Tom Hughes smashes Cherry Lake with 4 x 30's

With the weather warming up Cherry Lake has at last performed in line with what we would normally expect at this time of the year. Yesterday , big fish Thursday, was an exceptional one with 'Dick' putting in her first appearance of the year to Roger Sparks, and Tom Hughes landing the Ghost Common at 36-08.

I will start with Tom Hughes in Heron Lodge. Tom started slowly during his return to Cherry Lake and landed the first of his four 30's in a 6 Carp catch on Tuesday when he landed a 31-08 two-tone Mirror. This distinctive Carp, pictured below, was caught at 32-08 last July by Andy Watts, meaning it is down a little in weight. She however looked in great shape.

Things really took off for Tom on Thursday morning when he landed a 26lb fish followed over the next 24 hours by a run of three 30's. The second fish, was also Tom's biggest of this visit. At 36-08 the Ghost Common looked enormous and was almost 3lb up on it's weight when caught last year by Simon Littmoden.

This is the first time this Carp has been caught over 35lb, and from memory the first time we have had a Ghost Common over this level. Needless to say I was delighted to see this beauty when I got the call around 20.30 last night!

Tom's next two thirties came early on Friday. I thought the Carp were very considerate in allowing Tom and Lisa a night's sleep before 'kicking off' around 06.00. Amazingly both of these Carp, a lovely heavily scaled Mirror of 30-02 and the Mirror of 31-04 are both new 30's for us. They have not previously appeared in the last few year's 30's+ catalogue. They are are certainly now in the 2022 catalogue! Well done Tom on an excellent visit.

All of a sudden with Tom's four thirties plus Roger's capture of 'Dick', covered below, we are now at 27 different 30's for 2022 so far. I expect a good few more to be caught over the next few weeks. We still have a lot more to go to exceed last year's total of 64 different Carp over 30lb. Time will tell.

The next vacancies on Cherry Lake are as follows

06-10 and 10-13 June. Heron Lodge

20-24 June. Heron Lodge and Cherry Lake Cottage

Please e mail on info@cherrylakes.co.uk or call 01285 869887 if you are interested.

Regular Roger Sparks stayed in Osprey Lodge with his wife Suzanne. After a nice 25lb Mirror, Roger struck gold on Thursday when he landed 'Dick' the lake record holder at a weight of 46-08. Roger fished to an area of the shallows and was needless to say delighted to have smashed his PB and earn a 40+ fleece. I have to say that she looked massive and I even checked my scales on my return to ensure they were accurate (and they were).

I am sorry to say her Pectoral fin which was badly broken last year has not completely healed, as you can probably tell in the photo below. As well as good handling when she is caught, the best thing that could happen to her is for her to go uncaught until well into the autumn. I believe she will heal faster in warm water and plenty of feed. Fingers crossed!

Well done Roger on a new PB.

I received this photo from Lucas Preece who fished from Kingfisher Lodge on Cherry Springs last weekend with his Dad Les. I think from memory they landed some 12 Carp including a number of 20's. As I always like to see youngster's fish with their Dad's and do well, I thought I would 'squeeze' this extra photo in. Thanks and well done Lucas.