"Hi Chaps",
.....I wonder if any other "TFF'er" was ever lucky enough to have fished a pit that was owned by Taylor Woodrow and was renowned for it's huge shoals of big Rudd, it was just known as the "Staines Pit" to those of us that worked for TW and was not far outside of Staines, Middx on the Chertsey Road.
It was the big pit just behind the Greenhams gravel "workings" back in the late 70's/early 80's.
Being that it was owned by TW (whom Greenhams were also part of) it wasn't openly available to membership unless you worked for them. As an old Taywood AS member I do recall some matches against visiting clubs. But other than that I think it was only available on exchange water tickets for single club matches and was subsequently barely fished at any other times.
The Rudd in there were truly
magnificent ![Thumbs Up :Thumb:](./images/smilies/icon_thumpb.gif)
and frequently "went" between two and three pounds. They only seemed to inhabit a few parts of the pit and so, on "Match Days", if you were lucky to draw a very early "away", there was a very good possibility of you taking the "pot". The only time you were likely to be beaten was if someone managed to find and hold a shoal of massive "slabs" (quite often double figure fish....YUK!) that also lived in there.
"
The bait" was cockles..... they just loved them! I had never heard of them being used as a bait before then. They worked every time. Fished "on the drop", 6' under a float in deep water (it was about 12 feet deep), the Rudd would rise up to them every time. You would never see them "on the surface" throughout the day but as the evening approached they started to show.
That pit also held a great number of Carp which were very rarely caught outside of an area known as "The Withy's", that was rarely fished by anyone other than myself and fishing pal, as it was a good long hike to reach.
I've looked at some more recent maps but it has changed so much very locally that it's quite hard to re-locate amongst the newer pits in that area. I wonder if it's still being fished today and if so, who has the rights?