Fishing At Slade Quarry Clay/Gravel Pit '70's.

A Memory of Bruton.

I am going back to the mid '70s here. I have found no reference to the lake anywhere, but it is not related to the Gurney Slade quarries.
As a schoolboy, living in Shepton Mallet, I was keen on fishing. I mostly went to Emborough Pond, or the River Brue at Baltonsborough. A schoolmate, Steve Payne(?) told me about a gravel/clay quarry that had been filled in with water.
I think it was on the Eastern side of the approach to Bruton, about a mile North of the town. We would buy a day ticket from the office near the Cenotaph in Shepton, & cycle down. All round the pit was abandoned quarry machinery, and the banks were clay, very steep & slippery. There were also many trees that had been left in when the pond was filled in, & we lost a lot of hooks & floats to them.
The place was full of Perch, and very variable. Somedays you could catch 10-20 fish, mainly small Perch up to a pound in weight, another you would only get a bite or two. On a good, clear day, you could see the fish below snatching the ground bait we threw out. Greedy little things - I was once dehooking a Perch I'd caught & about half a dozen maggots fell out of his mouth.
It was apparently 'filled in' during the mid/late '70's at short notice - came back to school after the summer break, asked my friend if he wanted to go there the next weekend, & heard the bad news.

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