What's the most unlikely place...

You've caught a fish?

I think mine all have to be small streams through farmland that fed slightly bigger small streams, one particular "ditch" springs to mind close to the River Devon near Newark and which was barely a couple of feet wide with summer bankside vegetation from ether side that folded in and knitted together above it in many places but it was stuffed with chub and roach.

Another which springs to mind was barely more than a shallow flowing ditch which we often drove over to get to the Bellwater Drain in Lincolnshire and on the particular December day when we stopped to fish it, fearing that the main drain would be frozen over, we had pike after pike on wobbled deads up to low double figures.

And many, many years ago during a high winter Trent flood I built a platform from discared tyres and pallets in what used to be the filthy truck park opposite and slightly upstream of Newark castle and went on to land three chub from it!

What's your most unlikely place?

Caught some good Perch from a very small stream that led from a lake to the largest system of canals on private land (yes guesting but I was only about 11 years old) in Europe, the stream was little more than a trickle during the summer when the lake was low, the sluice having been welded shut for years, all the fish congregated in a slightly deeper bit where a holly tree had fallen across the stream.

I also caught some very good Roach from the River Ankers upper reaches where its no more than a small stream.

The rainwater butt when I was still a slip of a boy living a home. I'd stuck 20 odd roach in there for livebait but when the time came I realised I didn't have a suitable net to get them out....so I had to rig up the top joint of me rod with a hook and catch the buqqers !

Used to get some good chub from a tunnel where a river ran under the main road. They lurked well back in the tunnel during daylight but at night you could get them with a bait lobbed just inside the tunnel mouth. Best we had was 5lb + which wasn't a bad fish in those days.

I also caught a decent chub from a tunnel below a main road on floating bread with a small controller float.
Wonder if it was the same one?

I believe I've posted this before on another thread some time ago - In the early 50's we used to 'fish' the bomb craters east of Northolt Aerodrome in the evenings after school when we weren't 'proper fishing or playing football' for 'Trojans' (the great crested newt) using bits of worm tied to a cane/line. Something much bigger was attacking our worms (fish) and, on adjusting accordingly with rod and line/hook we started to catch tench. Bloody monsters - must have been at least a pound.....................

When I was about 9 or 10 me and one of my brothers went with another two off the estate to fish the local canal, on the canal there is a foot bridge and running alongside it was a tiny little stream that was fed by run off water from an old site higher up that had two smaller streams that used to dry up in summer becoming the boundary of what used to be a farm but was then turned into an allotment site. The stream lower down got washed into this canal but not before the water had to run into what looked like 3 or 4 step pools, water trickling from over one into the other, gently, to what I can only imagine is to take road and land run off from the top of the hill and feed it into the canal safely during prolonged rainfall.
Anyway, we once put a large Perch in one of these small rectangular pools as a temporary measure until one of our friends who caught it could run home and get back, hopefully with some scales to weigh it, around 2lb if I remember correctly, a colossal beast we thought, anyway, I had one of these cheapo stickle back type nets with me as that was my landing net for the Gudgeon and other small fish that we knew to be in this canal, I tried to use this net to deepen the neighboring pool as it was quite shallow having been the place that allowed a lot of sand and grit to be deposited and settle until faster water could push it onward, I netted this gravel to see if anything was in there (not expecting to be introduced to a new fish species) it was full of old rubbish, bottle tops, bits of glass and can and weird things like an old leather dog collar and a woman's left footed shoe when I went to inspect the net, there it was, a small, skinny dark colored fish, after seeing that one we tried more scoops and we found it to be home to quite a few of what we now know today as the Stone Loach (Barbatula barbatula) all the same size roughly, that was the first and up to now the last time I've ever seen them, buried underneath small stones and grit and other nasties, in water that must of surely suffered the occasional bit of pollution, either from fuel on the roads and probably some chemicals perhaps used further up on this allotment site, didn't look like it was all that nice either, with a smell to complement it sometimes although the water was running clear as we found it.
How those fish were able to survive in such sqaulid conditions I do not know, but there they were

Old bell mines in farmers fields have produced some nice fish for me.

Also had some nice sticklebacks and newts in them, just tied a worm on a length of cotton and they'd swallow half of it and you could just lift 'em out with the worm wedged in their mouths, I used a match tied on the cotton as a float...no striking of course.

I'm amazed no one has said Dam Flask yet

---------- Post added at 22:40 ---------- Previous post was at 22:40 ----------

tigger said:

I used a match tied on the cotton as a float...no striking of course.

Click to expand...

Ha ha...

Taxi!

Not so much unlikely as weirdest and sea not fresh. The Goodwin Sands 5 miles off Kent. The skipper used to like to stop near a ship wreck where the mast was sticking up and it had a bell on it that used to ring with the wind and waves and something used to clank all the time. The area is notorious as a graveyard and the tides used to meet where the water would all froth up. Then a mist would roll in so, with that and a weird frothing sea and a bell/clanking noise all the time it was a pretty weird and scary spot . We did catch some good fish but I was often glad to be getting out of there, after a few hours it did some strange things to the imagination.

At low spring tides the sands would be exposed here and it was a tradition some cricketers would go out once a year and play cricket for an hour or two before the tide came rushing back in. I believe they still do it. "Mad dogs and Englishmen"

I'll go with Steve on this one.

Some of the tiny drains and ditches that criss cross the Linc's/ Camb's counties, hold fish that would surprise the most cynical of anglers. Some of them are tiny to the extent that many an athlete could jump across with ease, often not exceeding three feet in depth. And the fish that some of those insignificant little ditches could produce would satisfy the most dedicated of anglers. Particularly Pike, Perch, Tench and in odd cases Bream. They are however fragile venues and vulnerable to over fishing by their very nature. Luckily, most pass them by.

Being aware of this allowed us to fish the said venues for a number of years, only fishing them on occasion, and only using a judicious approach.

File fish 80 feet above sea level from a rock pool in Hawaii, filled by spray from crashing waves below. No idea how fish would get in there other than riding the waves or flying.

The salmon ladder on Cromwell weir , river Trent , each compartment is stacked with fish waiting for the next high tide or flood.

Rampton island just above Torksey lock on the tidal Trent. Me and my old dad were stranded on it by a big tide back in the late fifties.
I reckon thats pretty unique.

The Grand Harbour, Valetta, Malta 1962 I was catching small bootlace eels on a small bit of bread with a small cane rod.... with me mum holding on to my dungarees in case I toppled in (I was four)

Oil pollution in River Don�|�Sheffield Green Party

My local river back in the early sixties was a bit of a challenge also.
Hey, my first link too!!!