It must have been around the early Nineties when I gradually rediscovered my love of the Ponds and it was the Boating Lake I turned to first. It couldn't have been a more opportune time too as, whereas Brynmill was in decline, ravaged by Cormorants, the Boating Lake I found was probably at its all round best at this time and particularly in the Winter. We were having a run of quite mild Winters back then and the fish responded enthusiastically. In addition to the Roach and Perch there were good numbers of big Skimmers, small Tench and a healthy stock of nice sized Crucians, all of which fed with gusto on those mild, wild Winter days. The pool was fed by a small stream that entered in the N/E corner. Something had altered in the intervening period so that during heavy rain (the norm for Wales!) the stream ran heavy and coloured, lifting the pool several inches and invigorating its finny inhabitants.
We had some fabulous sport for a few years and the Summer league was a sellout regularly. The Carp too had grown and were attracting some of the serious bivvy boys to the pool.
I had started night fly fishing for Sea Trout in 1991 but this didn't interfere too much with the Coarse fishing as it took place well, in the night! and of course, in Summer. 1995 however was a drought year (even in Wales!) consequently Sea Trout fishing was on the back burner until rain came in late September. I filled the Summer nights chasing the Carp at the Boating Lake; some of them were into double figures now and one hot, sultry night I caught a ten pound Common and a thirteen pound Mirror, both on legered bread paste.
The fishing remained absurdly good through to the late Nineties , then a couple of things happened to its detriment. The feeder stream I mentioned earlier had, unfortunately been a thorn in the side of those charged with maintaining the Park because particularly in Winter as well as flooding the pool it also turned the grassed area between the pool and a newly constructed play park into a quagmire. I don't know exactly what was done to remedy it but the stream never flowed the same again and the water in the pool turned very clear permanently. Secondly the pool and park had become much busier with Summer Holidaymakers. This was due in great part to the replacing of the Cafe with a large food orientated Pub, one of those chain types. A tragedy occurred on one of those busy Summers days , a Toddler drowned in the pool unnoticed an awful thing to happen and it resulted in the Council putting a low fence all around this bank of the pool too close to the water to sit the other side of it and just a little too high for fishing over easily.
In truth it was the changing of the feeder stream that caused the greater detriment as it changed the whole character of the water. It may obviously have been coincidental but all the species seemed to decline from that point in time. Some species disappeared altogether over a period of years. I still fished it fairly regularly and by the late Noughties it was quite a different water again. The clearish water encouraging lush growths of soft weeds, Milfoils and the like and the Tench seemed to thrive albeit small ones in the main. SmallRoach too and surprisingly there was a reappearance of the Rudd after many years absence? Perhaps some had been there all along? There was also a small group of Common Carp, a dozen or so fish which evaded capture in the main, but could be seen on Summer evenings basking where the lowering Sun caught the shallows along the Old Ladies Garden bank. These Carp grew to double figures and early in 2019 I was lucky enough to catch one at around ten pounds. I say I was lucky and that's because the following year they were gone without trace? A real mystery.
I fished there quite a bit in 2020 the last Summer before we moved to Staffordshire and had plenty of Tench, Rudd and Roach and happily some little Common Carp! We had often watched the bigger ones spawning before they disappeared so one year must have been successful. In the whole of that Summer I encountered only one other angler, a twenty something studying at the university a hundred yards away. So to answer your post Dave, no there is no new breed of youngsters spending long happy days on its banks as we did fifty odd years ago. Sad isn't it.
A photo from my diary of the lucky Carp.
