Perch in the King George Reservoir, Chingford

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Corneybury
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Perch in the King George Reservoir, Chingford

Post by Corneybury »

I used to fish this venue as a young lad with my Dad in the 1960s. It was an LAA water then, and our fishing club, United Services AS of Chingford used to hold an annual session there. It was memorable, at least to me, as being a giant concrete bowl, split into two sections by a concrete central causeway from where we used to fish. To get to the central section, involved a lengthy walk carrying all our tackle along the narrow rim of the reservoir. Being a vast expanse and featureless stretch of water, there were no clues as to where to fish, but we always chose to fish the centre section, as you had the choice of avoiding the wind which used to (and probably still does), whistle across the water. Interestingly enough, the best fishing was straight into the wind and the favoured method was a lobworm float fished at about 6 feet deep off the sharply sloping bank into the approaching waves.

What made this venue so special, apart from the unique environment, was that it yielded the most enormous perch, with the smallest being around a pound, and two pounders quite common, and in fairly abundant quantities too. This, to a young ten year old, used to knocking out gudgeon, bleak and small roach on the adjacent R.Lea, was magical, and worth putting up with the arduous walk, howling gales and fear of falling into the depths.

Alas, the perch disease of the 1970s finished this as a venue, and I remember visiting it only to see hundreds of carcasses of dead fish - very sad...We never went back.

Of course 50 years on the reservoir is still there and was more recently used as a venue for a sailing club. I don’t know whether it is fished any more, but now perch are back all over the country, I wonder if the giants have returned.

Does anyone fish it now?

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Olly
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Re: Perch in the King George Reservoir, Chingford

Post by Olly »

That was a similar scenario that I encountered as an LAA member with all the West London Reservoirs - Staines, Walton on Thames, Barn Elms, etc, and including the record roach water!

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Beresford
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Re: Perch in the King George Reservoir, Chingford

Post by Beresford »

Many of the trout reservoirs have very big perch, the shoals in Grafham for example, are amazing. We've had fish after fish up to about 3lbs in jewel like colours – that the size of the shoal fish. If you want to go after them though you'll need to fly fish afloat. If I was seriously into perch fishing that's what I'd do.
The Split Cane Splinter Group

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Olly
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Re: Perch in the King George Reservoir, Chingford

Post by Olly »

Many trout reservoirs are semi natural. Most of the old MWB reservoirs mentioned are literally concrete bowls. Most with an intake of water and an outlet to a processing area, be that slow sand filters of the pre 70/80's or the modern screening and treating of our drinking water!

Intakes for those mentioned come from the Thames somewhere along its route or the Lee/Lea. All are mixed by the London ring main that runs around London like the M25!

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