How's it fishing?

Since establishing the fishery in 1995, this is the question that we are asked the most often!  

The simple truth is that how you go about catching a fish doesn’t really change very much.  So, what we’ve attempted to do in this article is to give you the best tips that we can so that you have a great day’s fishing all year round.  These are based on our observations of the people that catch the most fish…

Scale down your tackle.  The people that are most successful here, at any time of the year, fish with an 16-18 hook, typically with a 1.5lb bottom line.  Feed sparingly and often.  

There are exceptions to this rule.  For example, if you are presenting a hook bait of paste or luncheon meat, you can get away with a  12-14 hook.  Also, if you are fishing on the surface, small pieces of white bread, about the size of a £1 coin, free-lined on the surface will also work with a 12-14 hook.  

Float fishing seems to be the most productive on our lakes.  The most common ‘special tactics’ we’ve been told about are feeding liquidised sweetcorn over sweetcorn and, if you use luncheon meat or any other hook bait, remember a fish can smell a lot better than it can see!  Therefore, make your hookbait smell as much as possible.  That’s why, in our experience, curried luncheon meat works better than plain luncheon meat.  

A common misconception is that baits are either less or more successful at at different times of the year.  An example of this would be that a 100lb bag caught in the middle of the winter on bread crust shouldn’t work – some magazines might tell you this but our fish don’t seem to read any of these magazines!  Most baits (see the extensive list below) work well at any time of year.

Another misconception is that there are ‘magic areas’ to fish.  All our fish have fins and move around!  Get your tactics right and the fish will come to you.

Fish to the margins or out in open water?  Try both – 'show us a patient angler and we’ll show you one with no fish'.  Meaning: if what you’re doing isn’t working, change your tactics!

Plumb the depth – most of the fish feed on the bottom so it’s important to accurately plumb your swim.

‘Have they spawned?’ or ‘Are they spawning?’  are commonly asked questions.  The fish spawn in a very short period of time.  We have witnessed them spawning at 4am and it’s all been over by 10am - the water looks like a pot of boiling water with the fish close to the surface.  What we don’t know is exactly when it will happen or sometimes even if it has happened - different species of fish spawn at different times of the year.  

Sometimes individual fish will thrash around in the margins to remove something like a small parasite (a hook worm for example) this can often be mistaken for spawning.  

A tip from an expert: some years ago we asked the very well-known angler, Des Shipp, if he could pass on one tip to our customers, what would it be.  His advice was that there’s no such thing as a bad bite.  If the float moves even just the smallest amount, strike because a fish has moved it.  

Another tip from a good local angler is that if you are feeding micro-pellets (or any other groundbait) imagine that they have cost you £1,000 per kg, in other words feed them very sparingly as you want to attract the fish not feed them!  

The best baits: the list is fairly endless but all these have been successfully used on our lakes:

Floating baits:

Bread crusts and dog biscuits as floating bait together with any of the following

Hookbaits: 

Maggots

Sweetcorn

Bread punch

Flavoured meat

Luncheon meat

Pellet paste (cheese and curry)

Banded pellets

Chopped worms

Cat food

Cockles

Macaroni cheese

Baked beans

Anything smelly from your fridge that will stay on your hook!

Groundbaits:

Most readily available groundbaits work but liquidised bread, liquidised sweetcorn and micro-pellets are particularly effective.

Lastly, and most importantly - please look after the fish:  

Before you start to fish you must have:

• Barbless hooks
• A disgorger
• A fish-friendly landing net capable of holding a 10lb+ fish
• A landing mat.  As all our lakes contain fish over 10lb you must have a landing mat to place the fish on whilst you de-hook it to avoid damaging the fish.  You must not place any fish directly on to the grass, ground or swim even if it's in a landing net.  

We allow keep nets but they must be fish-friendly.  You must not mix different sizes of fish in the same keepnet to avoid smaller fish being damaged or crushed - for example a large tench can crush a small carp.  If you wish to keep all your fish in a net then you must use separate nets for the large and small fish.

Our full list of fishery rules can be found here.

If you'd like to take a photo of your fish then you must ensure that the fish (particularly if it's a large one) is held safely ie close in to your body with both hands (be careful to avoid the fish coming into contact with zips/buttons on your clothing) and, if the fish is large, make sure you are kneeling down with the fish held above your landing mat.  Once you've taken that photo...

Send us your photos & reports:  We love it when customers send us photos of their catches along with the details of what baits and tactics they’ve used and we regularly share and feature as many as we can on our Facebook/Instagram/Twitter feeds and on our website gallery.  If you’d like to be featured, read our tips for taking a good photo by following this link Gallery  

And that's all there is to it - happy fishing!