Lincolnshire & the Fens
This is the flattest, most water-riddled landscape in England — a country of dykes, drains and slow rivers reclaimed from marsh over centuries, and precisely because of that, it's genuine pike country. The River Witham has centuries of coarse fishing history behind it (Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist, commissioned an illustrated survey of it back in the 1780s), running from Lincoln through Bardney and Southrey — once the beating heart of huge weekend match-fishing crowds arriving by coach and rail through the 1950s and 60s — down to Boston and the Wash.
Alongside the Witham and Welland, the fens themselves are laced with drains — the Hobhole, South Holland, North Level Main, South Forty Foot among them — nearly all with good bank access via the tracks and roads that run alongside them, and nearly all capable of producing a big autumn or winter pike when the water carries a touch of colour.
Rivers
River Witham
Flows from near Grantham through Lincoln, Bardney, Southrey and Boston to the Wash. Historically famous for bream and big pike around Bardney; still holds bream, roach, perch, chub, tench, carp and pike throughout, with the "Chicken Run" stretch near Boston still producing specimen bags today.
Bream · PikeRiver Welland
65 miles through the Midlands and Fens, running roughly parallel to the Witham further south — a similarly good mixed coarse fishery, with road access along most of its length.
CoarseRiver Ancholme
A separate North Lincolnshire river connecting to the Humber Estuary — good pike fishing alongside the Keadby drains and canal.
PikeRiver Great Eau
One of Lincolnshire's few genuine chalk-stream-character waters — trout and grayling fishing near Alford, a real change of pace from the fenland drains.
Trout · GraylingFenland drains
Hobhole, South Holland & South Forty Foot Drains
All good, accessible mixed coarse fisheries with roach, rudd, bream and pike — access is usually straightforward thanks to the tracks and roads built alongside them for drainage maintenance.
Coarse · PikeWitham Navigable Drains
Over 400 miles of drainage channels north of Boston, part of which is navigable in summer — a genuinely vast network for the coarse angler willing to explore.
CoarseEels
The Fens' original fish
Before drainage turned this into farmland, eels were the defining catch of the fenland waterways — the Witham and Welland were historically celebrated specifically as eel rivers, and the Domesday Book records 77 separate fisheries in the Lincolnshire fenlands, many paying rent in "sticks" of 25 eels rather than coin. Eels are still present in the rivers and drains today, though populations have declined sharply and the species is now critically endangered.
EelsGeneral guide only — access to rivers and drains varies by stretch and is often controlled by local angling associations (Boston & District AA among others); some free stretches exist but always confirm ownership before fishing unfamiliar water. Pike fishing on the fens is best in autumn and winter.
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