Road maps and pits.

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Many years ago ( get the violins out ) before I was old enough to drive, and Laptops, and google maps came on the scene ,
Me and my fishing mates would get on our bikes with a ordinance survey map, and set off looking for fishing pits within our
local 10 mile area on farm land.
We would find them via the nearest lane, chuck our bikes in the hedge, walk across fields and suss out the water, and if it looked
good enough to retain fish, the next step was to ask the farmer if he would let us fish .
The feed back from the farmers was usually very good ,giving us permission to fish, and information about the water, and a
general lecture as to not to fall in, make a mess, leave no litter, and don't upset the cows.
The finds in these small waters were sometimes good but very often poor, with all kinds of disappointments, Most Farmers, would give us info, and we got to know if the water had been fished by others, We looked for fish and tell tail signs, floats stuck up trees, worn down banks, tree branch rod rests still in the ground etc.

One water we found was a small pool on the edge of a wood, the farm was a good mile away and so was the nearest lane. so it was quite
isolated, we had a word with the farmer, and he was OK about things, but added,( you wont catch much, there's only frogs and tiddlers.)
We just had the basic tackle made three pegs in the reeds. I plumbed up to find 2ft under the rod tip, my mates however found 6 and 7ft
To cut a long story short the pool was full of small tench and rudd, biggest tench we ever caught was 1lbs 8oz and the rudd 2-3oz
We fished that pool for years and had it to ourselves, it was stuffed full of these small fish, Time moves on people change, the one fishing mate, has since died and the
other goes sea fishing, now and loves it. I often wonder what that pool is like , and did anyone else find those little tench.

Have you ever come across a forgotten water. A pit in a field that, throws up a surprise fish ?

 

[Yosemite Sam]

I’ve fished a farm pond, which actually was quite bib, but had a lot of silt in it, so was only 2ft deep everywhere. There were hundreds of stunted tench in there. Nothing else, just tench. We thought at first they were baby’s , but we never ever caught anything bigger than a 1lb.
Another small farm pond up in Mid Wales near my in-laws was just the same . Only tench in there and small ones.

 

[Silver fan 82]

When I was young we used to fish a small gravel pit / irrigation reservoir which was on a farmers land.
There was a footpath running through the land and slightly off the footpath were these two massive piles of sand / gravel which had been excavated out of said pit. These two piles were big, 25 - 30 ft high. So as kids these also provided hours of fun too.
The pit itself was probably only half an acre in size, perfectly rectangular but very deep (the two big piles mentioned earlier).
The best "swim" was always the corner where presumably the machinery had access to dig the reservoir because it sloped down gradually.
Fishing wise it was good. A good head of decent roach, gudgeon, a few chub, pike and tench. I only ever saw two tench basking once, never ever caught one unfortunately. It was weedy though so float fishing was usually the go to method.
Many a good summer evening spent catching those nice roach.
Last time when visiting my parents I actually took a wander and it looked like a different place! The banks were overgrown with willow trees and the water looked alot weedier than I ever remember (but I'm going back 20 - 25 years). The piles of gravel had disappeared and no signs of fish. During the warmer weather you would always see fish topping. I wonder what happened to the fish.
Yeah fond memories of that place. And the best thing is it was completely natural water and the farmer didn't really seem to mind us being there on the odd occasion we saw him.

 

[Silverfisher]

Those all sound great I've never successfully found such a place myself.

There's a pond that I thought was on farmland in our village that's full of roach and Rudd (posted a few pictures of it during the first lockdown which was when I found it properly) that I was hoping I'd be able to fish but ultimately found out that it was technically someone's garden which was a bit awkward when stood there at the time! Don't think I'd been the only one wandering around it as since then a fence has gone up on the field that leads to it? There's another pond actually on the farm virtually next to my house but whilst the people are nice enough I think asking about that one would be a little too invasive given its only accessible through the actual farm yard.

Then a few years back me and my cousin went to find a patch of water we saw on a map in the area where my grandparents used to live. When we got there it was amongst a copse of trees and it was a decent size and with definite signs of fish. Also there was a full on proper log cabin built beside it which was full of empty alcohol bottles and shotgun shells so we thought better of trying to fish it!