20 Cracking new ‘Virgin’ Carp stocked into Cherry Lake

We are having a very quiet time at Cherry Lakes with very few guests, so on an angling front I do not have much to report. A 15lb Mirror from Cherry Mere being the only largish Carp caught this weekend by a friend who was catching some of the smaller Carp for fun.

We have however got a re-stocking to report. This weekend we stocked 20 cracking Carp into Cherry Lake. Of these Carp some ten were over 20lb. The biggest being 23-12.  All of these twenties were six year old fish and most had large frames suggesting they are well equipped to do well in Cherry Lake and should hopefully be pushing 30lb within two years. We also stocked ten four old Carp between 11-13lb. These fish were pretty heavily scaled Mirrors, all of which should be a real joy to catch for our guests.

This stocking returns the number of bigger Carp (over 10lb+)  to around 250. Our current best estimate is that we have between 10-15 Carp over 30lb, 150 20lb+ Carp with the bulk of the doubles over 15lb. Real quality if not quantity to have a go at!

Providing the weather does not become seriously cold, I would expect the Cherry Lake Carp to become catch-able again over the next couple of weeks. It always takes the Carp a few weeks to get used to much colder water temperatures. Once the temperature stops falling and stabilises the Carp will be prepared to occasionally feed again. The introduction of new Carp also tends to stir the resident carp into action. So if you fancy chancing your arm at a quiet and relatively cheap(!) time of the year give us a call. You may even catch one of the uncaught virgin new Carp just stocked.

It is also becoming increasingly obvious that we have got some smaller Carp coming through, with a number of anglers reporting pristine young uncaught Carp in the 3-6lb weight range. The anglers who have caught these beautiful young fish have been very pleased to have done so and if nothing else they prove the rigs and the alarms are working! These Carp have been born and bred at Cherry Lakes and probably stem from the summer immediately after the lakes were drained (The Perch populations were badly hit for a year or two, hence enabling some of the Carp fry which is normally eaten to survive). As these Carp become doubles over the next two years, we may take the larger population of double plus Carp to 300+.