Patrington Haven Drain

A Blast From The Past
Thinking back it must be at least 10 years since I set eyes on this venue, I didn't know quite what to expect; I was hoping not much had changed over the years. On arriving at the venue I noticed for starters that peg numbers had diminished, probably due to flooding and neglect over the years. But apart from that the drain looked almost the same as it did all them years ago.
This was once a popular match venue with large numbers of anglers attending the matches. Over the years with the venue having been polluted on a number of occasions and the introduction of commercial venues, angler numbers have declined to almost non existent levels.

Patrington Haven Drain, Outstray Rd, East Yorkshire

Where Is It?
It is situated approx 9 miles (14km) South-East of Hedon, East Yorkshire and 4 miles South-West of Withernsea on the A1033 road.

I drove  through Patrington Haven Village and over the bridge and turned down Outstray Road immediately left which runs along side the drain. The road ends after roughly a mile and a half and there is a car park for a few cars. I parked my car there and had a little wander. Immediately in front of the car park there are a couple of pegs, but one of these was already occupied. Just to the rear of the car park is a gate with a foot path to the side. I went round the gate and about 30 meters up the road was a nice looking peg. Happy days, this was to be my peg for the session.

The Plan
As the banks are quite steep I decided to plumb up both short and long with the plan to start short and swap to long if the fish did not respond on the short line. Fortunately the drain was extremely uniform so one rig would cover both areas.

Bait
This was as simple as it could ever be, some white maggots and some ground bait. The ground bait was a mix of half Browning Champions Choice - Etang and half Browning Champions Choice - No1

Rig

• Pole - Browning Z12
• Elastic - Pink Browning Cenex reflex
• Main Line - 0.12 Browning Hybrid Power
• Hook length - 0.10 Browning Cenex
• Hook - Size 20 Kamasan B911 F1
• Float - 4 x 12 Slim float
• Shotting - Bulk plus 2 droppers

The Session
I started the session by feeding a single ball of ground bait via a pole cup along side a few loose maggots. I lowered the rig in slowly and fed a few maggots over the top by hand. It must have been 10 seconds before the float disappeared, resulting in a lovely little Gudgeon. The next couple of drops  resulted in a Perch and a Roach. It was great to see the drain was still full of fish. As the session went on bites gradually started to slow down. I found topping up with a small ball of ground bait soon got the fish queuing back up again.

After an hour I took my net out for picture purposes and I must of had nearly 10 pound of fish in that short period of time.
This almost forgotten venue is still rammed with fish and I for one will be paying another visit there very soon; what is even better about this venue is, the fishing is "free"  :)