Simple Match Fishing Forum

Another fact finding missionin the hunt for new venues for next year. Kevin Jean Tony and I are off to Claygate lakes on Thursday to fish Lake Eva. http://www.newclaygatelakes.co.uk/index.html

Anyone fancy coming along to join in the fun?

some nice bream in there looking at the site picces  ......would make a nice change to target them, look forward to hearing how it fishes for you..... vic

Well that was a pleasant day out.

There is a burger van open all day til 6pm. The bacon cheeseburger was very nice indeed
Paths all around Lake Eva so no mud 
Well made swims with features in most pegs and an island chuck ( some will reach with a long pole.) 
Margin depths between 2 and 3 foot.
Keepnets supplied for matches.

I had 40 stockies/ F1s and 12 proper carp biggest 10lb 12 oz a 3lb tench and a 21/2 lb chub for around the ton in all. As the others started fishing out I decided to be different and stuck to the margins all day catching some on hair rigged 6 and 8mm hard pellet but most on Got rippers or strawberry hooker pellet.

Sounds good Mr C.....one for next year then?

As Dave says a pleasant enough venue. Depth around 5.5ft out and 2.5ft in the margins. Stock on lake Eva appears to be dominated by F1s 12oz - 2.5lbs average 1/1.25lb with the occasional bonus common/mirror and the odd reasonable tench/occasional chub. I had 70 F1s, 7 commons/mirrors 2-3.5lb each, 2 tench for 6lb a 2.5lb chub and a few skimmers for around a ton total. So in a match I expect 60-70% of your weight would be F1s (80%+ of your fish) and if lady luck smiles on you some decent bonus fish including some really big tench apparently. The trick is finding out how to get the bigger stuff pushing the F1s out (which I didn't). Still probably worth a go next year as a trial new venue imo.

There is also a nice small matured snake lake which apparently is where the big bream are (to 11b+ see website). This produces reasonable match weights but generally lake Eva provides the better weights and will presumably fish better all year round given the F1s.