Stratford-upon-Avon canal, ****ens Heath, Solihull

I don't really know where to put this thread, so apologies if it is in the wrong section.

If anyone lives in Solihull, do you have any idea whether the stretch of the Stratford canal that runs through ****ens Heath is free to fish or a membership water? I contacted the BAA, but all they could do is confirm it's not one of their waters. Any help gratefully recieved....

Solihull Angling Centre may be able to help, 0121737775

Dunno but I fished it a few years back, four or five I guess and it was murder. Think I blanked one visit and really struggled on bloodworm the other.

Very difficult and a shame as I was living pretty close at the time. I couldn't find any evidence of anyone having the rights on the bits I tried either.

Couldn't understand why it was so tough.

Bit disappointing that it's so tough nowadays. In my youth I got into fishing in the first place through whipping out gudgeon and roach in the stretch of the canal near the Drawbridge pub. Although this was 25 or more years ago - things can change.

The reason I ask is that a mate is moving to a flat in ****ens Heath that overlooks it. Seems a shame not to give it a go. I live nowhere near Solihull nowadays, although I'm single-handedly cheerleading a fishing renaissance amongst my chums who dabbled in it but lost interest.

Things often go in cycles, it could be different now. Worth a try !

Hi liversage, havnt been fishing up there for a few years but one stretch was rented out to a club who used to run open matches when i used to fish it. We approached from the stratford road side and finished driving up a road which was blocked off at the end (where we parked) before the canal bridge. The apartments were on the other side of the bridge. It must be very near to where you want. They did do day tickets at the time, just turn up on the bank and if someone came pay. There were quite a few clubs renting stretches of British Waterways around there in those days including the stretch i fish which is from the next bridge down from the drawbridge which the club eventually let go. I think there was an article at the time going around saying why pay rent for these waters, just go and fish them/run matches on them because no one is going to police these stretches of waters every week, so, many clubs took the hint and stopped renting. The stretch where we fished those opens, if you turned left at the access and walked down the towpath there was a stretch of brambles on the opposite bank, that was the noted hotspot. The stretch i fish can fish well with roach, perch and chub (gudgeon that were prolific have disappeared). The chub do move however as all the hotspots got decimated when british waterways in their wisdom cut all the far bank trees back because they were scratching the sides of the boats. It does usually pay to kick off with liquidised bread and punch down the track to see if the roach are playing ball if no bites after an hour then go for the perch with red maggot/pinkie or worm.

That's top advice, thanks. Are there decent sized perch in the canal, then? Do prawns tempt them out?

The other venue I was curious about was Trittiford Park. Not the most 'ambient' venue as I recall, but was reputed to contain carp to a decent size. Not that I ever caught anything of note back in the day, mind.

Crikey, I used to live a mile from Trittiford. Used to be excellent a few years back. As you say not always the best environment but fishing was very good for roach, skimmers and bream.

I'd heard that the carp had progressively 'disappeared' in the main. It did seem the carpers had stopped fishing it which may support this, again prob five plus years ago though.

Evening open matches were run every week after the season opened , may still do early season.

I noticed recently that after some bankside landscaping the bankside available for fishing has been reduced. As you go in the main entrance, immediately to the left, the footpath no longer follows the pool edge, bankside is rocks.

I expect someone else may have more up to date knowledge.

First things first, have caught perch up to a pound and a quarter either on caster or worm but have never targeted them to catch specimen size fish, its always been a case of getting something in the net. Also never tried prawns along this stretch of canal although i have caught carp and chub also. Maybe a couple of afternoons with a small spinner from the Aqueduct towards earlswood might indicate a good area to target the larger perch. But as i've said before the fish seem to be constantly changing their habitat to new pastures.

Re Trittiford Park, i'll start with Swanshurst Park as i used to live in Swanshurst Lane for 25 years and fished it hundreds of times. Years ago it was a great tench and rudd water with a great weed cover extending out maybe 6 to 8ft. All that was needed was a cast beyond the weed and to draw the float back to the edge to get the bites. The tench used to congregate in the corner at night as it was where the silt/leaves used to gather and it was possible to get a dozen fish when doing an all nighter (back over the fence in the morning before the park-keeper came as it had a fence and locked gate in those days). The tench, rudd and weed cover have long gone but it had always been a good water for roach then about twelve years ago the carp fishermen started catching bream on boilies. These fish had not been targeted by myself and others and i was never aware of just how many were in there. Over the next five years we used pellets and caught bags of between 50lb and 100lb quite phenomical for the size of water. Then someone pulled the plug, yes i mean just that. In the middle of one of the paths is a drain cover and underneath is a sluice tap to let water out into what was a small golf course. This was left open one friday and by sunday there was no water in the lake and resulted in a massive fish kill (it was the week i had chosen to go on holiday else i would have noticed it and tried to do something as soon as possible). Think this happened in the spring as the resulting months were a good summer? and i remember seeing thousands of swan mussels dead, dried up although we had collected quite a few and threw them into the canal, the pool was left empty for months.

Meanwhile Trittiford Park itself was re-establishing it self. There was an influx of skimmers, carp and surprisingly gudgeon a few years ago. I dont really know who is responsible for re-stocking whether its the council or the environmental agency but it was the start of some great fishing. It was the time when poles first appeared and i remember honing my skills by catching over a hundred gudgeon in a morning, absolutely fabulous for a pole beginner. These disappeared altogether in about four years but the carp (of which there were many) and skimmers grew on and again resulted in five or six years of great fishing. Then came the bombshell, Trittiford was netted and a certain amount of fish went into restocking Swanshurst. I dont honestlly know but i think some of the carp went missing because they do not appear to be in significant numbers in either park at the moment. The result is that on some days you cannot buy a bite in either park but i do have happy memories.
I dont think that the council is too bothered about fishing, part of Trittiford has been designated as a wild fowl sanctury (ankle deep canadian goose **** to you an me) and as explained in a previous post half of one side has been landscaped (if you can call it that) with a sort of flint chippings right down to the waters edge. What it will look like when the weeds come through who knows. Both parks used to be picturesque having boathouses with rowing boats, a motorboat house (for the motorboats), putting geens, miniature golf course, toilets and cafeterias and parkkeepers all surrounded by a fence and access by gate but such is progress alas all gone.

I'd like to just say - these replies have been fantastic. I love this forum.

it's a small world!

I used to fish Trittiford and Swanshurst for years as a kid. I caught my first ever carp in Trittiford back in the 70's and used to spend every day of the school holidays down there! June 16th was always spent at Swanshurst after the tench (don't think I ever went to school on the 16th! )

I still live quite local and drive past them most weeks. Nowadays you can catch roach, bream, perch, tench and carp out of Trittiford. There are some decent carp in there now as well, nothing massive but upper doubles and maybe 20's. Perhaps not as many fish as there was years ago (70's & 80's)but a few carp anglers still fish there. Pole fishing to the island from the road side, on the right hand side of the island, used to give some great roach fishing. It was also good opposite where the "out of bounds" area is now on the far bank, next to the trees.. that was always a good swim.

When the idiots who were doing the "repair" work to the dam end at Swanshurst let all the water out it killed a lot of fish, including some big carp, but a few locals saved some carp and put them in Trittiford. I was sick about Swanshurst.. I used to eel fish there years ago and there were some crackers in there. If you picked the right night you could catch 2 or 3 eels and the average size would be 4-5lb! John Sidley used to fish there for them back in the day as he only lived a few miles away.. he helped me a lot in those days when it came to eels. Must say though, I don't ever remember there being any significant weed in Swanshurst (or Trittiford) and I've never caught a rudd out of there.

As for what's in Swanshurst now I've no idea.. I see people float fishing there sometimes when I'm passing so there must be a few fish in there.

As Carpo-Marx has said, the council aren't bothered about the fishing on the two lakes now... they hadn't been since the late 70's if memory serves. The boathouses on both lakes used to get burnt down quite often so they stopped re-building them years ago.

can't really help you with the canal but most of them have decent perch in nowadays.. perhaps take a spinning rod and a few 2-3" shads on a 5g jighead? You should find one or two if you keep moving.

I have had some roach and perch close in at Swanshurst on the pole since it was drained, just passing a couple of hours, but that was prob at least 4 years ago.

It was re-stocked. I think some of the fish came from Trittiford.

The fish in there would have grown on by now and in all likelihood, spawned.

When the water had gone, a shallow shelf was built all around the lake by dumping small rocks around the edge, out for a distance of about 2-3m metres, presumably for safety. It's only about 18" to 2 feet deep close in now. Fishing just beyond that should be a decent point. It's where I caught.