A motley crew assembled early this morning to net some of the little carp out of the stock pond before moving them to New Lake.

The netting party about to get wet and muddy.

The water level in the stock pond had been lowered by pumping the water into the lake below and over half of the surface area of the lake was now mud. However the deeper area was still too deep to net efficiently with the fish getting under and round the net. We did manage to net around 500 carp ranging in size from around 8ozs to 2lb, and these were all transferred to the New Lake. Terry and Paul spent a few hours netting yesterday and they moved around 800 fish.

This is the typical size of the fish that were moved to New Lake

We are hoping that the water level will have dropped further tomorrow for another attempt at netting out the stock fish.

New Lake is nearly full. Within the next two weeks we are planning to move thousands of small carp (about 1 – 1.5 lb) into the lake and we’re expecting them to provide some good sport. I’ll post some pictures of the restocking.

At last it seems that winter might be behind us, it’s been one of the hardest ones that I can remember so good riddance to it !!.

The warmer weather has encouraged a few fish to feed, in fact in the last week we’ve had carp of  24lb, 25lb and 27lb caught from Main Lake. Two of them were caught early morning, the other in the middle of the day so there’s no need to freeze during the night time hours if you want to catch a specimen fish.

On Wednesday of this week we had a visit from Roy Marlow, the owner of the much-loved Glebe Fishery in Leicestershire.

He was able to offer some good advice as to how we might improve the fishing on the lakes. Roy’s theory is that you can pile more and more fish into a lake but unless the fish are happy then they just will not feed. His main advice was that we should plant some different reeds that will help to filter the water in the lakes. He also gave us some other ideas on what we might try to improve water quality in order to make our carp “happier” and therefore hungrier. None of his suggestions offer an instant fix but he’s convinced that the waters will improve steadily in the next three years and that in three years time the fishery will be as good as it ever was.

It’s All Change At Willinghurst

You must be sick of me writing about matches all the time so I thought that I’d tell you about some exciting events at the venue. As from 1st August Terry and Mick who run the cabin and the open matches have taken over running the whole fishery. Paul, who used to try and run the fishery AND the estate is still around but will be involved more with the forestry and general work around the estate.

(Click on the image to see the full sized photo)

Terry (aka “The Cod”) on the left, Paul in the middle and Mick looking very official on the right.

Both Mick and Terry have supposedly got “proper” jobs (hard to believe since they’re always fishing !), so it’s not decided yet just which days the cabin will be manned. They do have some great ideas on improving the fishery and the fishing. Proper swims will be constructed on the revamped Old Lake and they’ll be built on Horseshoe Lake also. John’s Lake is now completely full, in fact it’s a bit TOO full which has uncovered a problem. The lake builders haven’t got the banks quite level and the lake’s leaking in one corner. They’re going to have to lower the water level (it will be pumped into the newly built stock pond and returned later) whilst a bit of rebuilding is done on a section of bank. If you’re over there you’ll notice that there’s a single platform at the far end of the lake. That’s the prototype of the platforms that will be constructed around the lake. Side boards will be added to stop stuff falling off the platform and into the water.

There are some big plans for moving some of the fish around the various lakes. The plan is that all of the very big carp will be moved to Main Lake and Christmas Tree Lake whilst at the same time an equal weight of smaller carp will be taken from those two specimen lakes to replace the big boys in the match lakes. Chatting to a couple of the pleasure anglers the other day they were saying that there are at least three different 20 lb carp in Top Lake. Now I’ve match fished that lake literally hundreds of times and I’ve NEVER seen a 20 pounder weighed in on a match. You’ve got to assume that they only feed at night or when the lakes are very quiet and it’s those fish that will be netted and moved to Main Lake to be replaced by smaller fish that will hopefully feed a bit more frequently. These are projects that just couldn’t be done whilst Paul was trying to do so many different jobs around the estate and I’m convinced that once it’s all completed, everybody will be happier with the quality of the fishing.

Incidentally, I’m always ready to post any news of catches and / or pictures on here from the pleasure anglers. If you do catch a whopper and there’s somebody in the cabin they’ll always be willing to come up and photograph and weigh it for you on our match scales. I’ll get you a number to ring in case you’re fishing on your own and don’t want to leave your gear unattended.

The Lakes Are Filling Up Nicely

I promised to post a couple of pictures of the drained lakes. As you’ll see the Old lake is filling nicely and they’re expecting a delivery of fish later this week

Click the pictures for bigger images

And there’s even a drop of water in the newly dug John’s Lake. The island in the middle of the lake will actually be a sunken island once the water reaches its correct level

R.I.P. Kevin

I have some very sad news from Willinghurst, we’ve had a bereavement and everybody is upset about it.

You’ll remember our Blue Tits that were nesting in the ashtray outside the cabin, well yesterday was the big day, their first glimpse of the big world outside of their little home.  Terry and Mick were around doing odd jobs and noticed a little head poking out of the ashtray. Soon there were 3 little heads and as the chicks became more confident they hopped out onto the rail and sat there for a few minutes looking around and doing a bit of wing flapping. Ken, Katy and Kevin, three beautiful little Blue Tit chicks.

It was soon clear that Kevin was a leader, an adventurer, there was nothing that Kevin feared. In just a few short minutes he flapped his wings and made his first flight…all of about 10 feet before crash landing on the grass. Within 2 seconds of him hitting the ground a magpie had swooped down, killed him and flown off with his body. The lads were stunned, how could that happen in a split second ?.

Ken and Katy had seen what had happened and they had no intention of following in Kevin’s footsteps….they sat firmly fixed to the rail. Mick and Terry found a thin stick and offered it to the chicks as a perch. Lo and behold the chicks stepped straight on to it and then spent an age, sitting on their new perch as they were paraded around the cabin. The Cod has a great picture on his phone of them sitting on their perch besides the box of biscuits on the counter of the cabin. Once we conquer the technology I’ll post it here, it looks great on his phone.

As dusk was approaching the lads decided that the best chance for Ken & Katy was for them to be placed in the hedge at the side of Horseshoe Lake. Hopefully they’ll be safe there until they have the strength to fly properly and evade the predators that are waiting to kill them.

As fishermen we frequently see the great sights (on Sunday there were House Martens flying around the lake and they were making frequent stops to sit and rest on peoples poles), but thankfully we rarely see the cruel side of nature. It’s sad to see that in nature, as in human life, the bullies seem to triumph over the good guys….a sad day !.

Psst….Wanna See Some Naked Birds ?

We’ve all heard the old descriptions of anglers – “A worm on one end and a fool on the other” etc but the man in the street doesn’t realise what we see whilst we’re sitting quietly fishing and generally minding our own business. Right outside the “cabin” at Willinghurst there’s an ashtray just like you can see outside countless offices.

(Click on the picture to see a BIG image)

And inside there’s a Blue Tit nest

And now it’s full of naked birds !!

We were very quiet opening the lid to take the pictures and don’t fret, Mum & Dad are still visiting every few minutes with food for the babies. So there you are…naked birds or if you prefer it, a box full of tits