Carl Harris lands a couple of real crackers

As regular followers of my updates might have guessed Judith and I have been away and have missed the horrible weather of the last few weeks.

It was a real shock to arrive home to see the place looking so wet and drab. We expected the trees to have lost most of their leaves. What we did not really expect was to see the water level on the lakes so high and the ground sodden. The River Churn behind the house is absolutely charging through. If we have a wet winter from here, we should expect more floods.

The fishing across the complex has predictably slowed up, just as you would expect in late October and early November. Normally we would blame this on the arrival of the first hard frosts of the year causing a sharp decline in the water temperature. This year, this 'cold water shock' has been driven by the rapid rise in lake water levels resulting from much higher groundwater levels (which have been 'super charged' by the flooding river).

As always I struggle to keep up with what's gone on whilst I have been away. Although it has been slow, there have been some cracking Carp caught since my last update

My favourite photo over this period is the lead one above of Carl Harris with a 36-12 Fully Scaled Mirror. What a great looking Carp. This was one of two thirties caught by Carl. Mind you, his 30-15 Mirror is also a real cracker too.

The bigger fully scaled Mirror was last caught by Luke Williams in July 2022 at 33lb, a healthy weight gain of almost four pounds. Carl's smaller Mirror is a brand new 30+ for us having not appeared in previous year's catalogues. Hence both of these Carp are new entries into our 2023 catalogue. This brings the running total of 30's in 2023 to be 85 different Carp over 30lb including 14 over 40lb.

Paul Deighton and Sam England had a tough week whilst staying in the Cottage. It was so wet I understand they nearly grew webbed feet! A blank was saved on their final full day when Paul Deighton caught this 33-06 Mirror above. A great relief for both Paul and Sam as well as Chris and Dave who were looking after the place in my absence!

We also had a couple of cracking fish caught from Pochard Lodge on Cherry Mere during my holiday. Regulars Steve Keen and Stuart Crafer shared a catch of 15 Carp which included 4 twenties and this lovely Mirror of 34-09.

Darren Greenhalgh, another of our regulars also had a good short session on Cherry Mere. The highlight of his visit being this impressive 29-02 Common below.

As we enter winter, I often get asked which is the best lake to fish? If you want to get action at anytime of the year then the exclusive lakes are almost always better. This is certainly the case in the winter. The stocking density is much higher in these lakes and because the lakes are small the Carp are never that far away!

So if you fancy a trip please don't overlook these lakes.

Well done to the anglers above and apologies if I missed you.