The Dark Art

FishingMagic · Dec 4, 2015

This is a dedicated thread for discussing article: The Dark Art

http://www.fishingmagic.com/news_events/headlines/18180-the-dark-art.html

wanderer · Dec 4, 2015

Well what can i say about this one, brings back so many memories, including that nightmare winter and the Ox blood, wonderful days lovely memories, thank you Tony.

theartist · Dec 4, 2015

I also enjoyed reading that

steve2 · Dec 4, 2015

Brings back memories of fishing Hollow Ponds for Tench at around this time.
Cycling from Collier Row in the early mornings to get the best swims.
Don't remember catching much but it was one of the few places that we fished that had Tench. Top lake at South Weald being another.

Cliff Hatton · Dec 4, 2015

Steve: don't forget about the big carp up the other end end, in the bulrush bay at South Weald. I still have one or two day tickets - 2/6 they were.

no-one in particular · Dec 4, 2015

Could life get any better?
i doubt it, brilliant article.

The Sogster · Dec 4, 2015

Smashing read, thanks Tony.

robtherake · Dec 4, 2015

It's the essential simplicity that's so appealing, before we all went mad and bought gigantic conglomerations of gear, gizmos and mass-produced bait.

It conjured up memories of midnight excursions to the private "police pond," which was my nearest tench water. As long as you were off just after daybreak, before the gamekeeper swung by, all was fine. Few fish exceeded four pounds, but the tackle of the time was made to match (quite literally!) with light float rods and three pound line the order of the day, or night, as it were. Dim torches and bicycle lamps lit the white-painted float and the excitement - accentuated by the thrill of being there when we shouldn't have - was always palpable. Perch were the only other species present; we always got a couple on our sweetcorn hookbaits, and the tench were prolific, with a twenty-fish catch not unusual. Lovely memories.

Sadly, the place is now somewhere for people from the nearby housing estate to exercise their dogs, the fish taken out after pressure from locals offended by kids enjoying themselves too loudly. The price of "progress," eh?

john step · Dec 4, 2015

Nice article. Enjoyed it. It brings back memories. I may have seen you and some of the others who have posted names such as South Weald, Hollow Ponds. The Chase, Hainault lake and South Ockendon are names they may recall too?

Cliff Hatton · Dec 4, 2015

John: I spent the whole of my youth fishing the Ockendon pits, as did Tony Corless. We knew every square inch of Ham River's complex, almost literally. Their back-filling truly was a tragedy. Not a single brick has been laid anywhere on that vast area in over 40 years and it's unlikely there ever will be - the land is THAT toxic. Unfortunately, the scheisters who ran the disposal operation will be dead by now and unable to account for their shady operation but, believe me, a number of people got FAT on that ruination of our beautiful pits.

Anyway, there's more to come from Tony - can't wait.

geoffmaynard · Dec 4, 2015

Great memories of some great days, all on my then local waters. The only thing missing was a decent local river. Now I've got the river and no lakes!

john step · Dec 5, 2015

Cliff, I remember the filling of the Ockendon pits with cr@p. There were lots of small peninsulas and pools. Whilst fishing we had a walk around as kids do.
There was a small pool where the fish were jumping out of the water onto the bank to get away from what ever was being discharged. We rescued many carp and crucians into another pool.
God only knows what was in the barrels that were being dumped into the water.
There must have been some lakes spared?? as I read years later that Ivan Marks won a match there. It stuck in my mind with the thought that someone so famous actually fished where I had done .

Cliff Hatton · Dec 7, 2015

John: only the 'main pool' is left. The Ripples, Hamble Lane, Arisdale and Dennis's Lane are now Tumbleweed City. For years, Moor Hall club members had to watch convoy after convoy of waste-chemical tankers roll into the site throughout the hours of darkness: the daylight hours were reserved mainly for dry (legal) refuse but plenty of liquids were discharged during the day too. Martin Gay was physically threatened for taking a photo of one of the chemical lorries....I was an irksome 5th Former who'd regularly leap over the school fence to remonstrate with drivers...but big money spoke. We - and our beautiful pits - had no chance.

steve2 · Dec 8, 2015

Reading about and fishing the same waters I wonder if any of us met up on the bank all those years ago.
I remember one of my friends catching a 6lb tench and getting his name in the Angling Times. The sort of weight that now is just classed as nothing special, but back then it seemed massive. It took me years to catch my first 5lb plus tench.

Bob Hornegold · Dec 14, 2015

Very nice article, I was in my last year as an apprentice Greenkeeper in 1962/3 and I remember it well !!

Three months of Snow cover on the Golf Course, every machine cleaned, serviced and painted, the car park cleared of snow every day.

But it was the mixing of fertilizer that drew my attention, one of the ingredients was Dried Ox blood, and it drove the Cows in the farm next door mad.

This was duly noted and later that year added to the Ground bait for Tench fishing, it could have been the Ox Blood or the thick Molasses added to the Bread Crumb and Rusk, but it certainly worked it's magic.

Fishing the Epping Forest pond back in the late 50s and early 60tys, the lift method was our standard method, the bit of Peacock quill illuminated by the light of our cycle lamps.

But for Real Tench fishing, it was the North Met gravel pit that big captures of Tench were achieved, with Tench up to 5lbs being caught, a great Tench fishing pit, until Carp were introduced.

As for the Ockendon pits, is there not a Golf Course built on top of them Now ?

Bob

Cliff Hatton · Dec 14, 2015

No golf course in Ockendon! Those thousands of acres won't see development for another century - if not more. The ground is dangerously toxic and recent core samples have shown it to be so. Oh that we'd fought harder to save the Ockendon pits! The fact was, the Ockendon pits were just too handy for London's refuse and its industrial waste - especially chemicals from May & Baker's in Dagenham. Tens of thousands of tanker-loads - millions of gallons - of acids and other corrosive liquids were poured into the earth - I know, I fell into a pool of it and had the skin stripped from my legs; I was in agony for many weeks and still bear the vestiges of the deep, deep scars. Today, heads would roll, but then the 'authorities' (laugh) did what they damn-well pleased - especially with so much money involved. It was none other than Tony Corless who pulled me out of the chest-deep sweet-smelling gunge, in the dark, all those years ago. Thank heaven he was with me: I'd have dissolved. Literally.

Bob Hornegold · Dec 15, 2015

Cliff,

Was there not a lake in the grounds of a next to a big house as you are driving north from Bulpham towards the A13 and did they not build a Golf course down the road on an old tip site ?

Bob

Cliff Hatton · Dec 15, 2015

Possibly, Bob.
I haven't had much to do with the area for a very long time. The big house you refer to might be actor, Victor Maddern's old place; there was a lovely pit next to it containing enormous rudd (Thinks: why did Vic Maddern choose to live in Ockendon? Perhaps he was an angler...)
Were it possible to quantify heartbreak, the back-filling of Ockendon's many wonderful pits would fill an ocean. The entire district could easily have been developed as a contender to the Norfolk Broads. I'll find out about the golf course...

The Dark Art

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