Malcolm Williams lands a 22lb Cherry Pool cracker

September is often thought to be a good month for Carp fishing.....I have to say it has not always been this way in my experience.....particularly if we have a 'Indian Summer'. The settled conditions of the last ten days or so, have not been good in terms of Carp caught...........and from what I understand about other local fisheries, this also applies to other lakes!

Personally, in September, I much prefer a good blow and some rain when I am fishing (the rain is still warm!).....as it is these conditions which I think give the Carp 'the hurry up' that winter is coming and encourage them to get on the feed. Warm quiet days make them lazy and complacent!

I have a feeling the fishing will remain slow whilst the high pressure continues.....I hope I am wrong.

Cherry Lake has been particularly slow. Other than one Carp which was lost from Grebe Lodge, it was only Chris Tibble in Osprey Lodge who caught anything sine Monday. Chris did particularly well, not least because it was his first time on Cherry Lake, to land three Carp. From memory he landed a 20lb, a 24lb+ plus a new PB Mirror Carp of 30-02 in the picture below. This Mirror, which was very 'round' and could have still been carrying some spawn, is a new 30lb+ Carp for us. Chris is also our 30+ club's 183rd member.

The biggest Carp came from the top of a bar at 23 wraps distance. Well done Chris, excellent result in tough conditions

Even the smaller lakes have been slow, except that is for Cherry Pool where Malcolm William's had another great visit. Malcolm and his lovely wife Sylvia, are great regular visitors to Cherry Lakes having visited some 20+ times over the last 5 years or so. Malcolm knows Cherry Pool very well, and always does well. This time was not unusual, when Malcolm 'complained' that he had to stop fishing on several afternoons as he needed a rest from all the bites! Malcolm's biggest Carp this time was a very impressive 22lb Common pictured in the lead photo above. I was particularly impressed to see him with a Cherry Lake cap.....a collectors item as only a few were produced a few years ago.

Malcolm also has the 'honour' of being the captor of the big Cherry Pool Koi which is the lead photo on the Cherry Pool web page. To save you looking I have repeated the photo here for you.

Past visitors to Cherry Lake will have probably spotted our stock pond and it's two waterfalls. This pond is fed by water pumped from Cherry Lake, which in turn returns water back to Cherry Lake under the trees in Osprey Lodge's water.

I will admit to have made several errors with the stock pond, requiring us unfortunately to start again. Over the last couple of years we seem to have got it right with some luck!

Two years ago we collected some eggs/spawn and put them on the pond. These eggs along with a good number which has been sucked up and pumped up from the main lake have largely all hatched. Indeed it is only when there are no predators that you realise how many thousands of eggs are laid when Carp spawn. Without the normally high level of predation and mortality you get a lot of little Carp! The challenge in these conditions is to keep taking out the Carp you don't need to give the ones that you do the space to prosper and grow.

We now have a fabulous stock of some stunning 1-2 year old Carp. These include some gorgeous and rare Ghost Mirrors and Commons of a variety of colours including some marble grey ones (see below). We also have some fantastic Mirrors with great scale patters and Commons with good shapes. In truth we probably have too many Carp. I have included several photos here, all of which were caught during 90 minutes yesterday to give you some idea of the quality coming through. The grass backdrop is probably not the best one to show them off. There are many even better ones in the stock pond.

Over the next year or two as these Carp become c3-4lb in weight they will be ready to be selectively stocked into Cherry Lake. Whilst this will help ensure a new generation of high quality attractive Carp the challenge will be to not introduce too many! A good problem I hope to have, and one of the more rewarding parts of running your own fishery! Much better than worrying about Carp dying!