Three more members of the Cherry Lake 30+ club

I have written before about whether the big Carp on Cherry Lake have spawned or not. Unfortunately I am firmly back in the camp that some of the big Carp have not. Several recent captures including 'The Pretty One' and several in this update are clearly still full of spawn. Last Thursday and Friday in the two days of hot weather the Carp went through the motions of grouping up ready for spawning, but the weather broke again.

As a result the fishing on Cherry Lake was very difficult last weekend with just a couple of Carp caught. I have to say I felt for all the anglers on last weekend. At the end of July/August it is not unusual for lakes to switch off for a while.....but not normally for 'coitus-interuptus'! It has however picked up since Monday. The three Cherry Lake anglers featured here all caught their PB's, which can't be bad.

It is supposed to be hot from Friday to Sunday this weekend, so fingers crossed again! If they do, I can finally stop worrying about them!

The biggest Carp of last weekend was caught by Lee Norcott on his first visit to Cherry Lake, staying with his lovely family in the Cottage. The 33-02 Mirror Carp was his PB as well as his entry into the 30+ club as our 175th member. Unforgivably I forgot to give him his polo shirt before he left..........so he will have to come back!

Lee's fish was the same one which I had caught during June (see my update dated 23 June). As I forgot to give him the shirt, I did agree to his request to name this Carp 'Pac-man'. Hopefully you can see why in the picture above, and also from my earlier shot. The distinctive Pac-man shaped scale on it's wrist is one from my era! Well done Lee in difficult conditions.

Whilst Lee's Carp was not obviously carrying any spawn, the same can not be said of Jack Gardiner's 34-10 Ghost Common which he caught on Tuesday at its highest ever weight. This lovely fish set a new PB for Jack who also caught five other Carp including a Common of 30-02, most of which came from spots within 30 yards of the Grebe Lodge decking. Krill boilies tipped with corn doing the trick for Jack. Well done on your new PB Jack.

Ron Tanner has been staying in the Cottage this week with his family including Grand-children. As a result he has been trying to balance his time between the family and fishing. Ron also runs Opus Tree Care, the tree surgeon company which helped us out very recently when the Cottage swim Oak distressingly had to be felled at short notice. As well as getting paid (!), Ron also had a chance to pick Paul Mitchell's brains about how to fish the swim (he obviously had an eye on his upcoming holiday!).

Well it's working! Sometimes it really does help to rest the swim. He smashed his PB on Wednesday, with this 36-06 Ghost Mirror pictured above. He also had a 29-08 Common and the stunning heavily scaled Mirror in the lead picture above. Ron followed the advice of Paul Mitchell who recently did so well in the Cottage swim. He fished our new Fish Spice boilie with pellet. The Carp clearly love this combination! Ron qualified for his 35+ hoody as the 176th member of the 30+ club. Well done Ron on your new PB and some stunning Carp!.

The fishing has definitely not been easy on Cherry Springs throughout the last couple of weeks and I will confess as to not really understanding why? Cherry Springs is full of Carp, as well as increasing numbers of Roach (which should compete with the Carp for naturals). On some of the recent sunny days even I regularly counted over 100 Carp and you can only see into the top 6-12 inches of the water! Both Dave and I have certainly been scratching our heads as the fish that are coming out look good and are fighting hard.

I promised last time to show Graham Cresswell's lovely 24-02 Mirror from Cherry Springs which he caught last week. Graham is a regular and knows Cherry Springs well, but like our other recent guests, he found he had to work much harder than normal and had to 'stomach' several blank days. From memory he landed 12 Carp including three 20's. I was on hand to photo this 24-02 Mirror above, which was more impressive in the flesh than captured by my photography! Graham also had several Tench including 3 Roach, which he was very pleased about, of around 2lb which took his 16mm boilie! Well done Graham for sticking at it and keeping a positive attitude.

David and Maureen Sheppard have been on Cherry Springs this week and up until Thursday their running total is 9 including two twenties. OK fishing still for this lake but not easy!

We have a vacancy for Kingfisher Lodge for Monday 12 to Friday 16 October. Please call 01285 869887 if you want to book. First come first served.