Poppleton Lakes, A59, Boroughbridge Road, Poppleton, York, North Yorkshire, YO26 8JU
Railway PoolWeather - Sunny with strong breezes
Temperature - Cold
This last week I've been working up around Leeds and so I have been able to stay with my Daughter, Emma, Son-in-Law, Jim and Grand-daughter, Edith at York. I see them all quite regularly but not as much as I would like to, so any time with them is a real joy and Edith is growing so fast so I really treasure these visits. One thing they don't prepare you for when you have children is how quickly time seems to pass you by and it seems that one minute you have your own little blonde three year old running around being whichever Disney Princess is the current favourite, and in the blink of an eye she has her own doing exactly the same thing. I love the time I get to spend with Edith, though having to watch Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig and a whole host of other cartoons is a little trying at times and I long for the days when 24 hour cartoon channels were a thing of the future and Children's TV was only aired between 3.30 and 6pm weekdays.
I had jobs at Leeds Railway station for a very well known and very well established newsagent. bookseller and stationer who has featured heavily on both train stations and the High Streets of the UK for over 200 years, so I turned up for my first job only to find that another one of my sites scheduled for a few days later, was right next door to my first site. Now it seemed silly to me that I should come back later in the week when I was already there, plus if I were to get this job done early it would free me up on Thursday and I would have just one site on the morning and this in turn meant I would have a free period on the afternoon. Add to this mix the fact that I had all of my fishing gear on the van and it doesn't take a genius to work out how my mind was working and I could grab a few cheeky hours on the bankside.
With the job done I made my way from The White Rose Centre back to York to collect Jim and we were off for a few hours fishing at the complex just off the busy outer ring road. First we had to find Mitre Angling for the bait and I was sure I knew where it was but it turned out I had my roads mixed up and instead of being on the Poppleton Road, the shop was on Shipton Road. We bought a pint of yellow maggots and a pint of reds after asking the owner what was the best bait for the venue and she also advised us to fish the Railway Pool. We set off and pulled up on the car park within 10 minutes of leaving the shop.
There are 6 lakes on the complex which are the House Lake No 1 which has 25 pegs and is of the snake design. There are plenty of features to fish to all pegs are of hard standing and are with in easy reach of the car park. House lake No2 is a mirror image of lake No1 also with 25 pegs. The Doughnut is next just past the owners bungalow, this also has 25 pegs and is accessed by crossing a man made bridge. The Railway Lake is the furthest away from the car parks this also has 25 pegs, with one long central island approx 13 metres away from all pegs and is considered to be a pole anglers dream. The Horse Shoe Lake has 31 pegs in total and the middle section is 16 metres from one bank and 22 metres from the other, there are pegs down the middle section, this lake holds some of the venues biggest residents. The final lake on the complex is The Specimen Pond where day and night fishing is allowed (though nights to be booked in advance) and you have to use your heavier gear in this lake and use your common sense when deciding on how to approach fishing it.
We decided that we would have a crack at the Railway Lake at the far end of the venue, situated adjacent the line that runs from York to Harrogate. There were some seriously long poles being used on a few of the first lakes we passed so I wasn't sure whether there was a contest going on and thought it would be better for us and them to fish elsewhere.
We made our way down past the cafe and owners bungalow and could have gone onto one of the two islands in the lake which are accessed by bridges, but we opted for the bank closest to the railway lines which gave us a stretch of water about 50 yards long and 12 metres wide in which to fish. The wind was picking up a little and coming onto us from the north-east making the temperature drop a few degrees. There was little in the way of cover to act as a windbreak coming down the stretch of water we were on and accurate casting with the loaded wagglers was difficult at first due to the conditions. I had decided to set Jim up with the Maver Abyss X 12' Float rod and he was soon into his very first fish, a small Roach. He said he'd been fishing before on the River Ouse, but had never caught anything and so I figured he'd benefit from the slightly heavier gear rather than the old Isis 10' float rod with the Silstar reel which was very light in comparison., so I set him up with the loaded waggler and plumbed to depth for him and he was off. It wasn't long before he was getting bites and I advised him to keep throwing out a few freebies to get the fish interested. Within minutes his float disappeared beneath the surface and he struck his first fish, a small Roach.
I was using my older lighter gear which is ideal for the canals but not so good when it comes to stillwaters because there would be no way of landing anything bigger than about 5lbs and there were supposed to be some heavy lumps in this water. I needn't have worried about these bigger fish because after 90 minutes of trying, of moving pegs and general frustration I was biteless. Jim on the other hand had caught 2 or 3 more but he was a bit squeamish about touching the fish and I had to unhook them for him. I had started to worry that my 2 year record of not blanking was about to go west and I would have to suffer the shame of getting water whacked on this session.
I decided to try one last swim just on a corner where the lake came round an island and the wind wasn't blowing so hard across the surface. The wind had made it feel very cold and this had not helped my mood as I faced the prospect of a 'blank' and so I cast out to a point halfway between the peg and the bend. Straight away the float started bobbing up and down as I got a few line bites and my excitement started to grow. The float dibbed below the surface but returned straight away, down it went again and straight back up it came. I was going to have to time this right but I have never managed to time the strike correctly when there is activity like this on the float. Down again but this time it was a slower descent and it stayed down longer, I struck and felt that tug you always get when you've got a good contact. The line started vibrating as the fish tried to dive but a few turns of the reel handle and a little silver Skimmer rose to the surface and rolled onto it's side. I wasn't going to blank today.....
Jim had been getting himself in a tangle and I spent some time pulling line from under the spool for him and after getting his sorted I wandered off to have a look at the adjacent pool. The wind was hardly noticeable here as the trees that lined the end of the pool we were on stopped it and there was a very noticeable increase in temperature. I went back to Jim and told him and we decided to give this pool a try.
We moved everything wholesale down to the new pegs and while we were getting settled a nice looking Carp broke the surface as if he (or she) were checking out the interlopers making all the noise. Jim had been getting a few bites on his line but he hadn't caught anything for a while and so I was able to see what was going on. It turned out that he would cast out fine, feed the swim with little amounts of maggots but he wasn't knocking his bale arm over so any strike he made was just pulling line from the reel and he was getting tangled up. Once we sorted that little problem out he was off again but unfortunately he wasn't destined to land another fish, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Jim will be back for another session.
We had to pick up Edith from the childminders and so with the clock running down we began to pack everything away but I did manage to land a 4lb Mirror Carp before we did so and this ended a very enjoyable, but cold session. No more fishing for me for a few weeks as I have a busy period coming up with work, my rod licence expires on the 31st March and I will be going to the Northern Angling Show in Manchester on the 1st April. The licence will be renewed soon and I may buy myself a Waterways Wanderers pass at the same time, but for now until these two very important things are bought its time to go through my gear and replace what needs replacing and give it all a good clean...
See you on the bankside.....
I had jobs at Leeds Railway station for a very well known and very well established newsagent. bookseller and stationer who has featured heavily on both train stations and the High Streets of the UK for over 200 years, so I turned up for my first job only to find that another one of my sites scheduled for a few days later, was right next door to my first site. Now it seemed silly to me that I should come back later in the week when I was already there, plus if I were to get this job done early it would free me up on Thursday and I would have just one site on the morning and this in turn meant I would have a free period on the afternoon. Add to this mix the fact that I had all of my fishing gear on the van and it doesn't take a genius to work out how my mind was working and I could grab a few cheeky hours on the bankside.
With the job done I made my way from The White Rose Centre back to York to collect Jim and we were off for a few hours fishing at the complex just off the busy outer ring road. First we had to find Mitre Angling for the bait and I was sure I knew where it was but it turned out I had my roads mixed up and instead of being on the Poppleton Road, the shop was on Shipton Road. We bought a pint of yellow maggots and a pint of reds after asking the owner what was the best bait for the venue and she also advised us to fish the Railway Pool. We set off and pulled up on the car park within 10 minutes of leaving the shop.
There are 6 lakes on the complex which are the House Lake No 1 which has 25 pegs and is of the snake design. There are plenty of features to fish to all pegs are of hard standing and are with in easy reach of the car park. House lake No2 is a mirror image of lake No1 also with 25 pegs. The Doughnut is next just past the owners bungalow, this also has 25 pegs and is accessed by crossing a man made bridge. The Railway Lake is the furthest away from the car parks this also has 25 pegs, with one long central island approx 13 metres away from all pegs and is considered to be a pole anglers dream. The Horse Shoe Lake has 31 pegs in total and the middle section is 16 metres from one bank and 22 metres from the other, there are pegs down the middle section, this lake holds some of the venues biggest residents. The final lake on the complex is The Specimen Pond where day and night fishing is allowed (though nights to be booked in advance) and you have to use your heavier gear in this lake and use your common sense when deciding on how to approach fishing it.
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| The Poppleton Lakes Complex |
We made our way down past the cafe and owners bungalow and could have gone onto one of the two islands in the lake which are accessed by bridges, but we opted for the bank closest to the railway lines which gave us a stretch of water about 50 yards long and 12 metres wide in which to fish. The wind was picking up a little and coming onto us from the north-east making the temperature drop a few degrees. There was little in the way of cover to act as a windbreak coming down the stretch of water we were on and accurate casting with the loaded wagglers was difficult at first due to the conditions. I had decided to set Jim up with the Maver Abyss X 12' Float rod and he was soon into his very first fish, a small Roach. He said he'd been fishing before on the River Ouse, but had never caught anything and so I figured he'd benefit from the slightly heavier gear rather than the old Isis 10' float rod with the Silstar reel which was very light in comparison., so I set him up with the loaded waggler and plumbed to depth for him and he was off. It wasn't long before he was getting bites and I advised him to keep throwing out a few freebies to get the fish interested. Within minutes his float disappeared beneath the surface and he struck his first fish, a small Roach.
I was using my older lighter gear which is ideal for the canals but not so good when it comes to stillwaters because there would be no way of landing anything bigger than about 5lbs and there were supposed to be some heavy lumps in this water. I needn't have worried about these bigger fish because after 90 minutes of trying, of moving pegs and general frustration I was biteless. Jim on the other hand had caught 2 or 3 more but he was a bit squeamish about touching the fish and I had to unhook them for him. I had started to worry that my 2 year record of not blanking was about to go west and I would have to suffer the shame of getting water whacked on this session.
I decided to try one last swim just on a corner where the lake came round an island and the wind wasn't blowing so hard across the surface. The wind had made it feel very cold and this had not helped my mood as I faced the prospect of a 'blank' and so I cast out to a point halfway between the peg and the bend. Straight away the float started bobbing up and down as I got a few line bites and my excitement started to grow. The float dibbed below the surface but returned straight away, down it went again and straight back up it came. I was going to have to time this right but I have never managed to time the strike correctly when there is activity like this on the float. Down again but this time it was a slower descent and it stayed down longer, I struck and felt that tug you always get when you've got a good contact. The line started vibrating as the fish tried to dive but a few turns of the reel handle and a little silver Skimmer rose to the surface and rolled onto it's side. I wasn't going to blank today.....
Jim had been getting himself in a tangle and I spent some time pulling line from under the spool for him and after getting his sorted I wandered off to have a look at the adjacent pool. The wind was hardly noticeable here as the trees that lined the end of the pool we were on stopped it and there was a very noticeable increase in temperature. I went back to Jim and told him and we decided to give this pool a try.
We moved everything wholesale down to the new pegs and while we were getting settled a nice looking Carp broke the surface as if he (or she) were checking out the interlopers making all the noise. Jim had been getting a few bites on his line but he hadn't caught anything for a while and so I was able to see what was going on. It turned out that he would cast out fine, feed the swim with little amounts of maggots but he wasn't knocking his bale arm over so any strike he made was just pulling line from the reel and he was getting tangled up. Once we sorted that little problem out he was off again but unfortunately he wasn't destined to land another fish, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Jim will be back for another session.
We had to pick up Edith from the childminders and so with the clock running down we began to pack everything away but I did manage to land a 4lb Mirror Carp before we did so and this ended a very enjoyable, but cold session. No more fishing for me for a few weeks as I have a busy period coming up with work, my rod licence expires on the 31st March and I will be going to the Northern Angling Show in Manchester on the 1st April. The licence will be renewed soon and I may buy myself a Waterways Wanderers pass at the same time, but for now until these two very important things are bought its time to go through my gear and replace what needs replacing and give it all a good clean...
See you on the bankside.....
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