2023 Report: The Exclusive Lakes

Having published a couple of days ago our 2023 report for Cherry Lake, it is now the turn of the three exclusive lakes. I am always conscious that my regular updates are dominated by Cherry Lake, so it is good to be able to focus on the exclusive lakes. As was the case for my other reports, it is very hard to decide on which fish and/or anglers to feature. So please forgive my over-indulgence again for the number of photos and apologies if you feel I should have mentioned you.

The biggest Carp of the year from the smaller lakes was the 37lb Mirror caught by Perry Walton from Cherry Springs above.

Cherry Mere is a fantastic and highly productive lake which is rammed full of Carp. Despite the fact that there seem to be hundreds of Perch, the Carp seem to successfully reproduce each year. It is therefore an on-going management challenge to keep removing the smaller Carp, to manage the biomass, and ensuring we keep feeding sufficiently to keep the Carp growing and healthy.

Pochard Lodge on Cherry Mere along with Kingfisher Lodge on Cherry Springs are our most popular Lodges. In Pochard Lodge's case the appeal of the excellent Carp fishing coupled with the extra room and 2 bedrooms means that Cherry Mere is fished regularly throughout the year. There are two many examples of some great results reported by anglers to include them all. So I have limited myself to highlighting just a few.

First though some detail. In 2023 6 different Carp over 30lb+ were recorded in my 30+ catalogue. This is the same number as last year, but includes several different Carp. I am not sure if this means I have missed some or not.

The biggest two Carp caught from Cherry Mere in 2023 were those caught by Stuart Crafer (34-08) and this 34-11 Mirror pictured above by Jack Bristow. Incredibly given the stock of Carp in the lake, Jack also caught a 33-08 Mirror during the same session as the 34-11!

Three generations of the Prest family visit Cherry Mere each year. This year their trip in August was even more productive than normal. The three anglers caught 22 Carp between them during their stay. Both Dad Peter, with a 25-08 Ghost Common, and Grandad Peter with a 28-13 Mirror, caught Personal Bests during their trip. Grandson Adam landed the biggest, a Common, at 29-11.

The Fenton family, Jack, William and Mum Ruth made the long repeat journey from Northern Ireland to Cherry Springs in September. They managed 18 Carp between them including a PB for Ruth with a 23-08 Mirror and a PB for William. William was particularly delighted with his 31-04 Mirror because he 'leap-frogged' elder brother Jack in the family's biggest Carp bragging stakes! Jack is determined to get his own back on their return in 2024!

Cherry Springs is the biggest of our exclusive lakes at c1.5 acres and is a lovely lake to fish. It's Kingfisher Lodge should have been a two bedroom Lodge, but at the time of building I was unable to get planning permission to do so. A shame given the demand for the two bedroom Lodge and the amount of water available. In order to enable up to three anglers to fish from Kingfisher Lodge, we will be making a bivvy 'swim' available next to the Lodge from the Spring. It will be interesting to see what the demand is like for this.

Cherry Springs was reliably good throughout this year. Some good fish and good results were reported and I have just picked out several to mention here. The total number of different 30lb+ Carp caught was 7. This included the new lake record caught by Perry Walton above at 37lb, pictured in the lead photo above. Indeed Perry had the session of the year in April when he landed 3 different 30's in the same trip. As well as the big 37lber, he also caught a 31-08 Mirror and this good looking 30-08 Common above.

Angling couple Darren and Keeley Greenhalgh visited during September and had a great result when they landed 27 Carp including 7 twenties. I particularly liked this shot of a young looking 25-08 Mirror caught by Keeley, above.

This winter we have undertaken a lot of work to open the lake up to more air flow including removing some dangerous trees. We have also installed our new automated Dissolved Oxygen reading system which constantly reads the dissolved oxygen levels in the water and if DO levels drop below a pre-set level it should both turn on a splash aerator as well as send texts to fishery management. This means we will not have the big aerator on a rope deployed across the house corner of the lake. This system is also due to be deployed to Cherry Mere and Cherry Pool in early 2024.

We have worked hard over the last 18 months to improve the Carp fishing in Cherry Pool. One of the key parts of this was to remove the Bream, and boy were there lots of them. We have also stocked some 20+ twenties including several 30's Cherry Pool. We have also during the year removed some of the old stunted Carp and replaced them with younger Carp. Whilst the re-stocking is essentially complete we will continue to selectively stock, especially from the fishery stock pond.

It has been noticeable this year, that in the absence of the Bream, Cherry Pool is unsurprisingly behaving like a Carp lake. Previously when the Carp were not feeding, the bobbins would never sit still because the Bream would move in. Now, if the Carp are not feeding, the indicators do not move!

Whilst Cherry Pool is now a Carp lake, it continues to hold specimen 2lb+ Roach and Perch, Tench to 6lb, and Crucian Carp to 4lb. For any anglers who want to float fish whilst having a Carp rod or two out, or if you are bringing another guest who does not want to Carp fish, then Cherry Pool would always be my first choice recommendation. The float fishing never disappoints and often also turns up a surprise Carp or two.

I hope you found both of our 'Annual Reports' an interesting read.

Thank you again for your past support of Cherry Lakes. We hope to see you in 2024.

In the meantime we would like to wish you and your loved ones a very Happy Christmas and a happy healthy 2024.