''It's getting harder''

Finding those quiet places that with a bit of work can reward the enterprising angler with some good sport. And on occasions ''outstanding results'', surpassing all expectations.

Those are the kind of waters I have always searched for, sometimes in vain, but on occasions amazing. And most if not all have been open to everyone, the only requirement needed is a rod licence. And as has been mentioned lots of leg work, which unfortunately has not been an option for me these last few years.

Imagine my surprise when an old friend who called in this past Sunday went into great detail of his last seasons results. It appears that many of our old favourite spots are but a shadow of what they once were, but more importantly showed much evidence of bankside traffic.

I'm told that this is progress, time to bite the bullet.

I do quite a bit of free fishing on stretches I've checked out on google maps and various websites. Some areas are much better served with the amount of info about free fishing but most of those isolated spots have been gloriously devoid of even dog-walkers for the most part. I rarely see groundbait bags and other discarded detritus. If anyone else has been fishing there they have generally been undetectable.
Suits me just fine.

Thankfully there are still some almost virgin areas along parts of the Hampshire Avon.

These stretches are club controlled but rarely do you see any traces of angling

I count myself fortunate that my favorite water is still angler free well almost. last season i collected a bin liner of rubbish. Lager cans with foreign writing on them and evidence of open fires..
This water all 200 acres of it has pretty much remained unfished apart from 5 or 6 mad Aylesbury pikers..
But with last years rubbish collection, it looks like the others have found it. Time will tell..............
Wishing all you pikers a fantastic season ...........

Hi Smudger,
Might be an idea to download the ATr posters off this page: Building Bridges with Migrant Anglers - The Angling Trust
Print them off, laminate and pin-up around the fishery.
Nobody can then try and use the excuse "me no speak English - no understand" when you report them to the Police for Theft of Fishing - as in the guidance from the same source.
Tight Lines!

Greenie.

If i am honest there was not any evidence of fishing. Just partying.
This water is very overgrown with only small areas where you can fish. The ones that fish there have kept it that way to keep it difficult..
The problem is that its 90 miles from where i live, so keeping an eye on it is also a problem..

smudger172 said:

If i am honest there was not any evidence of fishing. Just partying...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification - first thoughts were it was the start of a bbq session! - you might find it quietens down a bit with school hols finished and a few less 'summer nights'!
Tight Lines!

I stumbled upon a group of Romanian guys at a bankside BBQ recently. Or rather they stumbled up on where I was already fishing. They were there primarily to swim. Wash down after work. They brought their own lamb leg, whole. Cut it up and marinaded it and set about irritating me by cooking it a little way upwind.
Those who were swimming came up to speak to me at the weirpool, before getting in the pool below. There was a full binliner load of rubbish in my boot on the way home. All of it I had collected when I arrived.
When I left there was no 'new' rubbish in the area, so I concluded that they were not the culprits.
In the town centre there is a stretch of river I did most of my early pike training. Now it's a trashy cut-thro with scant connection to nature, and full of the brands of beer can we all now recognise, even if we can't pronounce them. I'd no rather they were Kestrel lager like back in the good 'ol 80's, I really don't want to see any rubbish. Hence having a binliner at hand. Along this stretch I see more pike skulls in the reeds than I ever did in the good 'ol 70's, when matchmen of the area happily flung pike back over their shoulder.
Might have to stir my stumps and download that link on the worlds wide web and do summat myself.

I'm afraid, even here in Germany it's the same with East European migrant anglers. It's a well known statistic that zander and pike numbers in Berlin have declined rapidly in the last ten years or so.
Even though it's perhaps not as hard hitting as in the UK, since here coarse fish (predators above all) are widely stocked with human consumption in mind, it's the fact they do it illegally that's the big problem, so nothing they take gets recorded and replaced.

Really pees me off to pay over €300/yr for my local lake, for the privilege of which I'm confined to a boat for my fishing, then you see Romanians in the middle of the night, fishing 3 or more rods a piece from the bank. And the police (the relevant authority here) don't do jack.

I think we need a similar campaign in Germany. Trouble is, for historical reasons, Germans are so sensitive when it comes to criticising foreigners it's a big tabu to even insinuate that an immigrant would do anything outside the law. So I can't really see it happening.

There's never been much in the way of free fishing in my neck of the woods, so that's a little irrelevant to me. However, there are miles of club water that barely see an angler from one week to the next. There are probably only three miles or so on the entire length of the river Swale where I'd expect to see other anglers, almost regardless of when I turned up.

Stillwaters are a little different, but outside of the out and out commercials, I'd still expect minimal angling pressure, if not being totally on my own on them.
I actually believe that there are few stillwaters I fish that would actually benefit from seeing greater numbers of anglers and especially their bait.

As far as Eastern Europeans go (with respect to the waters I frequent), I've heard rumours, but I'm yet to get a sniff of the vaguest hint of any evidence of them or their nefarious activities.