Hareshaw quarry bag

[Paul D]

I'm no expert but the sudden explosion of weed could be caused by run off from a local farm, those hi tec fertilizers they splash about work just as well on water plants as crops.

[Ian]

Cheers for the quick reply Paul.thats a good point and there is a farm about 3 miles from it.makes me wonder mate.

[Vole]

I've no real idea either. It looks as though 1: A new species has found its way into the water and likes it - if you can get it identified, you'll at least know your enemy.
2: It's always been there, but whatever normally keeps it in check has died or otherwise gone. Were there vast horde of any vegetarian ducks or geese there that went missing?
3: As Paul suggests, it's always been there but never had such a good feed.

Or any combination of those...

HAve you asked whoever owns/runs it as a fishery if they know?

[Ian]

It's not run as a fishery mate.what I do know about it is it was built by the council and they put silvers in it.there was an office block beside it that was run by a Japanese company,I heard they put some koi carp in it so the workers had something to look at and obviously made them feel a bit more at home.they also put ide in it which seemingly grew to quite large proportions.the Scottish carp group also put some carp in it,mirrors I think and some locals put some tench in it.i think that was in the early ninetys.thats about all I know,but it did have a blue/green algae bloom in the summer two years ago.i don't know if that would be anything to do with it.i don't even know what that algae looks like.for all I know those little strands were the blue green algae.

[Chris Bettis]

Great Post! Well worth pointing out that what you need to make big bags of roach is proper feeding, something we all learned from the Match Fishermen.

[Stuart Whiting]

No problem,if there's one thing I like as much as catching it's sharing experience.heres something yous may or may not have experienced,but it's really bugged me and I'm struggling to understand what's happened.i don't even know if it's good or bad.ive put a pic of a nice roach from broadwood loch.anyway I've fished it for about maybe 9 or 10 yrs and up until last year I was getting good bags of roach from it.the majority of it wasn't that weedy and any weed that was there only went out about 10ft from the bank because the water dropped deep after that,I mean 12ft or so.well two years ago during the autumn there was like little bits of weed in the water,just tiny strands probably no longer than a centimetre but it was everywhere.i didn't really take any notice because the fishing was just as good.thats until last year when to my utter shock when I went over in the spring when it was still a bit chilly I noticed the weed starting to come up.when the summer came round the whole water was almost covered in thick matts of weed.to make matters worse the fishing turned really bad.i only caught a handful of small roach all season.i fished it with my mate one day and we never touched a roach but as the sun went down the place started boiling with small roach with a few nice ones here and there.have yous ever heard of this phenomenon and do you think it's ok.heres where yous could help.do you think I was catching big bags when there wasn't any weed simply because the roach had formed a big shoal for protection and now the place has got lots of weed the shoal has broken up because they have the weed for protection.i can't understand what has happened.the weed is so thick it's impossible for me to feeder fish now.i don't think there has been a fish kill because I think I would have found some,at least I really hope not.can anyone explain what's possibly happened.

Hi Ian ,

It's possible that when there was no weed in yer water that the roach were perhaps easier to locate when they would form shouls, sometimes the fish form shouls so they are positioned at certain thermacline layers within the water columns especially in winter to find were the water may be at its warmest and where they feel comfortable

Now you've got a lot of weed in the water it is more likely to split the shouls up but should still be possible to find a few fish amongst the weed, in cases like this a lot of it is just trial and error

This is one of the big roach waters I've fished in the past and am returning to, it's a very difficult water and pays to prebait a couple of swims for a few days prior to fishing but to me is worth doing this because

A) it's only 1.5 miles from home
And
B) very big roach



All the best

Stuart

[Ian]

cheers guys.i think I've maybe had it too easy in the past and now the weed has made it more difficult.the place is about the same size as the ones posted in your pics Stuart.I will get some pics up of my local waters.the only thing that bothered me was the fact it got so full of weed in the space of a year and suddenly the fish became almost impossible to catch.we have a blue green algae bloom every year up here and possibly they have used some new treatment on it and its changed the ecology of the water.i will leave that to the scientists.my science is fishing ha.

[Ian]

I think a lot of folk are a bit cautious when ic comes to feeding and I've never really changed the way I feed.like I've said,two bags of g/b is my norm in the summer.even when I have a bad day I still put the same feed in.the one thing I must say is the sensas noir has done me proud,it really draws the roach in.just mixed straight out the bag.also I used to add a couple of blackcurrant flavoured t-bags to a half kilo of plain crumb.great groundbait too and simple.the fish have to be there in the first place though.

[Stuart Whiting]

I think a lot of folk are a bit cautious when ic comes to feeding and I've never really changed the way I feed.like I've said,two bags of g/b is my norm in the summer.even when I have a bad day I still put the same feed in.the one thing I must say is the sensas noir has done me proud,it really draws the roach in.just mixed straight out the bag.also I used to add a couple of blackcurrant flavoured t-bags to a half kilo of plain crumb.great groundbait too and simple.the fish have to be there in the first place though.

Very true Ian, wise words

Stuart

[Ian]

I'm going to pick your brains here .i fish a place called Spring bank quarry.the bit I fish,only now and again,goes to about 25ft deep.i have tried it a couple of times in winter and usually just put a feeder on and chuck it and see,but I would like to try the float because I have seen them topping even in the cold days.i was wondering where to start depth wise.i don't get bites on the feeder apart from the odd tap so they must be up in the water.is there a general rule of thumb on a starting depth if they are topping in that sort of depth of water.i don't want to start fishing at 20ft then work my way up.what would yous do.