Toddington 28-03-2012

Suitably encouraged by a thread on maggotdrowning.com, I decided today to have a go at Toddington fishery, just north of Luton. I'd made one previous visit which was less than successful, so this time, armed with better information, I focused on the top lake for what I hoped would be some easy fishing for small carp.

Arriving a little before 7am, I paid and settled up on the top lake, which was reassuringly empty of anglers at the time. The lake is fairly small, typical of most commercial venues, with a small island that looked just out of pole range. I positioned myself round on the southern end where the island was closest to the bank and set up my usual pole set-up for pellet. 

My peg for the day

Plumbing at 11m revealed about 4ft of water and the same depth at 12.5m, so this looked a good place to start – I could always push further over the island later if needed. Expecting great things, in went an 11mm expander over 4mm feed pellets to await some action. Two put-ins, two knocks, no fish. Then a proper bite, a brief fight and an immaculate 4lb mirror was in the landing net. Not bad, now I needed to keep them coming. Within 25 minutes I'd added two more carp, but these were smaller at 2lb each and then bites went a bit iffy. A skimmer and goldfish followed, which explained quite a lot. But where had the carp gone? 

Typical stamp of the carp (all of which were immaculate)

I fed again and set up a lighter rig with a 14 hook for soft 6mm pellets. This was a complete failure. Nothing, almost as if the swim was devoid of fish. Back to the heavy rig and some more small fish, so I pushed over to 12.5m to see if the fish had backed off. A few more carp, but in the 1-2lb bracket, then more tench, goldfish and a crucian carp. But it was slow, there would be a few bites, then a lull then the odd bite, and the fish were smaller than I would have liked. The light rig was tried again, and again it failed – why didn't they want the small pellets that looked like the feed? Puzzling.

At this point I was getting a little frustrated. Surely there was more to be caught than this, or at least more often? Then I started to see a large tail emerge from the water at the edge of the island. A decent carp none-the-less, not huge but an easy 6lb+. Time to go to 14 metres.

Duly set up at 14m I started to attack the island line, it was about 3ft deep, with the last metre to the island being full of dead reeds and miscellaneous stick ups, so this was the limit. I started to get a few bites on 11mm pellet – a few small carp, some tench and a crucian. Then is slowed down again. Try as I might I could not get it going properly. Small pellet and maggot both failed, for some reason they wanted the big expander, which is unusual. I tried on the bottom (tench), up in the water (foul hooked F1) and found that an inch off bottom seemed to do the best. But it was hard work, a few fish, a few bites then nothing. 

14.5m across to the island

Small tench

I was thinking it was just me, but the other anglers on the water were doing even worse. Two guys fishing feeder to the island were blanking completely (in fact they packed up after 4 hours having caught nothing and they were regulars) and another pair of anglers fishing two rods each seemed to be blanking as well. So maybe it was just one of those days.

About 10:30am is started to get really hard as almost everything switched off. I started to try some other lines, including the margin and the deepest line at 8m, but apart from a few rudd on the inside, this didn't help. After about an hour of trying different things, the island line started to produce the odd fish again. I wasn't ripping up any trees, but at least I was catching a fish or two. Over the next few hours I caught a few carp and tench and added a 5lb mirror (best fish of the day) but the typical carp was about a pound, while the tench were 6oz on a good day.

I carried on for a while, but it was clear something was not quite right, of the other 7 anglers (11 rods in total) I could see, I'd not seen a fish caught all day and a chat with a regular said this was unusual.

So I bit the bullet and packed up about 1:30pm. I thought a few brownie points for getting home early would be worth missing 90 minutes of hard fishing.

As I packed up I saw 2 small carp caught by some of the other anglers, but clearly it was hard going. I think I made the right call. 

View from top lake looking down on middle and bottom lake

So all in all, a tough day. I managed a little over 40lb on a lake that seemed to have switched off. On a good day I imagine the venue could throw up an easy ton, but not today.

Catch list:

Common Carp – 15

Mirror Carp – 15

F1 carp – 2

Goldfish - 3

Tench - 8

Crucian - 1

Rudd – 5

Skimmers – 1

Total weight - 41lb

Wood Lane 21st March 2012 (First proper session of 2012)

Having a few days off and some nice weather forecast, I decided that a quiet day's fishing was called for. One of my local commercial venues (Wood Lane) seemed to fit the bill.

Arriving a little before 7am I headed for the far lake which supposedly contains the better fish. I have my usual strong pole gear with me and a wide selection of pellets, so this was an easy choice for a few fish (or so I hoped). Rather than fish my usual peg, I headed round to the far side of the island, and rather then limit myself to the shallow side, I went further round to give myself a decent margin swim and open water to the left if needed.

I potted in some pellets at 11m on a line to the left (open water) and right (towards the island) and plumbed up. 2.5ft on the right and 5ft on the left – the island swim worried me, the lake is a pretty uniform 5ft elsewhere so it might be challenging to get the fish to feed properly in the shallows at this time of year.

In with a lightish rig to a 16 hook on the island line produced 3 quick roach of a few ounce each on double white maggot (these were left over from a previous trip, so I thought I'd give them a go). Switching to 4mm hookers produced a few skimmers, but of no particular size. After about 20 mins I was back on the open water (left) swim. 16 hook and 4mm pellet eventually produced a bite... and lots of elastic. After a minute or so the fish was still going strong and the hook pulled. Slightly annoyed but typical. I toyed between resting the left hand line, but went in again just in case there were fish present on the deep line. There were. In the course of 10 mins I landed a couple of carp (4lb and 2lb) and a couple more skimmers.

I rested the left line and tried the right again. A brief wait on pellet and another 2lb carp. I wasn't ripping up and trees, but this was good for March. Then it went quiet. So both lines were re-fed and a second rig was made up for the left with a larger hook for 8 and 12mm expander pellets. Out with the big rig and an immediate bite, another 3lb carp. Then a couple of missed bites (skimmers playing with the expander, I suspect) then another carp and then. Nothing. I cycled through the rigs and lines and nothing again. By this time the sun was just starting to break through and the pegs around the lake were starting to fill up – so these may have been factors.

I tried a few different things and picked up some small skimmers, and then went over to the island again, but pushed right out to 14.5m – they'd been signs of a large carp (probably a double) in the margin reeds, so this was worth a punt.

Three bites in three put-ins, produced three carp, but not the double, maybe going 8lb between the three of them. And then, nothing.

And that was the end of the regular bites. Try as I might, apart from a couple more small carp it was mostly skimmers on pellets and a range of small fish on maggots. Large pellet couldn't buy a bite, small pellet got ignored and the shallow water to the right limited me for more swims.

The only good news is that I was doing better than anyone else on the lake – which is hard reading given that 100lb pleasure weights are common on this venue all year round.

So after hours of trying and struggling and watching several anglers blank completely, I packed up at 2pm and headed home. Not bad for March, but I cant help thinking that I'd selected the wrong peg and/or caught the venue on the wrong day. Maybe one of the deeper corners or the pegs on the deep side of the island would have been more productive.

Catch list:

Common Carp – 9

Mirror Carp – 1

Rudd – 3

Skimmers – 30

Perch – 1

Roach – 10

Total weight - 40lb

Finch Farm, 31/12/11

Having had an unusually mild spell for December, I decided a day's fishing was called for. Plan of action was to have a day out at Wood Lane Fishery in Iver. However this was not to be. Duly sat outside the venue at 0745 (just before dawn) and the gate was locked. A phone call later revealed that they were not open today... so plan B was called for, Finch Farm in Maidenhead matched the bill.

I've only fished this venue once before – earlier in the year (28/4/11) when I got an idea of what was present. Lots of smaller fish and bites, so probably suitable for the winter when I'm pleased if the float goes under a few times.

I arrived about 0830 to be first in the car park, to find a warm breeze blowing from the south west. This could be problematic if it rained (as had been threatening on the drive there) but better to be fishing than not, so I got the gear out. The good news at Finch Farm is that there is a bank between the two pools and this was offering quite some protection from the breeze, so I took the decision to fish peg 39 on the island of main lake. The venue is quite unusual in that there are two rectangular islands on the main lake, and you can fish from one of them to the other and easily reach the island with 11m of pole. This is easy fishing, but it doesn't offer you many options if the fish aren't there.

Whilst setting up the bailiff, Lech, came and had a chat. A thoroughly nice guy. I think he was rather surprised to see anyone fishing at this time and even brought me a cup of tea a little later on. Most welcome!

I was set up and fishing the pole by about 0855. Having plumbed up I fed three lines via pole pot using maggot and a pinch of 4mm pellets – dead ahead 8.5m, left to a bush at 10m and right to the far bank at 10m. The peg was 3-4ft deep most of the way across and then started to shelve up dramatically at 9m with the far side being very shallow, so backing off into the deeper water was preferred. (In a previous visit I'd found the far shallows to be too shallow and therefore unproductive).

Left hand swim:

Right hand swim:

The idea was to start on maggot and try pellet at some point, given the time of year this seemed like a good plan. First put in on maggot dead ahead produced a bite and a good roach of 6oz or so. Next put in another roach (maybe a little smaller). Then a gudgeon. Then it went quiet. The right hand swim produced more roach, all of a good stamp and then died a little. Left hand swim, a couple of quick roach, then back to the right for a few more.

Within half an hour I'd had about 20 nice fish, but nothing amazing so I played around with the presentation. Bites had been coming when the float had fully settled and then some, so I pushed the bulk down. I now had slower bites. I tried coming off bottom, laying on, double maggot, fishing past the maggot feed, fishing nearer. I still got bites but it was slower. I tried a small expander in both far lines. Nothing. Hmm.

At the hour mark I had maybe 25 fish – mostly good roach and I'd lost a small mirror (maybe 6oz) at the net. I re-fed with the pot on the two far lines (maggot and pellet again), the right hand one was the more productive but you needed two good lines to the keep the fish coming and the left hand one was not so good. The feeding seemed to kill the swim for a bit, but slowly the fish came back. Roach continued to come in and the odd other fish showed up. Small carp in the 6-12oz range, little plump goldfish and some carp-type thing that looked like cross between a goldfish and an F1. Changing the presentation made it to 50 fish at two hours.

Plenty of roach like this:

Smaller carp:

Goldfish:

I stopped briefly to have something to drink and decided to try a lighter rig – I was missing a fair few bites so I thought I'd see if I could convert a few more. I pulled a canal rig out of the box (K2 4x12 to 0.11 line to a 0.10 hooklength and size 20 K611 barbless) shotted with styls for a slow fall and went across. The rate of bites increased and so did the confidence and hooking rate. More roach and a few gudgeon followed as did the small carp and goldfish and a few other things as well – a few nice rudd and dace added to the haul as I kept the lines ticking over.

At about 1300 I'd had 100 fish and decided to have some food and try the 6mm pellet while I did so (I find this is a good way to try things that might not work for a few minutes). It had failed earlier but why not give it a go? Half way through my roll and the float dived under and an 8oz common came in. Hmm. Re-bait and try again. Another bite, this time a plump goldfish. I persevered on pellet, feeding a pinch of 4mm pellets on each line and switching between produced a steady line of carp and goldfish, nothing amazing but good fish up to 1lb came in from both lines. Sometimes it would slow and I pulled out of a couple of foul-hooked fish, but all-in-all it was enjoyable.

After an hour of so (and 15 more fish) I hit a better ghostie of 1lb or so and a common that was an easy 1lb 8oz (I'd forgotten the scales) which turned out to be the best fish of the day and made it to 1500 with 130 fish. I then experimented for the last 30 minutes to see what else might work. Maggot on the top 3 produced a few quick roach, laying on heavy got a few fish off the far side, but it was slow. So at 1530 I packed up, 138 fish later for an estimated 36lb or so. Not bad for December 31^st.

Catch list:

Common Carp – 30

Mirror Carp – 2

Ghost Carp – 2

Goldfish – 10

Goldfish/F1 - 15

Rudd – 4

Dace – 3

Gudgeon - 13

Roach - 58

River Colne, 24/12/11

Having been off work for the last week and busied myself with some deeply depraved acts (I painted the utility room), I was allowed out for a few hours to drown a few maggots.

I settled for a local stretch of the river Colne. In summer it produces a decent bag of small fish, so I thought I try it in winter. There are a few big fish present too, but they rarely show and the cormorants have had everything else in between.

I planned to work my way through half a dozen or so swims, these have a little shelter and tend to be more productive than the ones offering easy access to the black death. So at 0845 I ran the stick float down the banker swim, which always produced plenty of bites in the summer. Nothing. Ten minutes later still nothing.

Swim 2. Repeat. Exact repeat. Nothing.

Swim 3. Repeat. Exact repeat. Nothing.

Swim 4. Repeat. Bite eventually. Minnow.

10 minutes later, 20 minnows. Time to move on.

Swim 5. Nothing.

Swim 6. Nothing.

Swim 7. Nothing.

Then I worked my way back up. Nothing again until swim 4. More minnows. Just as I was settling in, two dogs appeared in the river just above me and I was just about to give the owner an earful when I realised it was this bloke. So I bit my lip and carried on.

10 minnows later so I moved back to swim 1. Nothing.

Then two more swims further up stream. Double nothing.

Still. Don't care. Went fishing. Caught fish. Job done.

Boddingtons, 9/9/11

Dear reader, please pull up a drink, grab a chair and enjoy today's angling tale. It is a simple story of triumph over adversity, dirty goings on, incompetence, fish, slime and hairy arsed northerners. If this does not sound like your cup of tea then do not read on. (After all, not everyone likes hairy arsed northerners in their cup of tea.)

I do not get many chance to fish these days, contrary to me recent write-ups, due to a young family I mostly only manage short sessions on the local rivers, which whilst enjoyable, are not the same as a proper day out, of which their have been few this year (I think 6 so far in 2011). So I decided to use some of my vacation time to have a few day's out.

So by way of what is probably a final full session of the year I decided to head up the M40 to Boddingtons, a trip of some 75 miles. Not something I do on a whim, but as a special treat I thought why not?

I have a love-hate relationship with the place. I always catch, but I never bag up properly – in three previous visits I've seen what it can do, but only in fits and starts. On one occasion I had 80lb of fish in an hour, only for it to dry up. One day it'll click and I'll put a decent bag together.

So after a decent drive I arrived at Boddies about 0715, got the gear out the car, checked the match list (pegs 75-105 were booked) and carried the gear up the ramp. This worked out well for me, I fancied having a go on the damn (pegs 1-30), hopefully I could do some damage with the pole before moving onto other things. Then I saw the water level. Low wasn't the word for it. First 10 pegs unfishable, pegs 40-60 had 50 yards of mud in front of them. It was chronic.

Unperturbed I continued along the damn, there were but a few anglers there (thanks to my early start) so I wandered down until I saw a few fish near peg 16 – several splashes and a few heads were showing close in, so I settled on peg 15 – there was a clear gravel section at the base of the steps, and this looked perfect for my seatbox.

I set up, fed, plumbed and found a mere 2ft of water. Not what I expected, but enough to try. This was my classic large fish gear – 11m pole, 0.20mm line, size 8 hook, 11mm expander, 22 elastic. I could see movement over my feed as I shipped out at 0745. The float shot under, but no contact was made. Back out again the float shot under. Contact. A brief struggle later and 12lb on mirror was in the landing net. Nice.

Back out. Repeat. 10lb mirror. Back out. Repeat. 6lb common. Three foul hookers lost. Then a few more fish. I paused briefly to reorganize my kit – unhooking mat and coat repositioned behind me on the steps to protect my pole from the concrete and back to fishing.

An hour in and all was going well. 59lb in 60 minutes was excellent pace, visions of a superb session were filling my mind when I noticed in the distance a group of hairy arsed northerners at the top of the ramp. I thought little of it, often the match guys hang around for draws and stuff. I cupped in some more feed, tweaked the rig was about to get stuck in again when a voice appeared from behind me. “Sorry mate you've got to move there's a match on these pegs”. The bailiff no less.

I had a chat with him. Apologised and packed up, rather annoyed. As I neared the top of the ramp I thought I'd check the board again, as did some other anglers who's also been evicted. True enough, there was no match shown on the board for pegs 10-30. I spoke to the bailiff again, he was far from apologetic, but I was now facing a long walk, setting up again, having to fish the pellet wag/method (not my preferred approach) and the best pegs (or those with a little bit of water) had already gone (it was after 9am at this time). To say I was a little annoyed was an understatement. I've got up early, driven a decent distance, got a peg going and now I was back to square one with a choice of poo pegs on my day off and probably my last session of the year. I was not a happy bunny.

I grabbed my wellies from the car and headed off around the damn wall. I went past the next group of hairy arsed northerners setting up in the 80s and off into the distance. Through the gate, onto the mud flats and off to what was probably peg 110 ish. Well beyond where the next match group were due to be. I was not happy.

Having found a nice boggy patch to set up, I liberally coated me and myself with mud. I set up the pellet waggler and thrashed this about for a good half hour. One bite, one 7lb mirror, and great difficulties landing it. It was horrendously shallow. I had less than 6 inches of water at 3m where the landing net was. This was not fair on the fish. I changed to my wellies at this point and had a paddle. If I caught again, I would wade out a short way to improve conditions for landing fish.

At this point the next group of hairy arsed northerners arrived. They pegged well beyond their designated space, but thankfully stopped 50 metres short of me. I was not moving again, and I didn't want to have other people fishing on top of me. They were noisy, disruptive and lairy. Not something I like. But eventually they settled down.

However, there was a problem. Try as they might, they couldn't find enough depth for their keepnets. Not a single net was submerged at the end ring, let alone for any significant length. This didn't seem to bother them, I cant say I approved. Given the size of the fish in Boddies you shouldn't be retaining fish in keepnets in less than a foot of water. Period. And given the likelihood of someone catching 100 lb plus of fish (and then some), the mind boggles. Sorry BW, but you have to sort this out.

I ploughed on and tried the feeder for a while. Nothing. I went back to the pellet wag, nothing. However, there were signs of fish moving. So I tried working the wag a little closer, feeding heavily. Still no bites, but there were fish moving. So I thought nothing ventured... and dug the pole out.

I removed the based from my box, carried the box out a few metres (to improve the depth and use of the landing net). And set up for fishing at 11m. A big pot of pellets went in and I plumbed up. 12 inches ish. I was about to give up when I saw a tail and some swirls over the bait. What the heck. Out I went with an 11mm expander.

A few knocks later, experimentation with the presentation and a brief foul-hooked fish and clearly there were fish to be caught. Then the float buried, I struck, yellow elastic going off to the horizon. 9lb mirror in the net, with looks of astonishment from the hairy arsed northerners to my left. Hmm.

I was concerned that due to the shallow water that I'd struggle for regular bites – surely they'd spook as soon as I hooked one. But no, within a couple of minutes the swirls were back. Bites were still at a premium, occasionally the float would go, sometimes it'd connect and another fish would visit the net. (Landing the fish in the shallow water was a game in itself, but I soon found a method that worked).

This was the pattern for the next hour or so, not frantic, but steady. Smaller fish than on the damn wall, typically 7 or 8lb, but not bad when all things are considered. I was starting to build a tidy weight, maybe 30lb to the hour (at a push) which was considerable more than the match next door. (I could see envious looks in my direction whenever there was elastic pouring out.) I experimented with a 14 hook and a smaller pellet in case it improved bites. It did. From the roach. Back to the big pellet.

About 1pm it all slowed down. The swirls were gone, the tails were not there, and I went the best part of an hour without a bite. Hmm.

I grabbed something to eat, flicked the pellet wag over the line and had a few minutes to think. Nothing.

So back on the pole. Potted out some pellets and gave it a few minutes. After a little while the fish came back. Feed heavy, fish over the top, get a few bites, land a few fish and repeat. This seemed to be the pattern about 200ml of pellets every 3 fish seemed to work now, it appeared we'd gone through the midday famine and the fish were on again. Through the 100lb barrier in the new peg, then 120, 140 before it was time to think about packing up.

One last fish about 3:30 produced a big mirror of 15lb. And that was that.

Final weight from the new peg was 166lb to add to the 59lb from earlier. Not bad, but I cant help thinking of what might have been if I'd had peg 15 all day.

A long drag back to the car, a long drive home.

It'd been an ok day, but I have to say with the disruption, the lost time and the relocation I hadn't really enjoyed myself as I would have liked.

Till next time.

A few photos:

The setup, I wasn't going to win any tidiness awards today.





The rig, this was overdepth by about 6 inches



Typical stamp fish (8/9 lb)





This is how shallow it was at 3m from the bank - this was a recovering mirror having been released from the landing net.

Milton Pools, 29/8/11

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.

Rolf's Lake 7/9/11

I'd fancied fishing Rolf's for years, but never had the chance or inclination; I don't really enjoy match fishing and I didn't want to shell out on an open just to have a play. However, thanks to a thread on MD I found out about pleasure fishing the lake, and a few phone calls later, I was booked in to fish.

I arrived in time for the 8am opening, suitably breakfasted, armed with tackle and ready to have a go. Objectives for the day were (1) not blank & (2) not embarrass myself.

I met John Bennett in the car park, paid up, bought some fishery pellets and asked about pegs. John kindly showed my around some pegs (22-19) and made a few suggestions. I settled on peg 19, (scene of a former Godber experience I believe), at the right hand end of the lake, this has a bush tight to the left, a long margin away to the right and a tree/bush extending into the water at 10m on the right. These were the suggested target areas.

I set up three pole lines. 3 metres to the left under the bush, 8m straight out and 10m to the right towards the trees. Plumbing up I found that all three lines were similar depths, (give or take a pole float length), so I decided to start with one 0.20mm rig to size 10 hook and adjust the depth between lines.

Each line fed with 6mm pellets and in I went with a large expander on the hook and waited for the action to start. 10 minutes straight out. Nothing. Right, nothing. Left, nothing. I ran through the different lines, pellet, paste, nothing.

55 minutes after starting fishing the float finally buried on the straight ahead line. A brief fight and a pound and a half bream lay in the landing net – hooked fairly and squarely in the anal fin. Objective (a) achieved, blank avoided. Sort of.

With renewed enthusiam I started reworking the lines. Nothing again. I set up a lighter rig to a 14 hook for the straight ahead line in case the skimmers were present. Nothing, although there was the odd dip and rattle on the float. Hmm.

Almost to the minute, an hour after the bream, the lighter rig dipped on the straight ahead line and suddenly there was proper resistance. The fish hung deep and steady, the yellow elastic compensated and soon the common carp surfaced and slipped into the landing net. All 12lb 8oz of it. Nice.

Back out again, suitably boosted that the fish had appeared. Nothing for an hour. Then two fish shed the hook. Two quick bites on corn (missed both). Then nothing. Then a quick bite and very brief fight and a 6lb 8oz common.

Then nothing for an hour.

Out to the right line and eventually I started to get little knocks, suggesting there were fish present. Eventually a half hearted bite. Nothing. Another one. A biref fight and a hook pull. Then a proper bite and yellow elastic everywhere.

A good five minutes later and a foul-hooked common eventually found the landing net. It'd been hard work and but 16lb 8oz of carp was in.

I reworked the line on the right, played with the presentation and started to see regular knocks. Seems like the fish had turned on. A few false starts and then the fish started to flow for the next hour or so. 5-8 mirror. 5-0 common. 9-0 mirror. 12-0 common. 12-0 mirror. All in the space of an hour.

Then it went quiet. So I refed and tried the line to the left. A few bobbles of the float, so I deepened off and tried paste. 3 minutes and a run away bite. 11-8 common.

Back in on the left and five minutes later another wrenching bite, but this was a big fish. 10 minutes later and it was all but under control, a brief view of the fish showed it to be a big common, maybe 20lb or so and possibly foul-hooked near the head.

It made one last gasp run, elastic nearly bottomed out. And then the hook pulled. Oh dear (or words to that effect).

Try as I might I could not buy another bite for the next hour or so before I needed to pack up. But I'd had a fish or two, 5 doubles, no tackle breaks and I leant one or two things should I come back. A good day (90lb), but clearly there is more to learn on this venue.

I may be back at some time.