What a surprise.

As anyone who has read any of my ramblings will recognise, I have never been a fan of revisiting the scene of angling triumphs many years later.
Imagine my surprise then over the last few weeks on having to re-evaluate that belief, due in part to the urging of my lifelong buddy Gus, who insisted that a few nostalgia visits would be good for the soul.
To cut a long story short three venues were chosen that did not involve neither a long drive or walk on arrival. Each one had in the past produced some epic catches of Pike before the inevitable happened and the ''circus'' arrived heralding the death knell as has happened to many venues around the country. But at least we had several wonderful seasons before deciding to move on.
That was some thirty years ago now, and the circus stayed so we were led to believe for three seasons before catches dried up and they moved on, Hooray.
Our results on two of three chosen venues tend to suggest that the fish at some point returned to the areas in the intervening years due to lack of pressure, ''we are chuffed to bits''.
Three cheers for this bit of nostalgia, it can happen.

Good to see you posting again Derek

I had a few very good seasons on a stretch of the Trent where I found a method that caught me a lot of Barbel, unfortunately what I was doing (nothing extraordinary ) got out and that was the beginning of the end on the stretch for me with the circus descending on the place I moved on.

This was a few years ago and now the circus has gone I feel that I would like another bash at the stretch and have put my name down on the waiting list for a ticket, if I get one I am not sure it will be as before, should have some fun finding out though

Hello Derek, it is good to see you back posting again.

Very glad to hear that one of your old haunts has recovered from the Circus pressure.

Tight lines . . . .

Both the post and the contents are a surprise but a very welcome one! Good to see you posting again Derek!

Good to see you back Derek. You been too busy making lures?

I used to fish a little Kent Chalkstream stream as a kid, lovely little place that got destroyed by water abstraction. I went for a look a while back and it had been restored back to its former glory...in fact I would even say it was better than I remember. I know allot of effort went into it so hats off to the people responsible.

Things do sometimes get better.

mikench said:

Both the post and the contents are a surprise but a very welcome one! Good to see you posting again Derek!

Click to expand...

No more of a surprise than it was us Mike, having long held the view that to return to such places was a recipe for disappointment, which makes our results so much sweeter.
And I was happy to share the outcome with those on FM for amusement or encouragement , nothing more. But in the words of Arnie, ''We'll be back'', whilst keeping as low a profile as is possible, which is increasingly difficult today as many on here already know.

Well done Derek, nice to see you back.