Fact Finding mission no2

#1

John and I are off to try out Oakwood Fishery near Ingatestone on Tuesday. They have a 24 peg match lake which hopefully will just be big enough for a club outing

Anyone want to join us ????.

#2

And the result was???

#3

Dave and I turn up, We when to the Match lake and there was nobody else there, it was a lovely quiet pretty lake which has 22 pegs. So we had a look around and i selected Peg 8 in the corner by the gate which had a lot of rashes and dave went to the next peg with a small tree overhanging into the lake. it was shallow about 18'' deep at top 3. the end result i had 10 carp for approx 50lb and Dave had 13 carp for about the same. Boy do these carp fight

. This fishery has just been taken over in April this year and previouly was unfishable, the new owners have put in 22 platforms, tided it up, and stocked it with loads of carp,they said there has only been 3 matches here, but this lake does contain some big Cat fish which they want to get rid of, once they have they will interduce tench and bream. I like the lake

and i think it need to mature a little bit before we arrange a match there maybe end of next year or the year after. I will be going back there soon

.

#4

Well that was a nice pleasant day out. I met John at 10am and we took a walk up to the lake about 200 yards. It looks a very nice lake with either rushes or trees and bushes as a feature in every one of the 24 pegs. The only sounds were the occasional aircraft and the birds and wood pidgeons.

We had a good long chat with the two guys now running the lakes later in the day. Apparently the lake has been controlled by several clubs culminating with a guy who did “a runner” a while ago and up until last year was almost derelict. They took it over last year and have so far created a very nice natural looking lake and all the pegs are wood fronted and backfilled with bark. They have stocked 2000 carp of varying sizes along with some silver fish .

The main problem they have is that the previous guy stocked the lake with an unknown number of unauthorised catfish. As the lake is spring fed the EA have insisted they be removed but until they have managed to do that they are not going to add any more fish. The most effective way is by fishing for them and a number have already gone. ( I doubt they will ever manage to remove them all).

Right down to the fishing. I started at 7 metres with soft and hard pellet and managed a couple of small carp while John went for the margins and had a couple of much bigger fish at 4lb plus. It wasn’t bag up stuff and seemed that you caught one and then had to wait a while for another to show up.
I tried down my left margin under a bush and after getting broke on two foulhookers I upped my gear to .20 line and B911X hooks. The depth was only about 2 foot 6 or 8 inches different in the margins to the 7 metre line. This meant the fish took off at a rate of knots when hooked and my good do they pull hard.

After 5 hours john had 10 carp the smallest about 2 to 3lb with half of them between 5 and 8lb. I managed 13 but several of mine were small around the 1 to 2 lb range. Probably 40 to 50lb each. Based on the wait we had between fish I feel the lake is understocked for a club match and would be much harder with more than 15/16 on it. However with some more fish to create competition for the feed Im sure it will make an excellent place for 17/18 anglers a fact I made known to them before we left.

Im not sure its ready for a match next year but its certainly worth putting on the back burner for a match the season after. I shall certainly be back for a pleasure day.

#5

Sounds a good day guys......

#6

It was Simon. One of the most pleasant days out I have had for a while.