Early Horseshoe days

[OldBoy]

Just rooted out some old pics from the times I had on there when the CS took it over.

I was one of the anglers who paid the money for them to actually purchase the lake, not sure what is going on there now tho. 

Wondering if there is anyone on here who actually fished it back in the day, so many good memories and people I met there. as ever time moves on and lost contact with everyone.... no Mobile phones and social media in those days

[PureBlood]

On 08/10/2025 at 19:35, OldBoy said:

Just rooted out some old pics from the times I had on there when the CS took it over.

I was one of the anglers who paid the money for them to actually purchase the lake, not sure what is going on there now tho. 

Wondering if there is anyone on here who actually fished it back in the day, so many good memories and people I met there. as ever time moves on and lost contact with everyone.... no Mobile phones and social media in those days

hi, i moved to gloucester five years ago, and after fishing the scac waters (nightmare lol!) joined HS last spring.. full 1 year ticket cost me 680 quid - in my eyes a total ripoff, before folks pipe up here on the price, i was in a fishing club in my previous area for 30 years, 3 lakes no publicly, carp to 50+ lb in one pit, midweek hardly anyone fishing, all in for £370 per year that's todays price! and yeah its dead mans shoes to get in, and i jacked it lol as its too far to travel from glos.....

anyways..though I've done OK on HS fish wise, i hate the place!

reason being first up, the head bailiff is an absolute ******* (ask anyone who fishes it they will say the same thing) the other bailiffs are fine, and even though they know you have a ticket they check every time you set up! place is a gloried day ticket venue! they have many events so they close it so you can't fish it, essentially at weekends.

on the plus side, the lake is nice, 90% of anglers are OK, you get the odd [censored] but nothing compared to the muppets on scac waters!

i won't be renewing, probably this spring start looking at canals & rivers as the whole area carp fishing wise seems to be..who you know..or dead mans shoes, unless someone can tell me different? anyways apologies for moaning lol!

[Golden Paws]

I used to fish some of the South Cerney waters many years, mainly Ham Pool, Bradley's and Hill's for the tench before Watermark took the last two over.

The Bailiff they had then was a annoying old curmudgeon and he used to check my ticket every single time I was there. I think it was a 2 rod rule then and I had an old pike rod set up with Heath Robinson spod made out of an old washing up bottle. The good old days, if you wanted something, you had to make it, not like the kids of today........(better stop there, I'm sounding like one myself!)   After he checked my ticket, he shouted that it was a 2 rod rule and so I fired back at him that it was a spod rod and he turned  away laughing to himself - the old [censored] got me!

One day when he was in a more agreeable mood he told me a funny story. At Ham Pool there was a club house and bar and it included a fruit machine and one of his jobs  was to empty the cash from it. You could buy day tickets on the bank then and for juniors it was £1 in advance or £2 on the bank - I did say it was a long time ago! Anyway he came across 2 lads and they came out with the old "I've only got a £50 note trick". Quick as a flash, he went to his van and dumped £46 in pound coins on them! I bet they didn't try that again!