The fishing and weather is warming up

A busy week here for me at Cherry Lakes. The arrival of better weather coupled with Dave being on the second week of his holiday has had me run a bit ragged! The warmer weather (at last) has certainly helped the fishing across the complex.

The Bream have now spawned on Cherry Pool and with hotter weather forecast for next week, it won't be long until the Carp show signs of their normal pre-spawning activity. Hopefully the weather will allow them the time to have one good spawning session and get it out of the way. I will of course update on this as we go.

Four anglers have caught seven thirties since my last update from Cherry Lake. However I am going to start with long term regular guests Marc and Leigh-Ann Campion who have just spent a week in Pochard Lodge on Cherry Mere. I have lost count of the number of Carp that they caught. I do know that Leigh-Ann did beat her previous PB with two Mirror Carp of 27-00 (pictured below) and 27-04.

On Wednesday we had the rare occurrence of two double takes in the same day (see below for Paul and Luke Mitchell) on different lakes. The lead photo above shows the result of their double take on Cherry Mere. Leigh-Ann had a Ghost Common of 20-04 and Marc a 16lb Common. Fortunately on Pochard Lodge there are two cradles as well as two landing nets which made this double shot possible. Well done on a good trip Marc and Leigh-Ann.

Roger and Jane Westwood stayed in Kingfisher Lodge on Cherry Springs, which also started producing as the weather started to warm. Roger reported 12 Carp to 23-12 (sorry no photos) plus a few losses. A decent result after a few slow weeks.

First time visitor John Holland stayed in Heron Lodge with his wife this week. He joined the exclusive group of anglers who caught a Cherry Lake 30 at the first time of asking. If anything he got greedy...............as he had three thirties during his stay and amazingly nothing else. He obviously has some sort of magic touch as all three Carp now feature in my 2021 30's catalogue. In other words they had not been caught this year.

His first of the week came in at 31-08. Unfortunately I was not around and the photo not great. I could however see enough to recognise it as the 'Italian' style Mirror caught last year by Lee Hodgkinson at 30-08. Fortunately I was around for his next two.

The second Carp was a Common of 32-04. This particular fish has very distinctive markings on one side and was not one I was expecting to see. Yes, after checking the catalogues, I can confirm that it was a new 30+ for us. We were both very pleased. John followed this up with a Mirror of 32.00. This one was caught in February 2020 by Charlie England.

Well done John on an impressive first visit

Paul Fitzgibbons fished from Osprey Lodge last weekend and was also on his first visit to Cherry Lake. Fishing with the Cherry Lakes Bio-Spice boilies he was delighted to receive a 35+hoody after he landed the big Ghost Common. This Carp was obviously carrying some spawn as she went just over 36lb on the scales, her biggest ever weight. This Carp was hooked on the shallows at about 120 Metres distance. Paul is our 215th club member with John above being the 216th.

Long term regular Paul Mitchell. aka 'the Hairy Carper' has been staying in Grebe Lodge over the last week with his son Luke (also a fairly 'Hairy Carper!'). Paul, who as regular followers know, always does well at Cherry Lakes and his biggest Carp of the week so far is this Common of 35-08 below.

Luke has managed at least 4 Carp during the week and on Wednesday (the same day as the Campions above) both Luke and Dad Paul had takes at the same time. Unfortunately the absence of two Cradles meant that a double shot was not possible. Paul's fish was an extremely heavy (with spawn) Common of 29-08 (whose normal weight, given it's length, should be closer to 22-23lb). Luke however joined the 30+, club (member number 217) when we weighed this lovely Ghost Mirror (below) on the scales and they read 31-08. Funny enough, to confirm the father/son double act, this lovely Carp has been caught previously by Paul!

Both Paul and Luke, who have shared about 10 Carp between them, with Luke breaking his previous PB 4 times during the visit, fished with a combination of our Bio-Krill and Bio-Spice boilies, often tipped with a matching Topper. Well done to the Mitchell's!