The Black Water

A month or so ago i became privy to a little bit of information regarding a pool around 35 miles from home, I instantly took an interest in it but as is often the case things get put on the back burner and even more often forgotten about. After being given a memory jog i decided to get on the web to do some research, i was soon in possession of an overhead map and a route, but no matter what i couldn't find out anything about the stock of fish, Ive seen a few shots of some beautiful black commons and they had been enough to whet my appetite
I finally got round to taking a drive up with a friend, a pad, a marker rod set up and a bucket of bait.  Over the course of the evening we would get a pretty definitive topographical map of the underwater features and a strong urge to give the lake a go.
The first sighting grabbed my attention mainly due to the color of the water, black as ink! I fully expected to have found deep water but it wouldnt be long before we would find out to the contrary.

First impressions were of a tatty old farm pool of around an acre and a half with a sunken island around 35 yards out, It has a comfy bank on one side and an un-fishable bank on the opposite, this being due to the sheer drop to the water making landing fish a potential accident waiting to happen, especially under darkness.

After marking out the high bank and towards the far end, we were finding a slight variation in depths but generally ranging between 6 - 7 feet deep with scraggly Canadian pond weed and silk weed.  After getting to the far end of the lake there is a pair of dead trees sunken and after a few casts around it, it is certainly snaggy under the water around them. Turning towards the comfy bank stretch i found a raised plateau of what feels like gravel/stones, this area measures out at approx 12ft by 10ft with around 3 ft of water above it when all around it i was finding 6ft, certainly an area not to be overlooked !

Around the sunken island is what appears to be the slopes of the island with trees jutting out of the water. Whilst marking around this area we were lucky to see a few fish roll out in the heavy ripple and a couple of crashes among the sunken trees. The water in this area is averaging at 3ft and with the light at the right angle the clay bottom could be made out

Having actually witnessed some fish we were beaming and made the decision to get on at the end of the coming week therefore i  primed some spots up with the SAE B1's  and left for home, totally excited about fishing a bit of the unknown. Its been some time since i felt this way about a new water and its nice to be fishing close to home enabling me to pre bait before each session

The rods are set up to accommodate the patchy weed and the rigs are made and balanced ...Roll on Friday morning !