Hello everyone ,heres one for the South Yorkshire and Sheffield crew.I was reading an article on the internet about fly fishing the Don at Oughtibridge ,in the article it said the fishing was free.I am the sort of bloke who likes to keep on the right side of authority and wonder if this is too good to be true.If it is, then are there any day ticket stretches above Sheffield or any clubs with sensible membership fees.I fish the tidal Don downstream of Doncaster for free after coarse fish and I have developed a fondness for this water ,having watched it return from the dead over the last 30 years.The old gag about falling in and melting before you drowned wasn't that far off the truth in the old days.
Cheers John

There are sections of the river that the riparian owners do not enforce any rights over the fishing access. The Oughtibridge area is one such. I can PM you with details of clubs too.

If you fancy getting involved - there will be a free membership (conditional only on attending a few working parties each year) angling club that will be doing habitat protection/restoration on the Don downstream of Oughtibridge. Again, please PM for details

Paul

Hi', All. I am sidetracking a bit here, but the 'craic' is relevant.
Back in the mid-1960s, a coarse fishing club from south Yorkshire was given permssion to hold a match on a private beat that I also had permission to fish for trout. I fished 'for the house', but the visitors were after chub and dace, which they transported to their water on the Calder and the Don. On their two visits, the 75 competitors caught about 500 dace each time. They also had a few grayling, best at 2 3/4lb on each visit.
I wonder if the progeny of those dace are still in the two rivers? BTW, my best dace while dry fly fishing was 12 ounces, and it came from a shoal of about 15 to 20 that could be seen from a bridge over the river. I thought they were just smallish chub, until I caught a couple on the fly. Some of those dace could have been about 1lb. Now that is good for dace -- so good that I was prompted to write about coarse fishing on the Eden for a now-defunct magazine, 'Fishing', which was a weekly sister mag to the better-known, 'Trout and Salmon'. The demise of Eden chub and dace stocks is a shame, as there could have been the chance of a record dace from the river, as the average weight was so good. TC

Terry, thanks for the interesting aside,it is funny you should mention the dace as they are one of my targets when I fish the Don at Fishlake on warm summer evenings,they will readily take a dry fly but are suckers for float fished maggots without any weight on the line.They give a fantastic bite, the biggest I've caught was 8 inches long,but their mums and dads are bound to be around somewhere.

Hi', Den. A fair percentage of those Eden dace were fish of about 8in. The lads from S.Yourkshire also took away some fair chub. The water that they fished has produced a chub of over 6lb -- taken by a local on a big chunk of cheese.
The biggest from Carlisle AA water was 6 3/4 lb. I believe, and the biggest I have heard of was described as being 9lb or more. It was seen by Charlie Sykes, one time owner of CR Sykes Sports in Penrith. Charlie knew about big fish, he had a 10lb plus ferox from Crummock and numerous pike.
The big chub was caught by a schoolboy, who wouldn't let Charlie have the fish to weigh it at the shop. Bang went a record!! When the kid was carrying it up the sand and shingle, by the gill cover, its tail was dragging on the sand!!
Cheers, TerryC