The Old Brick Pond was dug in the 1930’s for brick making clay, as its name would suggest. It’s about 6 acres in total though much is reed bed. It sits along side the Trent and over the road from my house. For many years it was owned by Aurora Steel of Sheffield and only its employees and people from my village could fish it. At is deepest it goes 14ft but in the main it is betwen 4ft and 6ft.

In about 1990, Aurora sold the pond to two chaps who borrowed £90,000 from a Rotherham brothel keeper to fund the purchase. The chaps defaulted on the loan and so the brick pond came to be owned by the Madame come money lender. She opened it up to day ticket anglers in an attempt to recoup her losses.  It was about this time that I first fished it; I lived in another village about 6 miles away at the time. It had a reputation for good tench and though not an easy water, it was crystal clear and full of weed, those tench were just reward for those who put the effort in and threw a rake. It was only fished by the few as easier ‘commercials’ had sprung up all over N. lincs by this time.

 Around 93 or 94 Madame, in her wisdom, treated the pond with chemical to kill off the weed. It killed off the weed alright; it also killed off the fishing. Those tench did very well in the rich ecosystem that the masses of weed provided and with it gone so were they. They just seemed to disappear and with them gone so was I.

I suspect those tench that hung on simply retreated to the huge reed beds that make up a large part of the pond. They avoiding the sterile ‘treated’ areas that were usually where folks fished.

 Why are some people so stupid? Locals tell me it took four years for Brickpond to recover but the weed eventually returned and by the time I moved into my current house in 1999 it was something like I remembered from the early 90’s again. I had better say how good it was so you get a picture.

It was not uncommon for me to nip to the Brickpond after work for a couple of hours and catch half a dozen tench between 5lb and 7lb. This usually on bread under a float in the margins. The best tench I caught went 8lb 8 oz and the best I saw weighed was 9lb 11oz. It did a 32lb pike and big eels (to 5lb) popped up now and then. A few big bream, roach and perch were present too. There were a few carp in, mainly commons that nudged 20lb. It was predominantly a tench water though and a VERY good one for the North of England it was.

I counted myself lucky to live over the road from a water that was to all intents and purposes a traditional type fishery and I valued it greatly. It wasn’t long before I found myself looking after the water for the Madame. Myself and a mate from just down the road, Jim, managed it between us and we enjoyed it immensely. We put a lot of time and effort in and Madame received more revenue in day ticket sales than she ever had before but she had plans that she kept from us and it transpired that she was only ever really interested in getting all of her cash back. She used to come over from Rotherham every 5 or 6 weeks for a tour of the fishery. I referred to her as Lady Muck and enjoyed her visits most in winter when I could get her to follow me round in her gold high heels, I always took the muddy route round the pond on such days.

Then, out of the blue, a local parish Councillor told me Madame had put in a planning application for the building of a bungalow and café on the pond to turn it into a commercial fishery. I of course knew that her only intent was to get the planning and to sell it on to the highest bidder. Surely such an application would be turned down as the pond is well outside the development line that surrounds our village. I visited N.Lincs Planning Office and looked at the file. The planning officer had recommended ‘approval’ based on the business plan that had been submitted. The business plan was marked “confidential, not to be viewed by the public” so I thought it a little strange that it was in the file. It didn’t stay in the file long, it left the Council office under my jacket.

Jim and I were a bit miffed. The business plan was a work of fiction and the sole reason for the planning officer recommending approval was that the owner had apparently been unable to get anyone local to look after the fishery and had to build a house to live there herself. She told a tale of fish thefts, drug users, burnt out cars and highlighted the risk of children drowning due to the presence of this unmanaged pond close to the village.

I am not keen on folks who lie so Jim and I had to decide what, if anything, we were to do about this.

I was still working for the EA at the time and had been given a trailer full of water lilies by the fisheries team. Jim and I launched the boat after work and set about planting them at suitable locations around the pond. We weighed up the pros and cons of objecting to the planning application as we did so. To object would surely see us banned from the fishery and Jim had fished it all his life. Then I said, “**ck it, lets have her”, ……so we did.

I stood up at the planning meeting and verbally tore her application to bits, her representative tried to defend her position but all was lost. The members of the Planning Committee could see the lies and rightly turned down her application despite their officers recommendation,….. we won.

Madame was a tad upset and subject us to a torrent of abuse outside in the car park. Jim and I went to the River Wharfe and celebrated with a good afternoons barbel fishing………. It was a good day all round.

She of course lodged an appeal to the Secretary of State but we won again. We were both banned from the Brickpond as expected but we did the right thing.

A year later she sold Brickpond to an ex rugby league player from West Yorks who had just moved into a local manor house. She tried to write into the sale agreement that Jim and I were to be banned for life but he wouldn’t have it. He went wrong though by thinking that the village of Burton upon Stather would sit back and be denied the opportunity to walk around the pond whenever they liked. He fenced it and put “No Entry” signs up all around……. The parish was up in arms. He kept the fishing for himself and his mates and put in four 30lb Commons. He got so much grief that within 18 months or so he had sold his house and the pond and moved to Ireland.

And so we come to the regime of the present day. A scrap man from Grimsby bought the pond off the rugby player for a tidy sum in 2004. He’s a good bloke and a good angler but he too had ideas of a commercial nature and it just isn’t that sort of a place, never will be. The weed was cut back at first then chemical introduced. Guess what, the tench went! Then loads of (2000)  small carp were introduced along with the KHV virus. Within the year many hundreds had died, you may have seen the pictures of him burning them in the pages of the Angling Times……I wasn’t sorry.

I have not really fished the water since this time (05) but this last year reports of tench again came to my ears. A few pike over 20lb came out last winter too, that tells me we may have a healthy balanced fishery again. I had a walk round last week and chatted to the owner for half an hour. He now sees it as potentially a cracking tench and bream water, which it is, so he is working towards that end. The water isn’t as clear as it used to be and there is not so much weed but it has some nice roach, rudd and bream. The odd big carp shows and the tench are making a comeback, though not in the size they used to be…….. yet.

So the future is brighter for the old Brickpond and yesterday, for the first time in ages, I had an evening fishing there. No tench for me but some nice roach and rudd graced my net on float fished caster. Mate Shorty had 4 bream to 6lb and two tench about 4lb to the feeder in a couple of hours.

We try and create artificial situations with the management of our fisheries to satisfy the wants and needs of the masses as we search for a few quid but in the end nature usually has the last word.

Here are a few pictures of a nice place taken on a very dull day.

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The Old Brick Pond from my house, trent behind.

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The banks are not over managed all the way round.

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About a third of the pond is reed bed and channels, good for stalking the carp with a crust.

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Its 10 years since I planted those lilies.

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And those

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A nice place