Blog

Drennan Cup Winner

Posted: 21st Jun 2015

Well its been a fantastic week of fishing and great company and its always a pleasure to meet new customers that are like minded and can teach me a thing or two for a change!!! We had husband & wife (Steve & Rachel) book the lake this week exclusively and they were looking forward to a week of total tranquility, along with appreciating the whole ambience of what the fishery has to offer.

Now I have never been obsessed about bait, leaning more towards an average bait on the right spot will out-fish the best bait on the planet on the wrong spot!! but when you combine both it can produce fanstastic results. Now Steve is a quality all round angler and it was good to talk about all species along with carp that we both share a passion for, so with this in mind he had rolled his own bait in both 10,12 & 14mm to see if it would give him an edge, god knows what extras he had put in the bait ( still twisting his ear for the recipe) but all I can say is everything wanted to eat it resulting in poor Rachel getting sick of getting up in the night to take pictures!! Combined with fishing a float rod and the small wonder baits he was catching some good carp along with with quality Roach, stunning pristine tench, some young carp that have bred last year that I will need to keep an eye on, along with fish to 46lb+. Since the last drain down there has been no Tench, Roach or small carp caught but he could not keep a rod in the water having multiple pick-ups each day, along with resting the swim quite a few days in the week to enjoy photographing the wildlife and a few hours downtime with Rachel seemed to work in his favour. To be honest I could not keep up with his total catch so you will have to put me straight for the diary Steve!! but the best carp went 46lb, 2x 45lb+ at least 4 x upper 30s along with a whole mix of other sizes, at least 7 Tench over 6lb+, same again with Roach most weighing between 1lb 8oz-just under 2lb. It was a real mixed bag and they loved every minute of it. The average size of the carp as you all know is around mid 30lb+ but it just goes to show with the smaller quality baits combined with hemp, etc really got all the fish feeding and stuffed my theory where the sun dosnt shine about reducing all the other small fish 2 years ago, it just proves how fast they spawn and grow in these rich waters. It's worth thinking about if you are booked on this season because it looks like there is a whole host of fish getting on the bait, so I think more frequent baiting will produce better results which has been the case so far this season. While on this subject some of the young stock fish coming through now are really coming into their own, I have mentioned this before but can honestly say I'm starting to get excited once again about the future of the fishery, not just the quality of the stock but the condition as well is something else. I graded the Roach two years ago and kept around 100 fish between 1lb-2lb+, the fish last week that Steve had been catching had all spawned, but come next year we will be looking at a shoal of a least 100 fish over 2lb+ which is mindblowing for a 7 acre water and they will become a worth while target over the next few years!! 

To wrap the week up I came down on The Saturday morning to help them pack-up, on approach Steve was playing a fish, he had one in the net already along with only just slipping a 37lb back!! The one in the net went 36lb and the one he was playing went 45lb, what a cracking end to the week, just to top it while putting the last fish back his only rod in the water yielded a clonking Roach just to add the cherry on the cake, very sweet ending indeed.

The fish are very active at the moment, with bubbling taking place all over the lake at the moment, if it carries on like this it will be one of the best June months we have had at the fishery, along with the two guys who have booked the lake exclusively this week taking no less than 10 fish within the first 24 hrs, so its looking good for another busy week!!

I will post some of Steve's Fish on our FB page and once again a Thank you to Steve & Rachel from The Sanctuary Team for putting our faith back into angling, you're one of lifes good people!!

Over & Out

 

Team Sanctuary