Happy New Year to all. A review and a new pre-baiting service.

I would like to start off by wishing all followers of this Latest News page a very Happy and Healthy New Year. I hope it is a good one for you and all your loved ones.

This is the first winter since  we bought Cherry Lakes where we are not undertaking any major works at Cherry Lakes. I must say it is great not to have the worry of major projects such as New Lodge or house building. We are now much more in maintenance mode and minor projects such as fencing and hedging, tree work and re-stoning the roads (where does all the gravel go?). We remain committed to our goal of being recognised as one of the UK’s premier Carp fishing lakeside holiday venues.

We have been reflecting on 2015 which was a year of major change for us at Cherry Lakes. As well as finishing the build of the new Cherry Lake House, we also opened two new Lodges on Cherry Pool and for the first time Cherry Mere. This was the year where, with 4 lakes as well as 6 Lodges  and a Cottage, we became a ‘complex’. 2016 we be our first full year with all of the Lodges and Cottage open throughout the year.

Both Egret Lodge on Cherry Pool, which has really confirmed it’s reputation as a fantastic mixed fishery, and Pochard Lodge on Cherry Mere have been extremely well received by our guests. The larger Pochard Lodge with it’s bigger lounge and two double bedrooms has been a particular hit. In fact since the article in December’s Total Carp (if you missed it see ‘Fishing Articles’ under the ‘Fishing Tab on the home page), we have had a lot of bookings for 2016.

Whilst the appeal of Cherry Lake with it’s specimen Carp continues to be strong, it is very evident that our guests really do value having their own private lake and Lodge for the duration of their holiday stay. Kingfisher Lodge was our most popular Lodge in 2015. It will be interesting to see if it retains this position during 2016. The addition of a further 10 Carp over 20lb this winter should help to increase the chances of a big Carp being caught and should help it’s popularity!

As far as we can tell, Cherry Lake produced ten different 30lb+ Carp in 2015, including to our good friend Ady Blythe in May, a new lake record Common of 40-04 (see below). We are not sure why this number is down on 2014 (where we had 14 different Carp above 30lb). It could be that as we have increased stock levels to 250 Carp there is less chance of getting caught. Alternatively these ‘missing thirties’ could have been hooked and lost. They might also be getting wiser! Despite this, I am still very pleased that we have some 35 members of the Cherry Lakes 30+ club over 2014/15. For many of these ‘members’ their Cherry Lakes biggest is also their PB.

As many of you are aware we always welcome feedback and new ideas. One of these ideas is for us to offer a pre-baiting service. This is explained in detail on the ‘Bait Deals’ page in the ‘Fishing section of the website.

In short, we will pre-bait one area of your swim (on Cherry Lake) or lake (on Cherry Springs, Mere and Pool) before you arrive. This pre-bait will comprise principally of Carp pellets and Spod mix, but will include one kilo of our boilies. By baiting one area relatively heavily, the opportunity of a fast start to your fishing exists.

There will be plenty of other areas in your swim/lake to bait as you normally do. It remains to be seen as to how popular this service will become (starts from Mid-March depending on the water temperature). If you are interested you will need to pre-book.