Leon Sprague lands a winter beauty.

Although the deluge of rain on Saturday washed off a lot of the remaining leaves around the lake, the lake still gives an impression of Autumn rather than Winter as it still looks remarkably green.. I have said it before....it certainly feels like winter. The water is cold and clear and the fish have certainly slowed down. Anyone going fishing at this time of the year should anticipate a blank......and be pleased when they catch!

Despite the fact that conditions have been poor over the last week.....biblical rain, lake water levels continuing to go up, hard frosr on Friday night etc, I am delighted to be able to report the capture of several Carp from Cherry Lake including two thirties.

The first of these was caught on Wednesday by Paul Salmon who stayed in Grebe Lodge for a week. He had already caught a 32-02 Common (see last update) on Monday, when he struck again. This time with a 32-04 Mirror pictured below, which was caught by Julian Dwyer in May at 31-04. Paul did well to catch a lovely winter brace of 30's, which were both caught on small pop-ups over a small amount of crushed boilies and other goodies. Paul is the 157th and latest member of the Cherry Lakes 30+ club.

Leon Sprague returned to Cherry Lake this weekend with his lovely wife Vicky and have been staying in Osprey Lodge. Leon is obviously an excellent and well known angler, but I did think, when he arrived, that even he had his work cut out to catch this weekend. Well he certainly proved me wrong and how good he is. Leon has so far this weekend landed two cracking Carp including a beautiful almost fully scaled Mirror Carp of 26-02 as well as a stunning Ghost Mirror of 35-13.

Leon's first capture came early on Sunday morning from the bottom of the 'shallows' wall at about 90 yards in 5-6 feet of water. A small boilie fished over crushed boilies doing the trick. As you can see from the above photo this Carp was a real beauty and looked in tip top condition in her winter colours.

Leon's second Carp came a few hours later, this time he 'earnt his 35+ club hoody', when he landed this lovely Ghost Miror at 35-13 pictured above. I just love shots of our Ghost Carp in the net, particularly when they are in their more vivid winter colours, so I hope you like the unconventional lead photo of Leon's beauty above.

Leon became a member of the 30+ club when he visited in the early Spring and caught a Ghost Common. He becomes, I believe, only the second angler to land both 30lb+ Ghost Mirrors and Ghost Common's from Cherry Lake. Mind you it only took him two visits to do so, whilst it took Ken O'Connor, the other angler to have completed this feat, a few more visits to do so! This lovely Ghost Mirror Carp came from the middle area of the lake at about 60 yards. Well done Leon.