Perch in the King George Reservoir, Chingford
Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2017 12:19 am
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?
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?