The 'Owen team' have an amazing result in the freezing cold!

It has been getting progressively colder here over the last few weeks with some light frosts. Winter with the current arctic blast has arrived with a vengeance. It will be interesting to see if we can keep the lakes open and ice free this weekend for the few hardy guests which we have booked on. After this weekend we are very quiet with just one more angler booked on before Christmas. It is always easier to undertake noisy work when we have no anglers on the lake, which is the case for next week as we perform some major work on Pochard Lodge.

Cherry Lake has seemingly switched off this week. I suspect it will be pretty dead until closer to Christmas when we currently have some milder weather due. Good friend and regular Andy Watts did manage one last week. Fittingly this was a nice Mirror of 31-04 and a good fish to end the catch return on? A small wafter fished in conjunction with a solid PVA bag did the trick for Andy. He also had a smaller carp of around 14lb (one of our 'babies' coming through). Well done Andy for getting a couple out in tough conditions.

I am aiming to 'publish' my annual Cherry Lakes report over the next week or so, so I will save comments on the progress of the Carp until then.

The Owen family, Gary along with his Dad Rob and Mum Pauline are regular visitors to Cherry Lakes. They have previously visited in December and in the past they have had a really good result on Cherry Mere. Indeed their December 2019 was a special one with both Rob (a 32lb Mirror) and Gary (a 30-08 Mirror) both landing 30's.

I remember saying to them on Monday that their timing this year was not so good and with falling temperatures, I was not confident they would catch. What do I know!!

Gary quickly worked out that the majority of the Carp were located more in the central areas of the lake and concentrated his fishing in these areas rather than the more usual focus on the margins. Whilst Gary was a 'fishing machine', fishing through the night, Dad Rob just chose to fish the days. The most productive time for the pair was between 15.00 in the afternoon to about 21.00. Gary though did pick up a few Carp in the early hours. Together they shared 14 Carp. Rob had 3 including the 30-08 Mirror pictured in the lead photo above where it is held by Gary. Gary's eleven Carp included a 31-04 Mirror and five twenties to 27-08.