After checking The Sluice out yesterday morning, I was soon making my mind up that it was Un-fishable. The victim of some very hard down pours the day before, The Sluice was pumping like a fast flowing river. I made a call to Ben, and managed to convince him to finally give it a go at Anglezarke Reservoir. Locally known amongst Pikers as 'Heart Break Ridge' a reputation it has gained because it can be a difficult water. I was really looking forward to today's trip, as I've not fished there for a while. We set off at around 7.15am, our intention to arrive there just as day breaks. The plan was going well, and we were almost there, until we reached a hill that was very steep. It's a hill that I have been up countless times before, however once we were around half way up it became very slippy. We were driving through thick ice, and we'd hit the point of no return, we couldn't turn back, we had to go for it. The end was in sight, we were at the top. Then the wheels started spinning and we started to slip backwards, just stopping short of a fence. We were in a bit of trouble. We collected some drystone wall bricks and put them behind the wheels, this stopped us slipping further back. Ben came up with several defrosting plans, amongst which were, Boiling water; urinating by the wheels ; setting fire to the Tarmac with an aerosol can, and using a full can of de-icer, to his credit this did manage to clear the area around the front wheels, which when we were finally dragged out of our predicament by a local farmer and his tractor, helped our escape. Once we were freed we sheepishly set off home, plans for fishing Anglezarke were well and truly scrapped. We still managed to wet a line though, we once again settled on The Sluice. No Pike to report. But not catching fish was the least of our worries today. No more trips to the reservoir when it's icy. Lesson learned!
Ben inspects the situation
