After many, many trips past this fishery whilst driving the M40 I finally decided to utilise the Bank Holiday Monday to giving it a go. Having done some limited research on the web (there isn't much info if you're not into big carp) I arrived at the venue just before 7am armed with a range of baits planning to fish heavy pole gear on House lake. This was not to be.
The gates opened as advertised at 7am, and despite their being just two cars in front of me the car park was full, as was house lake. Now I have no problem with overnight anglers, or fishery owners that decide to let folks fish overnight, but I have to say I always find it disappointing that no matter how early you get up, how carefully you plan your trip and diligently organise your gear that you cant get a decent choice of pegs because of carpers. Added to that, it was galling to see that the specimen lake mostly empty – clearly these carpers wanted easy fishing rather than the lake set up for them.
So plan B was on to Len's Match Lake to see what could be produced. This is a small lake about 4ft deep that is mostly rectangular with a couple of circular inlets. Running down the middle of the rectangle is a line of lily pads, but they looked just outside pole range. One side of the lake has no space for shipping a pole back, and the other side had bivvies. It was not looking like a good day. I could see a small space on the 'open' bank only for a couple of kids to settle there while I dragged my trolley along, so I settled for a peg at the far end of the rectangle, this gave me open water, a margin and a chance to reach the pads as three lines. Although this was a bit of a walk, this would have to do.
I potted in some pellets on my two 11m lines, straight ahead and 2 o'clock by the pads, while I sorted out my gear (which was looking a little heavy). By the time I had a rig sorted and had plumbed both lines, each pot of feed had generated a jacuzzi and so it appeared there were fish to be caught. Out went the heavy rig, with a large expander pellet on the pad line and... not much happened. A few tries later and finally a hittable bite, and a 4oz carp. Not quite what I was hoping for. A persevered on the line for about an hour, highlight was a tench of 3lb, but mostly small carp, tench and the odd crucian showed up – an hour in I'd reached about 10lb in weight, but this was not great fishing, I tried a lighter rig with smaller hook and bait – this gave better, more frequent bites, but small fish. Time for something different.
As I'd been feeding some pellets had landed on the lily pads, and the small carp had been becoming more and more active in the pads, there was lots of slurping evident, and the odd set of lips and back could be seen – time to shallow up and try for these fish. Alternating between the heavy and light rig, and using pellets and corn about 12ft deep I started to get the odd fish, mostly carp, but they were better, it was a little concerning catching so close to the pads, but by applying pressure as soon as the bite occurred, it was possible to steer most of the fish away from the pads. Over the next hour I made better progress and added about 20lb to my weight, with the odd better fish in the 2-3lb range appearing. The knack was in the feeding, fire out some pellets, but try to get 2/3rds in front of the pads and the rest on the pads, this seemed to keep the fish up in the water, but looking for bait around the pads and happy to pick at my corn falling through the upper layers nearby. Experimentation showed the fish were nervous of the pole overhead, so a long rig swung out seemed to work better.
And then, just when I felt I sussed it out and got the fish feeding it all stopped. Time for plan C in the margin. The margin produced a few roach on corn and then a common of just under 5lb before that two went dead. It was time for a rethink.
I re-fed my main open water pole line and decided to try dead depth with big pellet. After a few minutes the float buried and bang... a decent bream that went about 3lb. Now if I could get these going with the odd carp, that would work. It didn't. A few iffy bites later and the jacuzzi was in full flow. If I used a big bait, there were no bites, if I used a small bait I'd get iffy bites and the odd small fish (baby crucians and skimmers) and the carp were generally awol, if I tried shallow over the feed then there was nothing. I clearly had something wrong and I wasn't really set up for delicate fishing. (However, despite all my faffing about, I was still outcatching all the other anglers I could see, and probably put together, so it wasn't all bad).
So back on the pads line set shallow. This time a little closer to me and with a dedicated shallow rig. Within 10 minutes the carp were back up on the pads, and the occasional fizz from below suggested some of the pellets were getting through, but most were not. Eventually the bites resumed, not rapid, but frequent enough to get the odd fish and by using corn I was able to have a couple of strikes before losing the bait (something that pellet did not give me). Over time the fish started to come, a mix of fish – crucians, brown goldfish, fan-tailed goldfish, small carp (commons and mirror) – nothing big, but pushing 3lb at times. I lost a couple of fish to hook pulls and snags in the pads, although the vast majority came out.
A couple of hours later and I'd finally got the weight ticking along to about 75lb for the session, when yet again it went quiet. After 15 more minutes of experimentation, I decided to call it quits. It had been an interesting session, but not a great one. Most the fish I'd caught were in good condition, but some of the larger carp had clearly seen a few too many hooks – I've seem worse, but it would suggest too many over-gunned anglers on a small lake.
Overall impressions of the fishery were mixed, this could well be a good place to try in the cooler months – the presence of small eager to feed fish could well provide sport in the depths of winter, but the open nature of the site might might make it a bit cold. It's not the most tranquil of places, you can screen out the noise of the M40, but there was a constant alarm going off throughout the day, which was harder to deal with, so that was not ideal and the camped out carpers were annoying.
So, I might be back, but not soon. There are obviously some good fish in there, but difficult to see how you catch them regularly. General sentiment from the regulars was that it'd fish hard today – House lake had produced very few fish and other anglers on my lake had struggled. Time for something else next time.
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