A Walk Round Lower Rivington Reservoir 5 Dec 13

Took the bus through Horwich to near Grimeford Village and made my way up New Road  to Horrobin Lane which separates Higher Rivington and Lower Rivington Reservoirs.

This is the Upper 

The dam in the distance is the end of Anglezarke Reservoir built in the 1850s.

Not sure of the name of the house. Ordnance survey and Google maps don't help much. 

This the Lower Reservoir with Rivington Pike and the tower in the far distance.Like the Anglezarke both these reservoirs were built in the 1850s to supply water to Liverpool.

Once across the dam there is a Tea Room, didn't stop.A little further on is Rivington Village again with a Tea Room. Both quite busy, wasn't expecting company.

 I headed back towards Horwich trying to stay as close to the water as possible. Apart from that I did not have a plan of where to go. There are lots of paths so I just followed my fancy, came upon an Arboretum, didn't know that was there. 

 Some Bracket Fungus on a couple of old tree stumps in the arboretum, hope they had not been chopped down to make way for the new trees.

The pike and tower, a bit closer now, with the Winter Hill TV mast to the side.

From here I followed a path that took me back to the waters edge.

 Looking back up from where I had come.

 I was surprised how low the water was, but then we have not had much rain over the last few weeks.

The pike and tower through the trees.

What about this? I didn't know that there is a castle in Rivington.

The couple in the distance told me about the castle, which it turns out to be a folly called Lever Castle.

It is actually supposed to be a scaled down copy of Liverpool Castle that Lord Lever started to have built in 1912.

Not far to go from here and I was back in Horwich where a caught a bus back to Bolton and then home.

    

Irwell Ladyshore Pike Fishing 3 Dec 13

Got the urge to go fishing today, it's the close season for trout, so I went to Ladyshore in the hope of catching some small pike. The river was low and clear, the weather was overcast and cold with no wind to speak of.
I fished a small green plastic lure on a nine foot spinning rod with an old Shakespeare spinning reel. I started above the old weir casting across and down the faster water, moving down stream until I got to the weir nothing.
Then I fished the weir pool, where I thought my best chance of fish would be, nothing again. So I moved down to the start of the slack water further down stream and had a fish after a couple of casts. Not a pike though a out of season trout.

 Nice clean fish , got it back into the water as quick as I could, and moved further down stream. 

  Where I caught another trout, a bigger one this time, I think it was full of roe as it had a soft swollen belly. Got it back in pronto and decided that was enough for the day.  

I didn't want to keep catching trout and disturbing their spawning, I will go back to my walking and leave the river fishing until March when the trout season starts again.