Sheephouse Farm, Maidenhead, 17th May 2012

And now for something completely different. (I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere).

Having had a trawl through a few websites, I came across a fishing venue site called spotfish. I plugged in my postcode and it suggested a few venues. Most of these I knew about, but one of the closest was new to me – Sheephouse Farm in Maidenhead. So, for a change I decided to give it a go, if I'm not careful I end up fishing the same venues, so I like to mix things up for a change and the attraction of fishing a tench lake sounded like an interesting diversion.

I arrived at the venue at 7am. Paid up (£7.50 for one rod) and wandered down to the lake with my usual pile of gear. I chatted to one of the regulars who advised I didn't need to go too far out, and that corn was the in bait at the moment. The things that struck me straight away were:

1. what a lovely peaceful place
2. how clear the water was (I could see at least 6 foot down)
3. how quickly it dropped off (it was 6 foot down just a few yards out)
4. how big the lake was – about 6 acres
5. the nice features on the far side that screamed tench (maybe next time)

I set up on a nice concrete peg with a view to fishing two pole lines. 11 metres straight out, and 11 metres to the left at the bottom of the slope (about 3 metres from the bank). I potted in a few 4mm pellets and had a go at plumbing up.

I had a suitable rig for the inside line (7ft deep) but I had to knock up a new one for the main line as it was about 12ft deep out there. A quick 0.8g float set-up to 0.12 line and a 16 hook and I was in business. 

Deep, clear water near the bank

 

I started with double red maggot - thought this might give me problems with the smaller fish, but you have to start somewhere. 20 minutes dead ahead and absolutely nothing. So I tried the left hand line. 

 

Five minutes later and the float moved a little, and 30 seconds later it dipped sharply. I struck and yards of no.12 elastic shot out. Contact. A spirited fight later and I started to see a tench coming up through the clear water – it was an amazing sight to see the fish coming up towards the surface (makes such a change from heavily coloured waters). Before I knew it, there was 4lb of tench in the landing net. 

 

I re-fed both lines (trying to concentrate the feed) with a few pellets plus a pinch of corn and red maggot and went back to the left hand line. 10 minutes later and a repeat performance. A lovely tench in clear water was just about to come into netting range when the hook pulled out. Not ideal, but not a disaster – if I could keep catching tench like this I didn't care.

I switched around a bit at this point. Tried the other line (nothing), and on a trip back to the left hand line I had another bite and another good tug on the elastic, but again the hook pulled. So I stepped up to a 14 hook. At this point another angler turned up to my left (about 20 metres away), although he was relatively quiet, he did bang some banksticks in and chuck out a few leads... and I never did get another bite on this line.

I persevered with the straight ahead line, and a bite on maggot produced a tench of 4lb 4oz, before losing another. I tried corn (nothing) back to maggot (small perch) and big pellet (nothing) but the fish were clearly moving around rather than settling, and the breeze that had picked up was hampering both feeding and presentation. 

 

The perch were tiny, but not so numerous as to be a real pain, and one switch back to corn produced another tench of 4lb 8oz. Try as a might for the next two hours, all I could manage was a few small perch. The few other anglers about had taken the odd fish too, but even they had dried up as we approach midday.

I tried a few more tricks, but only perch resulted.

At about 13:30 I called it quits. This is a very interesting venue and one I would like to crack – I can see how some folks could catch well over a dozen fish in a session on the right day. Great scenery, quiet venue, red kites overhead and well away from the usual carp-waters (although there are some big grass carp present). I will be back at some point.

Catch list:

Tench - 3

Perch – 10

Total weight 13lb

Three Island Lake, Stewkley, 10th May 2012

Having been frustrated somewhat with the poor weather of late, at the first signs of a dry day I decided to try and catch a fish or two.

Target today was a new venue that I'd found on the internet ages ago and always meant to have a go at. So Three Island Lake at Stewkley (near Leighton Buzzard) was the destination. Information was a little sketchy (bar that on fisheries.co.uk) but it sounded like a semi-prolific little commercial lake on a farm. Different to my usual haunts, so what the heck.

Arriving a few minutes after 7am, I paid the £8 day ticket and headed to the car park to find three other guys unloading carp gear. It was very wet underfoot, and the path to the lake was underwater, but the weather appeared to have broken, but there was a strong breeze blowing down the length of the lake. The three guys had set up opposite the islands with method feeder-type gear, so I headed towards the far end of the lake where the wind was less telling. This was not necessarily a great idea if the fish followed the wind, but if the rain came back, it might give me half a chance.

The lake is roughly oval, about 2 acres with about 30 pegs quite close together. The pegs are wooden construction, uneven, about 2 ft higher than the water level and absolutely lethal when wet (I set up extremely carefully). There are three islands on the lake, well set in the middle at 25-30m from the bank - well out of pole range, so I was happy to be fishing into open water with a little shelter. 

View down the lake

 

Opening gambit was 11mm expander and 11 metres over 4mm feed where I had about 4ft of water. This is my standard carp approach, if that doesn’t work I can go lighter / smaller, but if it works it deters the smaller fish that can be a problem on some venues.

After 20 minutes it wasn't working. I'd had a few knocks, but that was it. I was just pondering a switch to 6mm pellet when the float went under properly. A quick strike, firm resistance, and a 4lb common was in the landing net. Back out, same result but 2lb. Back out, bite 4lb common. This was starting to look promising. Bites were not instant, but there were fish present. Then, a baby common, maybe 6oz at a push. Then a quiet spell. Then a few more fish. 

5lb Common Carp

 

An hour in and I was pushing 25lb – which would be 40lb an hour if I'd caught in the opening 20 minutes.

I potted in some more pellets which killed the swim for 10 minutes. However, bubbles started to appear signalling the fish were back. Bites and fish continued to flow, mostly commons in the 3-5lb bracket, but the odd pasty that went 3 to the pound, but there were plenty of slow periods mixed in. 

 

What was noticeable were the swirls on the surface. Every time I hooked a good fish, another 3 would swirl, so there were clearly good fish up in the water too. I would try for them later.

I tried a few different things to try and improve the catch rate. Smaller pellet (no bites), shallow rig (one baby common), changing the feed pattern (nothing). Maybe it's just the time of year (given how cold and wet it's been lately).

One of the smaller carp

The fish kept ticking over, without ever really going crazy and after a little over 3 hours I was up to 70lb or so. The carp were typically 4lb, but a few smaller and larger examples to 6lb had showed. It was starting to slow down again, so I potted in some more pellets and fed a margin line as well and rested all the lined for 5 minutes while I made and received a few important phone calls.

Nothing really then happened for the next hour or so. A few smaller carp. The odd weigher, the odd foul hooker lost (from line bites). But whatever I tried, it didn't produce.

I plodded on. A few fish, but I never sussed it out. Shallow didn't really work (it was too windy to feed and fish properly) and when I did manage to have a go it produced two rudd and a baby carp. The margin briefly produced more baby carp. So I fed the main line heavy (two pots of pellets) and rested both lines for a few minutes while I grabbed some lunch and a few photos.

Eventually the 11 metre line started to bubble and a few bites developed. Not as fast as before, but steady. By 2pm I'd broken the 100lb barrier as the rain returned with a vengeance and by 2:30pm I'd made 110lb. At this point I decided to call it a day and go home – it's a fair drive and I really didn't want my gear getting any wetter than it already was.

Overall it's an interesting venue. I'm sure on the right day, if you can get the fish going, especially if you can catch shallow, you could put a really good weight together (at least 250lb). But today was not that day.

Catch list:

Common Carp – 40

Mirror Carp – 2

Rudd – 2

Total weight 110lb