Paul Lee extends the Cherry Mere lake record to 37lb

Paul Lee returned this week with his wife Nikki and son George to celebrate his 50th birthday in Pochard Lodge on Cherry Mere. On Monday night, shortly after midnight he celebrated in style when he landed a new lake record, this impressive Mirror of 37lb. Paul said he had a screaming run after the big Carp picked up his bottom bait with a topper. After a good fight he knew he had a big fish in the net, but was surprised at how big!

As an aside, whilst landing Carp at night is obviously more difficult than during the day, one big advantage is that it is hard to gauge how big the Carp is that you are about to net and possibly avoids some of those anxious moments near the net when you can see it is a big one. My own PB Carp was caught in the mist during the dark and I had no idea how big it was until I opened the net. It was much better going to 'jelly' with the Carp in the net than before you land it!

Paul's 37lb Mirror, beats its previous by half a pound and is by definition the biggest of the 5 different Carp above 30lb caught from Chery Mere so far this year.

It is not just Cherry Mere which has been fishing well, Cherry Springs has been producing some good fish recently. Steve Street had an excellent weekend fishing from Kingfisher Lodge, landing 9 Carp including 5 twenties plus a Mirror of 30-04. Fishing close to the opposite bank during the day, and dropping back into the deeper water during the night was the successful approach deployed by Steve.

Steve's big Mirror was the 3rd different thirty from Cherry Springs this year, and there are several more known ones to come!

All the anglers on Cherry Lake caught over the last weekend with several 30's being landed. Dave Holland stayed in Osprey Lodge for his first visit. He landed 3 Carp, including a 29lb Mirror and this 31-08 Common above. Well done to all the anglers mentioned here.

With fishing conditions looking and feeling fantastic, (we have a warm southerly blowing after early rain and it's about 20C), I am hopeful that this week's anglers will be reporting some crackers over the next couple of days. Talk about a real topsy-turvey month. During the early part of the month we had three consecutive light frosts and the fishing shut down. Now we are running into November with the night temperatures more like high summer. Mad!

I am pleased to confirm we have finished the first of the Cherry Lake Lodge decking upgrades. I still find it amazing that the Lodges are approaching their 10th birthdays and we have needed to undertake some repairs and replace some of the platform joists. We have replaced the Heron Lodge upper decking with new Gripsure boards, and used many of the original ones to improve the lower fishing platform. Not a cheap job but necessary and worthwhile. The plan is to undertake similar work on the other Cherry Lake Lodges as well as Kingfisher Lodges by Christmas. I look forward to the reaction of our regular returning guests.