Gary Owen lands a 34-07 Common

With the weather turning colder and the lakes visibly cooling (the water steams when there is 10C difference between the air and water temperature), the fishing has continued to be slow on all the lakes this last weekend. The exception to this rule has been Gary Owen's great return of 8 carp from Grebe Lodge on Cherry Lake. Gary is a regular guest who has frequently done well across the Cherry Lakes complex including catching rare 'snow Carp' (Carp with snow on the ground). This trip kept his impressive record going.

With the rest of the anglers on Cherry Lake struggling even for a run, Gary found himself in the best place with the Carp obviously in his swim in numbers. This was somewhat surprising to me given a strong cold northerly wind blowing down the lake onto the car park bank. I guess the water was still warm enough and the sun strong enough to encourage the Carp to venture onto the shallows as well as the deeper margins. It won't be too long before fishing on the back of a cold wind is the winning approach.....but it certainly was not the case this weekend!

Gary with the support of his father Rob, landed 8 Carp over the weekend, including 4 on Sunday afternoon. His biggest Carp was a Common of 34-07 which is pictured in the lead photo above. This Carp is relatively easy to identify because of the scarring above it's anal fin. As far as I am aware this is the first time this particular Carp has been caught in 2020. It appears in my 2019 catalogue in the hands of Jason Booth who caught it in late June 19 at 31-08. A 3lb weight gain in 15 months is nice and steady and is hopefully going to be replicated in several bigger Commons which we have still not seen this year.

Gary also caught some other crackers including Fully scaled Mirrors of 25-08 and this 29-07 one pictured above. Very nice indeed. Well done Gary on a great result, you certainly showed us how to do it in challenging conditions.

Gary's successful tactics was to fish a krill boilie with a small yellow topper. This was fished over a combination of spod mix, pellet's and crushed boilies enhanced by the addition of some krill oil. He largely kept to the same spots with Carp obviously returning to them to feed. Gary also had this distinctive Ghost Mirror of 22-04 above.

I have had a couple of calls from prospective guests asking about availability in Cherry Lake Cottage and Lodges over the next couple of months. We have the following dates currently remaining including two dates for the New Year period

Cherry Lake Cottage. 02-06 and 16-20 November.

Egret Lodge on Cherry Pool. 04-07 and 07-11 December

Osprey Lodge on Cherry Lake. 30-04 December and 07-11 and 11-14 December

Kingfisher Lodge for the New Year break 28 December to 04 January.

Please call if these are of any interest. 01285 869887