Good winter Carp fishing

I have been observing ‘radio silence’ since my last update in early January, as we have been away. As always fishery manager Dave, and Lisa on the phones and managing the housekeepers, have stepped up and Cherry Lakes has continued to ‘chug’ along!

January has been typically quiet in terms of visiting guests. The middle part of the month sounds like it was cold and the anglers who did visit had to endure real winter conditions to catch some Carp.

As always when we are away, not least because of my appalling memory, it is hard to keep up with the details. In overview, Cherry Pool and Cherry Mere have produced Carp throughout the month. Kevin Clark had Carp to 28lb from Cherry Mere, which I think was the highest of the month. Cherry Springs was patchy.

Cherry Lake, given the conditions and the number of anglers present, had a good January. A total of 6 different thirties were caught along with a dozen other Carp, principally twenties.

Good friend of the fishery Dave Cole, fished Cherry Lake for the first time, last weekend. Staying in Grebe Lodge, and listening carefully to Dave the fishery managers advice, Dave Cole landed two cracking Carp. Dave fished with small Cherry Lake pop -ups over a combination of Hempseed, Pellets and crushed boilies.

His first Carp was a cracking Common of 30-04 pictured above. This Carp looks like it has some ‘Ghostie’ in him. His second Carp, from a different spot, was a 35-04 Mirror. See the lead photo above. This particular Carp is one of my favourites which is known as ‘Pac-man’. So named because of the ‘PAC-man‘ scales on both sides of it’s wrists. Older readers will remember ‘pac-man’ from early generation pub based computer games ( I did not just mis-spend my youth fishing!).

My good buddy Chris Hughes came to stay for a week to do some fishing and give Dave a hand ( funny that as Dave says he did not leave his Lodge!). In fact because of an outbreak of Covid at home, he ended up staying for over two weeks! Although his visit coincided with the cold weather, he caught 9 Carp including two thirties. As is often the case in winter, he had a few days without even a bleep and then a couple of Carp would be caught in quick succession.

The biggest Carp of Chris’s session was his first one. A night caught 38-04 Common. Judging from the photo above, this is the big two-tone Common which normally comes out around this weight. His first 4 Carp came on consecutive nights and included another Common of 31-08. A very nice winter brace. Chris’s big Common was just behind the 39lb Mirror caught by Steve Townsend in early January which remains the biggest Carp of the year so far.

Chris caught some very attractive Carp including the 28lb Common pictured earlier and this 22lb Fully Scaled Mirror which Chris said was one of the best looking Carp he had ever seen. This fish was particularly well deserved as he caught it when the air temperature was minus 5C with ice in the margins. It just proves again the old adage, ‘you have to be in it…….to win it’!

The winter fishing across Cherry Lakes is often good and always worthwhile. Indeed we have had some of our best catches of the whole year across the next months ( yes I know March is technically Spring, but it can be cold!). We have good availability in February and March before our winter discounted prices return to their normal level from 28 March. You know what to do. Drop us an e mail or call 01285 869887 if you fancy a winter trip.