A Grueller On The Cut

Match Result Rochdale Canal Slattocks 1^st April

It turned out to be a grueller - a hard frost, bright skies and a chilly north east wind - that gets the excuses over and done with. The good weights of roach and skimmers we’d been getting in practice sessions never materialised on the day, and the fish we caught were all small.

18 Anglers fished – and quite a few more came along during the day and made generous donations to the restocking fund.

We raised £175 on the day ! so many thanks to all who took part.

1^st   Stretch 1066               1lb 6oz

2^nd  Ben Gresswell           13oz

3^rd  Meddyman                 8oz

Yours truly Mike D caught 20 fish for a total of 4oz! – a week before when the skimmers and better roach were feeding,  20 fish would have seen me with a net of about 10lbs

Next match is on Sunday the 15^th April at Drinkwater Park Lake. Draw 8.45am fish 10am til 3pm.

http://gridreferencefinder.com/?gr=SD8045802355%7CPoint_s_A%7C0&z=15&v=h&t=Point_s_A

Your welcome to join us.

 Rod and reel will probably outscore pole fishing as the fish seem to be spooked by poles above the clear water.

The next match on the canal is on the 29^th April.

Our restocking fund now stands at £275

If you would like to make a contribution to our fund for the restocking of Drinkwater Park, and the Old River in Irlam you can make a donation via www.paypal.com to admin@salfordfriendlyanglers.co.uk

We also have a number of charity collection tins which we are looking to place in pubs, shops and offices around the Greater Manchester area to help raise funds for the cause. If you can find a good home for one of our collecting tins please get in touch via the email above.

Match Sunday 1st April

Were holding a match this Sunday on the Rochdale Canal to raise money for our re-stocking fund.


The LOCATION OF THE DRAW HAS CHANGED to here http://gridreferencefinder.com/?gr=SD8836709636%7CPoint_s_A%7C0&z=14&v=h&t=Point_s_A

Because when we've had a practice, the top end of the pound fished much better than the Hopwood Arms end (more skimmers).

Draw 8.45am
Fish 10 til 3
£10 (£5 to prizes, £5 to restocking fund)

Lots of space - so if your not doing anything this Sunday please feel free to join us.

Irwell Pollution

These photos were taken in Stoneclough this afternoon behind the Grapes Pub.
If you ever see anything like this please report it to:
Environment Agency Emergency Hotline on 0800 80 70 60

FFS things like this are just not on anymore.
No reports of any dead fish (yet).

Manuring The Lake

Just the two of this morning - Paul and myself to fill 40 sacks with well rotted horse manure and place them into Drinkwater Park lake.
The theory behind this is to create a small algal bloom to create more food for fish fry in what is normally a gin clear lake.

As Paul often spouts it - I let him shovel it today - whilst i had the delightful job of holding the sacks open. Highlight of my morning was watching Paul wade through a pool of slurry and seeing it go over the top of his boots - poor lad. His face was a picture.

My friend Keith very kindly let us use his trailer to transport our smelly load. Paul - ever the scientist carefully placed his sacks of ........in well thought out locations around the lake. I was fed up and wanted to go fishing so took a more direct approach.

Anyway - Drinkies has started to fish well, with anglers catching roach, tench and perch - and with water temperatures slowly rising things can only get better.

The swims we cleared last week are looking good, and the next big job down here this summer will be the construction of fishing squares/pegs on the grassy banks. This work is likely to be done by a community payback team - so  it looks as though the bulk of our work is nearly finished here.

We finished the day off having a crafty practice on the Rochdale Canal at Slattocks where we are going to hold a couple of fund raising matches later this Spring (if you would like details of these matches please contact admin@salfordfriendlyanglers.co.uk ).
It was  cracking couple of hours fishing into the dusk - I had three decent skimmers on my first three put ins, and carried on catching well. Paul also had  a good net of skimmers with some great roach - bodes well for the matches.

Drinkwater Park Project Part 4

This morning, the Environment Agency very kindly made two short sweeps of one of their nets through Kingfisher Lake and scooped out 10,000!!!! small roach.

A quick ride in the back of a tank and they now reside in Drinkwater Park Lake.

Please dont think that Kingfisher is now devoid of fish, we hardly touched the huge numbers of Silvers in there. This lake is rammed with roach and rudd and we have been told that cropping the fish every two or three years will improve the quality of fishing rather than harming it. Of the thousands of fish netted, very very few were larger than 3 oz - so it appears as though theres not enough food in the lake to support such large numbers of fish.

Next part of the plan is this coming Sunday morning the 4th March - when we will again be raking out weed and clearing patches in the sedge to create clear pegs. Many hands make light work - so if you can join us you will be very welcome.

Cormorants 20 - Anglers 0

I can't top Dave Parrs write up of the days events so enjoy HERE

Good News

Sometimes a week can feel like a really long time - especially when your waiting for news. So as the title tells you - our good news is that the roach which the EA took away from Kingfisher last week to test for disease and parasites passed their tests with flying colours.

So weather (ice) permitting - the EA will be netting again on the 28th of Feb and moving a couple of thousand roach into Drinkwater Park Lake. A good head of silvers in Drinkies will make it worthwhile fishing again, especially as there are still some of the big tench, carp and bream left in there to throw up the odd surprise.

For those of you who are thinking of giving it a try, here's some Drinkies fish I had last winter fishing hemp and caster. Fishing should be pretty good once the new stock gets acclimatised.

Our AGM is Tuesday the 15th - sorting out a calendar of summer matches is on the agenda - so we can raise some ££££ for more improvements.