Loughborough is not my home town, I am originally from the North East of England, near Middlesbrough. There are many great places to fish in the surrounding area, and I will probably write more posts about those places in the future.
There is one special lake that has produced some of the best days and fish so far, and is also where I really learned the skills and craft of fishing.
The venue is called Ingleby Road Pond, and is a small 30-ish peg pond surrounded by countryside. The pond is very natural, with lots of trees and reeds and plenty of features to fish to. Although a relatively small pond, it is stuffed with an amazing range of fish, from small skimmers to carp almost reaching 30 lbs.
Watercraft is very important at this venue. In the right place at the right time, anyone can catch anything. In the wrong place, the best angler in the world will struggle. I normally begin by fishing the bank with the wind behind me, as there are plenty of trees to fish near, where fish will be sheltering and expecting grubs to fall from the tree.
Maggots will catch everything in the water. However, recently I have moved on to target the large carp by laying a bed of hempseed on a shelf and using a large kernel of sweetcorn as a hook bait. This has proven to be a very effective method, the last carp caught on my last visit is shown below.
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| Ingleby Mirror carp |
Species I have caught at this venue include: Roach, Rudd, Bream, Perch, Tench, Mirror carp, Common carp, F1 Ghost carp, Ide, Golden tench and Crucian carp. There are rumours of a solitary Koi carp, but I have never seen it. People also say trout, chub and goldfish are in there, I believe there may be trout but I think other people mix up the ide with chub, and the crucians with goldfish.
Some examples of fish from this lake:
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| 7 lb mirror carp caught in showery conditions hence the clothing |
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| First F1 ghost carp, caught one week after being stocked |
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| First crucian carp |
As a side note, if you struggle to identify the difference between crucians and goldfish, look closely at the dorsal fin of the fish you catch. Goldfish fins are much more concave than a crucian, and a crucian has a lot more spines in its dorsal fin, about thirty as opposed to 15 or so in a goldfish.
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| 3 lb ide |
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| Another ide, note concave anal fin |
To tell between an ide and a chub: the anal fin is convex on a chub, differing it from ide and dace that look similar.
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| First tench |
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| Skimmer bream |
On the subject of telling fish apart, the bream above is a bronze bream (young one so still silver in colour) and below is a silver bream caught from the canal:
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| Silver bream |
Notice how the silver bream eye is much larger in proportion to the head than bronze bream. Silver bream also have larger scales but this is quite difficult to see sometimes.
I cannot wait to get back on this water, should be sometime around easter and I will be aiming for a double figure carp.
I would 100% recommend a trip to this fishery, even if it is a long drive!
Tickets are available on the bank, last time I went I think it was £6 for one rod, and £8 for two, but it may have increased since. The fishery postcode is TS9 7DF.
More posts of past outings to come, whilst the winds here in Loughborough are reaching gale force and stopping me getting out on the water.
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