 

John.

Edited March 20, 2015 by gozzer

[Anderoo]

I've never fished a virgin pond either. I do remember a little pond in the middle of Thetford Forest in Norfolk which we used to pass as we cycled around in the summer as kids. It didn't look like it held fish, but one day it had obviously suffered a massive crash and everywhere you looked were these absolutely huge dead rudd - nothing else. They were really, really big and sadly really, really dead. Wish I'd fished it...!

 

I've explored and fished quite a few bits of out of the way rivers, but I doubt any were genuinely 'unfished'.

[Tony U]

Most of these, so called bomb craters in Kent have a much older origin, in that they are Wealden dye ponds used for fulling wool back in the late middle ages up to the 18th 19th century: if you look an ordnance survey map around Headcorn, Smarden you will see loads of them. Most are unfished, KAPS have a couple of them on our club book and although they are not virgin waters they are rarely fished and can prove to be very difficult. The dominant species in them appears to be Rudd.

Tony

[philocalist]

Not actually a water I fished - more an reason to do so:

 

A few years back I had a 'social' invitation to attend while a small unfished lake - well, more like a decent sized pond really - was netted out, i.e. the intention was to remove all fish from the water, though the reason was never disclosed, with the resultant fish being 'donated' FOC by the company concerned to a local fishery, following the appropriate EA approval etc.

The water in question was on a Center Parcs site, with the work being done at their request - it was maybe the size of a tennis court with a maximum depth of less than 5 feet, so could easily be 'swept' by several operatives in wetsuits manhandling the net.

The first pass of the net produced nothing ... not even a stickleback!

 

More to humour the client rather than anything else, there was a second sweep made which produced ONE single fish ... a tench that was subsequently weighed at 10lbs 12oz!

................ and I know where it ended up and is apparently still there, in which case it could be considerably larger as maybe 7 years have passed since it went in.

Edited March 20, 2015 by philocalist

[Vagabond]

In over 70 years of fishing, I have come across a lot of small ponds in out-of-the-way places in the south-east. Have fished many of them. The usual story is stacks of small fish, which back in the day, could be roach, rudd, perch, tench or crucians.

 

Sometimes, just sometimes, the pond might be a miniature goldmine, with fish of a size quite unexpected.

 

I can think of one that produced mini-roach by the hundred and occasionally good-sized crucians - two-pounders, and nothing under a pound

 

Another pond (beside a road) was a bite-a-chuck for four-inch roach, yet across a field, out of sight, tucked into a copse, was a smaller pond, with few roach - up to a pound and a half, with nothing under three-quarters.

 

A similar instance was the local tiddler pond, stuffed with tiny perch, yet another pond, about two fields away, and unknown to most of the village, regularly yielded perch over a pound and a half.

 

I think all three "goldmines" owed their better-than-average fish to a stocking from an unknown angler who transferred a few fish caught elsewhere to an unpopulated water - its what all fishing kids used to do in those pre-war days.

 

......and most of "my" trout streams were deemed unfishable, and devoid of anything except bullheads - which is why I got so much free fishing in my youth "Yeh, 'course you can fish there, but there's no fish in it" was a frequent response from the local farmers.

 

Alas, 90% of those have gone, and I'm not telling where the other 10% is !

[Phone]

Dave H,

 

I found such a place. Of course, it wasn't a bomb crater I sang like at bird. Convinced so many it was worth fishing that the owner turned it into a commercial. Not much bigger than a barrel and was gone unfishable in a couple years.

 

Sometimes my alligator mouth overloads my hummingbird arce.

 

Phone

[Dales]

Can't say i have come across any unfished still waters, everything around my way that could be fished has been and if it contained anthing of note its controlled by some club or another or is private fishing. Far to many anglers in London for many places to remain untouched. Oddly most of the canals never see an angler and they may well contain some quality fish but then there are good reasons no one wants to fish them.

[Dave H]

I am in and around Biggin hill and Kenley aerodromes and out to Marston . Many dropped their bombs short of the target to get the hell out of the flak and get home before any fighters shot at them on the way back. They are definitely bomb craters which usually are just big holes but plenty deep but are in the main just bogs. I always think i will step on an unexploded one day (i am not kidding either....don't all jump for joy ). Maybe it’s because the pond/lake can't be seen from Google earth which it is why it is unfished. The bottom had many roots at one end but was quite gravel the other and varied from about 3ft to 6ft which considering it was filled in is very deep. It may have been fished at some time in the distant past as new trees have been planted as i imagine the trees were decimated in the war so maybe back then it was fished. There are loads of rabbit warrens about which makes me think it’s a sandy soil around but some warrens have definitely been touched by travellers so it may of well have been cleared out but really it should be chalk so definitely man made at some point and filled in. I don't want to rake it at this point but just float fish a humble maggot and see what happens.....it could be a Sainsbury trolley or part of a German engine....now there is a thought although none were reported of being shot down in this vicinity.