Best River Severn water and salmon
Acknowledgement: Dave Tough
The fishing on Buildwas Park consisted of about 3 miles of best river Severn water, the upper boundary was at a culvert in the West Coppice wood, about 100yds of the wood was never let to any fishing club but was the best salmon stretch in the whole river. When the catching of salmon was at its height Harry Rogers placed large concrete blocks in strategic places in this length of water to produce some of the best salmon lies.
The let water starts at the end of the wood and carries on down to the lower boundary at the Abbey Wood, over this stretch all types of river fishing are possible, course fishing for roach, chub and the record breaking barbel, fly fishing for brown trout on the fast waters, salmon spinning, and at one time the best stretch for eel’s, some of these record breaking.
In the early days the fishing was reserved for the owner of the estate, for his relations and usefully for business associates. In the 1950’s the water was let to the Birmingham Anglers Association, during the next 30 years the water was used constantly every day of the week, I was bailiff for them and on a weekend I would walk the water checking the licenses, I would start at the lower boundary talking to fishermen every 10 to 20 yards, the first two sections were reserved for competitions, the top stretch was always kept free for the day angler, but sometimes as I walked up I would meet fishermen walking back stating there were no places left, up to 200 fishermen would be fishing on a Saturday or Sunday.
There was no car park at this time, the cars were left on the main road and at the entrance to Buildwas Abbey, no fisherman would park in the lane as the farmer would be round and lose their tyres down, and it would mean transport to Ironbridge to get new tyre valves and inflation. Luckily the contest fishermen used to arrive by coach, a long day for the driver with nothing to do.
At this time the Estate did not own the fishing rights, they were held by a firm of solicitors at Kidderminster, when they decided to sell the fishing the estate purchased them primarily to stop someone having access to the estate without the landowners control.
Birmingham Anglers decided to give up the lease when the estate became the fisheries owner, mostly because the amount of anglers were decreasing because of the economic situation in the 80’s, the cost of fuel also played its part in the demise of the fishermen.
Improvements for fisherman
To make the water more inviting to an angling club, we built a car park, cut out paths, erected styles put up notices and built bridges, we even ferried the fishermen to the water with tractor and trailer when we were asked by disabled groups, Coventry Anglers were the first to have the water then the Hazeldine Anglers.
Being bailiff for the fishing clubs, National River board Bailiff and working on the estate it gave us almost total control of the fishing when it came to the protection of the river, the bank and wild life.
During the end of the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s the amount of fishermen drastically declined, some weekends there were only about two or three fishermen per day on the whole stretch and the competition fishing finished altogether.
During the time when the stretch of river was thronged with fishermen I always remember talking to one old chap, it was pouring with rain and he was sitting there with no umbrella, I said he must be a dedicated fisherman to sit out in this sort of weather, the reply was “mate if you lived in a terraced house in the middle of Birmingham, had a job working in an iron foundry, and a bloody nagging wife you’d sit out in the bloody rain.” Enough said.
The last club that had the fishing was the Prince Albert, they are a club with a set number of members you cannot just buy a license to fish their waters, I wrote to them asking if I could still be the bailiff but they never replied, I have never been fishing since, even now if you see two fishermen a month that good sometimes there’s no one there for months.
Many of the fishermen were town people they would come out for a day’s fishing bringing the whole family, down by the river Mr Jones the farmer had one small field that was sown for wheat, on walking along the bank I came upon a family of about 6 or 7, wife and kids husband fishing, they had laid out two large travel rugs in the corn and the kids had been making tracks running around, when I had seen the husbands license, had his name and address I then told him about the damage and that the farmer would be claiming compensation for said damage, his reply was “it’s only grass) I said to him that would he like it if I came to his house brought my 5 kids and a dog and had a picnic on his front lawn, he said no because it was his garden, I said to think about it as this field is the farmers garden but just a bit bigger.
Mike Guy
Buildwas Park
