Mark Denmark's fabulous brace of Cherry Lake Common's

The focus this update is on Cherry Lake. Partially because we have a couple of cracking Common's to talk about, but also because the fishing on the smaller lakes has been slow.

The fishing has not been great on Cherry Lake either. In fact no runs were reported for 4 days until this Wednesday. Although conditions this week have been superficially good (warmish, blowy and rain) and the water temperature around 10C, the Carp are behaving much more like they do at the back end of winter. Feeding in spells and then taking some time off!

This was certainly the case this week. On Wednesday the Carp decided to have a bit of a munch. Regular guest Lee Pearce in Heron Lodge had the first one when he landed a 20lb Mirror from a spot about three quarters of the way across the lake. A small pop up doing the business. A lovely looking Mirror as you can see from the photo below.

It was Mark Denmark's turn next. Mark has been staying in Cherry Lake Cottage with his family this week on his first visit to Cherry Lake. Just after 12.00, one of Mark's children got my attention and waved me across. I was delighted to discover it was because Mark had caught one. His first Carp was a distinctive two tone Common which went 30-12 on the scales to Mark's delight. A new PB. See the lead photo above

Interestingly the Common was much lighter in colour than previously. I am always fascinated by how much Carp can change their colours depending on water clarity throughout the year.

I was also delighted to discover that although I very much recognised this fish, it has not yet made an appearance in my 2020 catalogue of 30's. As I found this hard to accept (my memory plays more and more tricks on me.........a point which I suspect many of our similarly aged guests might recognise!), I tracked back through my posts to find it. In fact the last time it came out was to Ian Ford who caught it last December at a similar weight of 30-06.

Even better from my perspective, is that I realised that Calum Longland's Ghost Common of 33-02, which he caught on 20 March (see my earlier post), had not been included in my catalogue (user error!). So as a result we had 'a two for one' impact on the number of 30's caught from Cherry Lake this year. The number of different thirties now stands at 46 in 2020

Mark's day got better just after 18.00 in the dark, when his small pop-up rod positioned close to the house bank channel roared off. I was delighted to get the call and to hear that a second visit to the Cottage swim was in order! This time an even bigger Common greeted me. This one went 35-12 on the fishery scales. A second PB for Mark, and a very impressive brace of 30+ Common's. Well done Mark on a lovely brace as well as two PB's.

After this the lake then switched off with no more action to report. Hopefully we will see one or two more caught this weekend.

This Carp was last caught in February by Nick Teague at 34-04. It also strikes me as interesting that both of the Carp reported here were last out in winter conditions. It could be that with the other Carp switching off, that the Carp with more of a propensity to feed in winter, as these Commons clearly have, have the chance to do so and thereby increase their chances of being caught! What do you think?