Displaying items by tag: winter

I had heard on the fishing grapevine that Lizard Fisheries in West Drayton, Middlesex had been fishing well of late, presumably due to the mild late winter weather we have been having. I decided therefore that my first visit of 2007 to Lizard was in order !!

I arranged to meet by buddy Steve there and decided to start on lake 1 and see how the fishing was, before possibly moving on to Lake 2 later on. For those of you who have not fished Lizard Fisheries before, Lake 1 is the "match" lake and holds huge stocks of fish with carp to 10lb+, tench, bream, perch and huge shoals of roach and rudd. Lake 2 is primarily a carp fishing lake, much harder to fish but with carp to 20lb+ being the reward for those who like their fishing a little more challenging.

The conditions were bright and definitely "gusty" to say the least. When I pulled into the carpark after a "leisurely" start to the day, it was clear that the choppy conditions were not going to make fishing especially easy.

Depsite this I adopted my usual tactic at Lizard, waggler fishing, this time slightly overdepth, to try and hold the waggler in place against the stong wind. Unlike my usual summer tactics of using pellets or meat, I thought conditions favoured the good old maggot, so I loaded my size 16 hook with four maggots and loose fed a small handful of maggots every third cast of so.

No sooner had my float hit the water for the first time, it dipped boldy under the surface and I was soon into my first fish of the day, a hard fighting mirror carp around 4-5lb. What a great start !! To be honest I was expecting a tough day and was delighted to catch on my first cast.

The afternoon continued very much in the same vein and I ended the day with 9 carp, the best topping the scales at just under 11lb, plenty of small roach and rudd and a bonus perch late on. As the sun went down behind the trees around 5pm, the weather reminded me that we were still in fact in the winter, and I dediced that having had a great day it was time for home.

Lizard rarely disappoints - fishing is relatively easy on Lake 1 and the fish will take most baits. Bear in mind that it can get very busy at weekends, escpecially in the summer, so get there early. There are quite a few bait bans on Lake 1, so don't take groundbait, boilies (ok on lake 2), oily pellets (such as halibut pellets) or sweetcorn with you. If you are caught using any of these banned baits, expect to be thrown off the fishery. Don't let this put you off however, as Lizard is a great no frills fishery where you are sure to catch.

Lizard Fishery is loacted on Trout Road, Yiewsley, West Drayton, Greater London, England

Til next time, happy fishing!! Paul @ UK Fisherman

Regular readers of the fishing forum here at UK Fisherman and Fish South East will know that for some weeks now we have been planning a pike fishing trip to farlows Lake in Iver, Buckinghamshire - the first UK Fisherman "social" if you like.

Predicted numbers were anywhere between 3-10 and not surprisingly the number who actually turned up was 3 (myself, Nigel Laughton and Luke "crazy carper" Thomas. Undaunted we met in the carp park at 9am. The weather seemed ideal for a spot of winter pike action: clear skies overnight had left a touch of frost on the ground, whilst the morning saw still, glouriously sunny conditions. We were in confident mood as we chose our swims and set up our rods.

Nigel had done a fair amount of pike fishing at Farlows and we followed his advice to live bait on the match lake. After a quick trip to the tackle shop on site we all set up a float rig with a free-roving trout livebait set around 3-4 feet under the water. As the floats bobbed and moved around we felt sure it wouldn't be long before the hungry winter pike gobbled up one of our offerings. It was just a case of waiting !!

Well, we waited and waited, and then we waited some more and after that we waited a little bit longer and nothing happened. Several hours went by and despite one run on Nigel's rod which, despite a firm strike, failed to lead to a fish, there was no action at all. By early afternoon, the bright sunny skies had given way to grey, rain filled clouds and a cold wind had sprung up leaving the lake choppy and making it difficult to control our floats effectively. After a brief discussion we decided to move to a more sheltered corner of the lake, which looked much more inviting for the fish.... and us in terms of keeping warm !!

As it turned out, this happended to be the best decision we made all day. After only about 15 minutes in our new swims, my float which I had been fishing in the margins, dipped once and then disappeared under the surface. Slightly surprised, I grabbed the rod and low and behold, I was in !! Now before you get too excited, the fish I landed will not break any records for weight - in fact It was probably the smallest pike caught at Farlows so far this winter. As you can see from the photo, it probably was around 1lb or so. Not a monster, but so, so welcome on an otherwise unproductive day.

Someone must have rung the dinner gong because as soon as I had slipped my capture safely back into the depths of the lake, Lukes pike float boobed and dipped under. He too was soon into a monster pike (again around the 1lb mark). He and I, as novices to the art of pike fishing, were delighted to have actually caught something.

That was unfortunately the beginning and the end of the action for the day. Nigel sadly failed to catch although he is experienced enough at this fishing lark to except that's how fishing is sometimes. I big thanks to Nigel for showing Luke and I the ropes. I thoroughly enjoyed his and Luke's company and I'm sure this will be the first of many enjoyable fishing trips together.

Til next time, happy fishing!! Paul @ UK Fisherman