How many like to keep to traditional places to fish

As my question asks, How many like to keep to traditional places to fish.
Ive joined late on this year a angling club that has 9 miles of traditional navigational canals between parts of rivers, ive not yet sampled any of the stretches as yet, but im off in a couple of weeks, so my intention is to give them a bash.
Its been an age since ive fished any canal, but its how i cut my teeth some 31 years ago, not sure what tactics to use as ive found out that the depths range from 6ft in the edge to 12ft down the track, and the main species of fish are Roach, Bream, Chub, Rudd and the odd barbel.
Im a very traditional fisherman, so all these modern poles, rollers etc aren't part of my armory, its all rod and line for me.

I was never one for commercial venues, before we moved to New Zealand I used to do the majority of my fishing on Herefordshire's largest natural lake, the fishing was difficult but you got a great sense of achievement when you got it right.
Now I'm learning all over again, New Zealand has no managed coarse fisheries so I fish mainly fish my local river the Waikato, it rugged, tidal and wild.

I aim to do all my fishing in such venues. I am finding it pays to travel. I wouldnt mind fishing a large understocked carp water - anywhere where theres plenty of space and tranquility really.

My target species are usually tench, roach, rudd, chub, bream or perch. I am just not interested in carp at all. I used to enjoy taking them off the top with freelined bread or similar, and i suppose some old lean commons would still appeal if they looked like they were rarely caught, but catching lots of mouth damaged fish or some trophy pot-bellied named individual has no interest for me.

Had a few hours on one the my wild local small river stretches today where the hand of man hardly sets foot...........chub stalking.
Jerry

Jerry- very nice spot.

Need to get a working party down there with some strimmers and maybe re-seed the banks with grass?. Might want to put in a nice platform too?..well several really about every 6 yards?.

chub_on_the_block said:

Jerry- very nice spot.

Need to get a working party down there with some strimmers and maybe re-seed the banks with grass?. Might want to put in a nice platform too?..well several really about every 6 yards?.

Click to expand...

Not enough people know of it's existance to form a working party, and I'm not doing all the bloody work. This was taken from the same spot Caco but pointing upstream, and yes it's as 'chubby' as it looks........
PS Not even the paddlers know it's there:wh

Looks a beautiful spot Gerry and a rare animal these days unless one is prepared to travel......

For me it's all about peace and quiet and if possible without noisy companions when fishing such waters. Don't get me wrong as I don't mind a brief chat with passing anglers but such spots deserve to be left as one finds them-with minimal disturbance......

Many moons ago I knew of such a water over near Reading where you could walk the stretch casting in likely spots without seeing a soul all day but it's a sad reflection these days with human kind and nice splashy dogs, swimmers etc etc. Always going to happen I suppose but sad to see it nonetheless.........

Yep, a nice float swimming the stream, a bit of free-lined meat or even a bit of floating crust always produced average but clean pretty chub...............

Since about 2006 I've fished little else but natural and overlooked waters. If you take the time and trouble to look and research you can find lots of unfished places that hold worthwhile quarry.

I would rather fish for smaller wild fish than larger stocked fish any day. That said, some of the waters I found held barbel to 14lb, carp to over 20lb and some large pike. Many of them were 'hidden in plain view', i.e. there but ignored by anglers.

Over here in France it is dead easy to find quiet unfished waters. For one thing there are more available waters as you only need a rod licence to fish any river or public lake, and if you walk more than 50 metres from the places vehicles can access you are pretty much in virgin territory

Gerry's Stream looks very nice and I love this type of stream; especially when it doesn't see many anglers.

This is my local stream in Hertfordshire where I fish a lot.
The first shot is of the upstream stretch where the depth averages around 2 to 3 feet deep and the second shot is further downstream where it gets much deeper in places.




The stream has lots of Barbel, Chub, Dace, Roach & Perch with a few Carp mixed in, and there's also been the odd Grayling caught there.

NB. I caught the Barbel in my avatar here.

I much prefer fishing more natural places like this than any Commercial fishery that's for sure. LOL..

Another place I love to fish is my local estate lake (see below - taken in May before the lillies started to show) where I can sometimes have the lake to myself (and also have a free life membership for services rendered over the years).



Why would I possibly want to fish a Commercial fishery? LOL..

Keith

I think I am lucky inasmuch as I live very close to the Hampshire Avon so I do tend to fish my local stretches probably more than any other venues.

When I say "close" I mean close as my house is on the other side of the road to the river but being above Salisbury most of my immediate fishing is on the fly for Trout.

For Coarse fishing you really need to get downstream of Salisbury but form there for mile you have some of the most "traditional" fishing in the Country.

It is also not too far down to the Itchen and maybe a little further to the Stour so I'd say that mosr of my fishing is in "traditional places"

Looks good Keith, I appear to have a similar choice of still waters to you as well....two of our farm ponds and the estate lake - the estate lake taken when the lilies were out