(Take a seat and a deep breath!)
*BDAC = Billericay and District Angling Club
CAPS= Colchester Angling Preservation Society
MAS= Maldon Angling Society
IDPS= Ilford and District Piscatorial Society*
My club, BDAC, shares with CAPS and MAS, "The whole of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, from Chelmsford to Heybridge Basin"
There follows some exceptions... (see the CAPS website/handbook for the full nitty-gritty!)
But there is the following:
11.Beeleigh Lock and Langford Cut – Access via private road to Golf course with limited parking by lock. Please Note Fishing above Beeleigh Weir on River Blackwater is NOT part of our arrangement, as this is Ilford and District Piscatorial Society Waters.
All well and good. I spent my usual "more hours than I actually do fishing" researching with maps etc, and decided to spend at day at Beeleigh. It is a delightful spot! Three weirs, a lock and canal/navigation up and downstream. The Blackwater joins the Chelmer here, as noted in the handbook, and my club(s) does not have rights to the Blackwater. Orf I trundle in the Berlingo, to the "car-park" on the golf course lane, and decide first to take a stroll around, before deciding where to park my behind for the day.
I cross the bridge, the Blackwater on my right and behind me, and upstream is north. I have no interest in nor desire to 'poach' other club's waters, not with all of the water I DO have access to! There are some chaps noisily cutting bankside vegetation here (Blackwater) with machinery, I assume them to be farm-workers or EA or similar....
Upstream of the Chelmer is West of here, above the upper lock gate, next lock up is "Rickett's Lock" of which more, later...
I am now on the South bank of the Chelmer Navigation, on an island confined by the confluence of the rivers, and a 'cut' with weirs above and below.
But! This island is festooned with signs, each slightly different but this is an example.
Again I make an assumption that my BDAC permit covers me for this.. (?).
I see some nice spots, on the 'cut' although there is not much (none) water flowing over the weirs because:
a) It is summer and the locks will be opening very often
b) There is a water-works just upstream which I guess abstracts gazillions of gallons all year round (?)
And so I return to the car to gather my tackle etc. On my way back, I decide to ask the gents with strimmers, if they knew anything about the precise details. Turned out they were members of IDPS, and were doing a 'work-party' and were of course, very decent chaps indeed, (anyone who gives up a sunny August day to do some hard graft on behalf of their club and other folks, is going to be, surely?).
One of them was also a member of MAS and had lived in the area all of his (long!) life. I showed them the above part of the BDAS/CAPS handbook.
"Never heard of Langford Cut. That bit on the other side is called Neville's cut, always has been. It is definitely IDPS water"
A long chat about the good old days etc. And I said that I did not MIND paying a day-ticket, and that if they saw their club bailiff, to send him over to me. But the handbooks/websites/signs are so ambiguous!
From the sign pictured above:
There is NO weir upstream of the lock!!!
From my club handbook and CAPS' website..
Where is "Langford Cut"? Why is this island and the water around it NOT specified in the exceptions?
Surely the very LAST thing fishing clubs should be doing is creating potential conflict by ambiguity?
It is as I say, a potentially delightful spot. (some small perch, a small dace. Not the ENORMOUS carp that was lurking about, thank heaven!
