Newsletter 11/06
Newsletter 11/06




From The Chair

Curators Report

Pit 1 Summer Match

Pit 2 Pike and Predator Matches

CVAC

Harefield Pit 1

Fishing on the River Colne at Iver

Harefield Pit 2

Rowley Lake















From The Chair

The Society as a whole continues to be in a good state, and this year has seen a sharp reduction in the churn of members. This we feel is a result of the policies of the Society over the past couple of years. This has been evident at all of our waters but is especially true of Harefield No1. This year the lake has just gone mad! We have seen the best season for big Tench that I can remember and the stockings of small Carp have kept everyone on their toes. They seem to be packing on the weight and they give great sport on light tackle. The previous stockings have been growing rapidly and a fish breaking the thirty pound barrier is imminent! Silver fish are also putting in a welcome return with Roach and Rudd & Perch along with some big slabs of Bream. Although the membership is at a healthy level we always wish to attract and retain new members to enjoy the fishing and experience that is the Harrow Angling Society, so please recruit anybody you know. My thanks to all the Officers, Committee and Bailiffs for their hard work throughout the year and they still manage a smile even when they have to put up with the occasional idiotic episode. May I make one thing absolutely clear, just because it does not cover every possible action in the rule book, it does not mean it is allowed. We must also look to and obey the law of the land, we do not propose to codify all the statutes into our rules which for reasonable people are unnecessary. We do not likewise propose to incorporate the local authority rules and bye-laws into our rule book because we are already bound by them. We also have an object in our comprehensive rule book that seeks for us all to "cultivate the principle of fair angling and sportsmanlike conduct". This and some common sense should be all that is required for you to go about your sport, and that what it is sport, it should be fun. One final point, if you can't find a rule that addresses a particular issue you are wrestling with in the first instance don't do it, then ask.

Vince Sutton

Curators Report

Well, what a successful summer it has been. As of the 22nd September, 222 catch reports have been submitted, all of which are eligible for the prize of a free seasons fishing. If you haven't sent your captures in yet, then please do. I know of many fish captures that have not been reported, including many 30lb'ers & two 40lb'ers from pit 2 and capture of twenty bream in a night from pit 1, plus many other captures of note.

So - what's been happening?

Pit 1 has been fishing the best it has for years with the new stock of carp and Tench coming out, the older carp topping 29lb in weight. The bream are continually coming out in numbers and the perch, roach and Rudd have made an appearance, being caught on margin float fished maggot. Below is a breakdown of the reports from number 1.

Pit 2 A very limited number of reports are being sent in for pit 2, which is a great shame, but saying that, it has fished rather hard this year with the hot weather and has only recently come to life. Of note, are the 2 confirmed, but unreported captures of the same 40lb mirror, commons to 36lb 8oz. The Bream have been elusive this year, but the lake is alive with small Tench under a 1lb in weight being caught on the float from the margins all around the lake. Below are the reports submitted to date for pit 2.

Rowley

Pit 1 Summer Match

The hugely awaited Pit 1 summer match was attended by 15 anglers fishing the Day match which ran from 8am - 1pm on Saturday 5th August and 17 anglers fishing the night match from 5pm on the Saturday through to midday on Sunday.

Many anglers were catching good bags of Roach and Rudd, with a number of the recently stocked carp making an appearance.

The £100 prize fund generated two £25 pound prizes per match, with a prize for the best overall weight of carp and pike, and the other prize for all other species.

The majority of anglers caught fish, with only a few people blanking, but the overall winners were:

Day: Brian with 8lb 10z of Carp (plus 11lb 2oz of Bream & Tench) Dave Cargill 18lb 1oz of Bream and mixed species Night: Dave Prasad with 3 Bream totalling 12lb 6oz. Glyn Lewis with a 4lb 8oz Carp

The best part of the day though, had to be the interim BBQ between the two events where the chef did a grand job of serving burgers and beers to the starving crowd. This alongside the Sunday morning Bacon rolls went down a treat and will be repeated again next year. The advert will appear in the next magazine.

Pit 2 Pike and Predator Matches

October 1st 2006 Harrow Angling marked the opening day of the official Pike fishing Season by holding its first pike match of 2006. Amid the threat of bad weather with torrential down pours all night, 15 anglers met on the workings of pit 2 for a 7:30am draw, paying £3 each to create a winning prize of £45 for the best overall weight of Pike and Perch. Fortunately, the rain held off most of the day and a good social time was had by all the attendees.

Judge Dread started off the jovialities by insisting on being the first angler to draw his number from the bucket and skilfully managed to pull out the last position for the choice of swims, much to everyone's amusement. I myself drew number 3 and was pleased to get the rocks swim to fish from - I was onto a winner (or so I thought) The match started at 8 am, and by 10am neither I nor the two other anglers around me had a sniff. A quick phone call to Dave Cargill who was roaming around the lake with a spinning rod confirmed that 4 pike had been caught, all from the canal bank and pylon swim. An air of despondency fell over us as we felt we had chosen the wrong part of the lake - typical.

Within the hour, Nick Wright (pictured left) managed to put our minds at ease by banking a pristine 14lb 6oz pike from the workings jetty which ran him a merry dance almost pulling his rod from his hand and tail walking across the lake and through an overhanging tree. Shortly after this, Bernie Bean also landed an 8lb pike directly adjacent to me so I got to see some action, even though I ended up blanking. Pike continued to be caught all the way to the end of the match when the final tally was 10 landed and 1 lost. Of the 15 anglers, 8 managed to catch, with just the 7 (including myself, Dave Cargill aka pike superstar, and Glyn Lewis (the previous winner) blanking.Here is the detailed breakdown of the captures.

Winner

The next match is scheduled for Sunday 17th December. As usual, the draw will be at 7:30am and fishing will be from 8am to 1pm. If you can get there early you may well be in with a chance of a sausage or bacon sarnie and a cup of tea! With this being our Christmas match, there is talk of a beer and a bite to eat afterwards at a local hostelry, so if you fancy it, bring some clean shoes and something half decent to wear, we may head to the refurbished Horse and Barge or a local Indian restaurant. Please could you invite any non-members to the match as we are wavering the cost of the day ticket, allowing them to join us for the price of the entry fee. They can be friends, family or work colleagues it doesn't matter - so long as they have some interest in fishing and appreciate a bit of a social gathering.

CVAC

Harrow Angling now has representatives of the club at the Colne Valley Anglers Consultative. This consultative was set up to bring together all the user groups within the Colne Valley to discuss issues that impact us all. Present at these meetings are representatives from many angling clubs, employees from the water boards and speakers from conservational groups. Recent topics discussed have surrounded the diminishing water levels with the valley, what can be done about it and what the impact another dry winter this year will have on next years water levels. A very informative lecture was given on the mink controls in place throughout the valley with 50 floating monitoring stations in place from Rickmansworth to Heathrow. The plan is to eradicate all mink from the Valley as they are decimating the protected native water vole, as well as destroying the nesting Terns on the Broadwater Nature Reserve in Harefield. If you have any witnessed any recent sightings of Mink around our waters, please can you report them to the club. Also discussed was the spread of non-native Crayfish in the form of the American Red Signal and the Turkish Crayfish. It is the latter that we believe we have in our Harefield pits and the club are actively putting measures in place to limit or eradicate the spread of this invasive species. If you notice any traps around the lake, please can we ask that you do not interfere with them, leaving the task to the fishery managers to manage. The next CVAC meeting is planned for October 5th and any interesting points will be presented at the AGM in November, so please make the effort to attend.

Bailiff's Report

I wish to thank the majority of anglers for behaving impeccably this season, but as usual there a minority of people that risk ruining the relaxed atmosphere of the club for not abiding by the rules. This year I have caught anglers fishing with 3 rods, barbed hooks, shooting guns, leaving baited end tackle unattended on the ground, and the usual trail of excrement in and around swims. You will only receive a limited amount of warnings before you are removed from the club, so please take notice and try to avoid committing the above offences as they will not be tolerated.

Dave Hambly Curator

Harefield Pit 1

Another summer has passed with the lake producing excellent results so far, this season has seen the return of the silver fish. We feel that as more members are fishing the lake we are seeing less cormorants, hopefully if members continue fishing the lake through the winter months with luck cormorant numbers will stay down and this will help save our silver fish stocks giving members better fishing for the coming seasons. As most members will know the club has stocked 300 carp from 1lb 8ozs to 3lbs with these now being caught between 4lb and 6lbs 8ozs, with the season only half way through who knows what weight they will reach. August finally saw the long awaited Tench of which 400 where stocked, 300 at 6 to 8 inches and 100 10 to 12 inches, Tench reported from 3lb to 7lb 2ozs so far, Bream reports range from 5lb to 10lbs. The stocky Carp are being caught in large numbers from all over the lake, the larger Carp are also being caught with mirrors and commons ranging from 14lbs upwards. The largest fish of the season so far is this Mirror, pictured left, and caught by Gary Scouse fishing the water on a guest ticket. Gary has since joined the club and has had much success with the newly stocked Carp. As most members can remember back to the start of the 05/06 season the weed at the top end of the lake was treated but all did not go as planned because it cleared the whole lake of weed and lilies, well this year it's looked its best ever. Keep the reports coming in and enjoy your fishing for the rest of the season, tight lines.

Fishing & Courtesy Tips

Can't get that swim you wanted. Try getting there earlier. Rigs in the lake not the trees. Take your rubbish home don't leave it in the swim or car park. Please be aware of other anglers on the lake. Problems? Speak to your fishery managers or bailiffs. Please use the proper entrances to the lake and close the gate. Fishery managers and bailiffs enjoy a nice cup of tea. Don't forget to use the dip tanks. 2oz leads are more than enough on this lake Larry & Dave. PS The rubbish problem has returned and worst than ever with human waste found in the car park this will not be tolerated any one caught for this and in the future will lose there membership, be warned.

Fishing on the River Colne at Iver

Harrow Angling Society has negotiated with Yiewsley Angling Society (Y.A.S) a limited amount of tickets to permit fishing on their River Colne at Iver. Details of how to find the fishery can be found via the map, in this issue. Please make yourselves aware of the rules relating to the fishery, because if you do not you may well jeopardise our fishing there. There are 8 tickets which are available for collection from a member of Y.A.S at his workplace in Uxbridge.

The company is called METTS and is a truck repair facility in Arundel Road on the Uxbridge Industrial Estate a short distance from the fishery. His premises are open Monday to Friday 7am to 5pm and Saturday until midday. Our contact, Martin can be contacted on 01895 239834. Please be polite when inquiring for ticket availability. You will be required to leave your H.A.S permit as a deposit for the River permit when you collect it. The river permit is to be returned after use as soon as is possible. Warning there is a clamping unit in operation on the road outside METTS. Members should park in METTS yard when collecting permits. HAS will not be responsible for any parking violations.

The fishery runs South from Iver lane down to the footbridge at Little Britain lake. A small area for car parking can be found in Iver Lane just after the second hump backed bridge when approaching from the Cowley Road direction. The River contains all species of fish including Barbel, Chub, Trout, Tench, Dace, Perch, roach etc and should provide reasonable sport. Please note that the river will be closed for matches on the following dates: 17th December 2006, 31st December 2006, 11th February 2007 & 11th March 2007.

Harefield Pit 2

Welcome one and all to the Pit 2 fishery report. We'll start with the work parties, which were attended by all the usual faces. The railway bank and Dews Farm have been given a major facelift with swims being rebuilt, trees and snags removed and the railway bank paths gravelled.

The fishing...First week a dozen or so Carp came out. Ginger had 36lb 8oz common, lake record. Things went quiet with the odd fish out each week. Mid August saw a remarkable 10 fish catch to 2 anglers. One 35lb mirror, one 30lb mirror and 8 20lb plus fish an awesome haul we think you'll agree. July saw a "biggy" out at 42lb plus, a lake record mirror Carp. In all one 40, 6 30's and over 20 20lb plus Carp. No Bream shown at all. Tench coming out everywhere with loads of small fish being caught on the float and also fish up to 6lb 12oz. Weed went at the end of August, so Roach/Pike should be easier this year. Well done to Johnny Johnny on his first 30lb common and congratulations to Jenson White on his first 30 plus which he promptly followed with 2 bigger fish!! Pictured left is John Westley with one of 2 huge eels from the big pit. John took them in the middle of a scorching hot day and they weighed 5lb 13oz, and 5lb 10oz and even made the Angling Times and the News of the World!! He told me recently that he aims to give them a proper go in the near future, we wish him luck. Unfortunately we still have a problem with discarded tackle being left in trees and marginal bushes without any effort being made to contact the fishery management. Every year we appeal to members to just let us know if you've left tackle up trees so that we can get it removed quickly. Remember that our relationship with the sailing base and the public must be kept a good one. We had a Pike match in October organised by our Curator Dave Hambly which went brilliantly with plenty of fish getting caught. He is organising another match on December 17th so please give it your support. These matches are a sociable event with a few quid to be won on top. Let's hope to see a few more anglers grace the bank this winter. We know it's not a comfortable time to be on the bank but your never gonna catch at home!!! Best of luck and see you all soon.

Ian and Les.

Rowley Lake

Those hot sticky days of summer are now just a fading memory as autumn takes over and, in my view; the best time of the angling year is upon us. Historically Rowley generally comes up with the goods at this time of year so get your kit sorted and get down there. Whether it be Carp, Tench, Bream, Pike or Perch they are there for the taking and coming into prime condition. As far as the summer is concerned we have seen an increase in the number of Tench caught when compared to previous years, with multiple catches not unusual. Similarly the Carp have, on occasion, become complacent and given themselves up in numbers to those lucky enough to pick their session at just the right time. Check out the fish report list on the website. The Ghost has been out at 23lb (left), with the twenty plus list growing year on year, whilst at the other end of the scale the stockies are putting on weight and coming out in the region of 4 to 7lb. Good fun on the float or feeder rod. Whether it be due to the netting a couple of winters ago, or the liming carried out earlier this year, or a combination of both, but the Roach population is also on the move with some decent 8 to 10 inch fish being taken to corn on the float. Similarly with the Perch. Give the float a go and if you use corn, pellets, worms and, yes, bread you can avoid the scat and bag up on silver fish - a rarity in these days of cormorant predation. Fishing wise the future looks rosy but in order to keep our fishery some of us need to get our act together with regard to litter. We carry our bags of bait and provisions down to the waterside but some of us have an aversion to carrying the empty and therefore lighter bags back to the car. It is completely unacceptable for you to leave your rubbish in the swim and the car park. It goes home with you, back to where it came from. The committee and the majority of the membership take a dim view of litter louts and there is certainly no room for such people in this angling society. On the subject of leaving things in the car park, the pile of hardcore there is for use in the close season and will be removed on the first working party. Please don't add to it. If you have any good quality building materials, that you think could be of use, please check with me first. One final note on angling etiquette. If you fish off the island and are casting across to the dam or into the corners be prepared to wind in and cast elsewhere should someone come along and fish these swims. Another minority seem to think it their right to hog the island and some of the best swims on the lake from this one vantage point. Please don't be selfish and get the hump if this happens to be you. The offenders know who they are. Finally please ensure that you use the dip tanks on all waters. This is very important, not only as a precaution against the transfer of fish disease but as an added precaution against the transfer of crayfish eggs from No.1. Notwithstanding the moaning I wish you good fishing and don't forget to keep us informed on what you catch - no matter what, or how big, it all enables us to plan for the future of your fishing. Good luck

John Miles

Footnote - Larry has asked me to mention this with regard to No 1. On no account is the general membership to tamper with the crayfish traps. We have to complete a return for the Environment agency every time the traps are emptied but we cannot do this accurately if people take it upon themselves to empty the traps or bait the traps themselves. The traps are also expensive and if they are not tethered correctly could be lost. Only Larry and Dave, or those nominated by them, have the authority to empty and set the traps. Your cooperation is appreciated.