Nanpanton Reservoir, Loughborough, Leices
I grew up in Loughborough and Nanpanton reservoir was the closest lake to my parents home. Nestling in a dip on the edge of Charnwood forest it was essentially a concrete bowl of around eight acres in size. Features were at a premium but at one end there was an inlet pipe with an outlet at the other. The carpark, water tower, platform and rhododendron bushes were the other pegs of note. When I first visited in the 80's the whole of the top end was fenced off and the fence end pegs were always popular. The fence was later removed.
As you'll know by now I like to catch whatever is in front of me and sometimes I'd go for the roach and bream, other times the pike or carp. It held a large head of Bream and my best catch was eighteen fish on a five meter whip fishing four feet deep in twelve foot of water! They averaged about a pound and a half but the occasional bigger fish were present. I remember walking round one day and seeing a large number of carp near the surface about thirty yards out. They were definitely carp, broad across the back and some clearly very large. My mate cast a float, set shallow with a bit of bread into the middle of the fish. The float disappeared and he wound in a six pound bream!
The carp would often show themselves like this on sunny days and I had great fun launching a bubble float and chum mixer into the middle of them. More than once I'd be playing a carp and see two or three others follow it all the way in, only veering off when the net came out. Very odd. Another tactic was to ball a load of ground bait in (when the bailiff wasn't around) and nine times out of ten I'd hook a carp first cast. After losing said carp it would be a roach and bream fest for a couple of hours. I never hooked more than one carp and it was always straight after the barrage of bait. Twenty one pounds of Roach was another red letter day, fishing with hemp and corn from the platform. My mate at the time was obsessed by weights and numbers so I can tell you that was made up of a hundred and twenty one fish.
Although basically featureless the fishing was never boring. Being very deep close in the place always fostered a certain amount of mystery. The odd big Perch was always a possibility and once I caught three Tench in a row. This may not seem remarkable but I fished at the reservoir hundreds of times and I only ever caught one more Tench. Carp hybrids were also caught now and again. We call them F1's now but these were naturally occurring and rarely under three pounds in weight. The resident Pike could be very obliging and I took them to just under ten pounds. The biggest I saw was an eighteen pounder but was sure the water held bigger. Naturally I was never single-minded enough to get a real biggie.
I did a spot of night fishing more for the experience than the fishing as I was never either very prepared or successful. A particularly cold and uncomfortable night spent in a deck chair with a real case on my head for warmth springs to mind. At least it was fairly peaceful- one night my mate was snoozing serenely in his bivvy when he was startled by a very loud splash. You wouldn't have guessed in a million years. It turned out to be a safe dumped by some undesirables after a robbery!
I fished it on and off right up until I moved east in the year 2000. I did go back about five years ago to fish the opening weekend with an old mate but the place just wasn't the same. In fact, writing this now it is clear that it was the same, it was me that had moved on. Fond memories though.
Till next time.
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