About Us
Ravenfield Ponds is an all year round coarse fishery in Rotherham, South Yorkshire available to fish exclusively through annual membership. Access is for key holding members only, who are asked to keep the gates locked at all times.
There are six angling ponds on site, plus two small stock ponds, whose sizes range from approximately a third of an acre to nearly three acres. Cars can be parked safely, within easy access and in sight of most pegs. The ponds are set in a beautiful valley, well away from roads and houses, which results in a very peaceful environment. The Park has not been farmed or cultivated for more than one hundred years and consequently wildlife thrives in the tranquil, diverse habitat. There are any number of visiting birds including owls and herons, animals such as bats, squirrels and foxes, together with some rare insects, plants and fungi. The Park is the only area in Rotherham where adders are found.
The ponds at Ravenfield hopefully offer a full range of angling opportunities, whatever your liking and expertise. There are four excellent mixed silver fisheries, a specimen carp pond available for night fishing (limited number of permits) and we have created a 'commercial' type mixed carp and silver fishery which is available for match booking by non-member clubs.
The four silver fish ponds all have an excellent head of rudd, roach, perch, bream and tench and most also contain crucian carp. Rudd and roach have been caught to well over a pound with perch to 3 pounds plus, tench and bream to 6 pounds plus and crucians to nearly two pounds. The specimen carp lake holds fish to 27lbs with the majority in excess of 15lbs. The newly developed mixed and small carp lake has an established stock of silver fish to which several hundred small commons and mirrors were added along with crucian carp and rudd. Since that first stocking in late 2005 a further stock of small carp was made in 2008. We like to think that we have created a fishery where you never know what you are going to catch when you lift into a fish, but with balanced tackle you have a good chance of landing it.
When walking around the site you will undoubtedly notice our fish refuges. Several years ago we suffered greatly from cormorant predation and at the time we couldn't take any direct action against them. To help overcome this problem we built the fish refuges, but now have a licence to shoot them! The refuges consist of wire mesh cages which sit on the pond bottom below floating islands, planted with vegetation that are anchored in the lakes. The fish can hide in these, safe from any fish eating birds that may venture onto the pond, although few dare these days !! The plants not only provide good spawning habitat and somewhere for fry to hide away from marauding perch, but also act as a filter, promoting better water quality and improving fish stocks.