Sarah Riley bags a 34-00 Ghost Mirror

The Carp have stopped spawning across Cherry Lakes following the dip in temperatures and heavy rain over-night. The Cherry Lake and Cherry Spring Carp were ‘at it’ for three days/nights off and on. A good number of Carp have clearly spawned but I am unable to be sure if they all have. If I was a betting man (‘and thank the Lord I am not sir!….), then my best guess for the Cherry Lake Carp is that some of the Carp will need to spawn the next time the water temperatures and weather conditions are right. The only good news if/when they spawn again is that there will be a lot of carp not involved who will presumably act as normal.

Just to be clear I thought I would (re) explain our approach to fishing when the Carp are spawning. As a commercial fishery where our guests have paid for their Lodge, have been looking forwards to their holiday and want to fish, we have to strike the right balance between the welfare of the Carp and our guests. The approach we take is to insist that our guests do not fish withing 10 meters of the margins when the Carp are spawning. Once we are satisfied they have ‘stopped’ spawning, anglers are told that they can fish wherever they want within their own fishing area. Over the last five years this policy has worked well. The vast majority of our guests either follow our requests and/or would have no intention of fishing where the Carp are spawning (foul hooking and savage line bites being the normal result). Only once have I had to insist that someone reels in……and they have not returned to Cherry Lake!

Sarah and David Riley have been staying in Grebe Lodge this week. They have proved to be ideal guests given the spawning activity. Moving their rods to avoid spawning activity and reeling in at times. Despite this Sarah has managed to land four Carp so far this week including two upper twenties of 25-04 and 26-07 topped by this fantastic Ghost Carp of 34-00. This is the second 30lb+ Ghostie of the week (see the previous posting for Jack Lyon’s 30lb Ghost Mirror).

Sarah’s Ghost Mirror was caught by Ken O’Conner last April at 30lb and is one of those Carp which have yet to spawn. In landing this Carp Sarah has become the 89th member of the Cherry Lake 30+ club as well as landing her UK PB to boot! The successful bait was a bright yellow pop-up. Well done Sarah.

With all the excitement of six different 30lb+ Carp over the last week or so, I have been ignoring the other lakes across the complex. All of the lakes have been fishing well, not least Cherry Pool. I am grateful to Dawn Tunnicliffe for sending through lots of photos from her recent visit with Peter Durose.  I am not sure of the weights of the Carp or Crucian’s but they clearly had a good time and caught a lot!