Old Bury Hill Main Lake
Bank and Boat Fishing for Bream
This last season has seen
a dramatic change in the methods employed here to catch some of the huge population
of bream that the lake holds. It used to be that you could fish with
maggot or caster on the hook, feed some casters and a bit of groundbait, and
catch on waggler, feeder or the pole. You can still catch on waggler (shallow
swims) or pole (deep swims) but there is only one hookbait to use, and that
is trout pellet on a band. Matches this season have been totally dominated by
this bait, and pleasure catches have been astronomical. The fish seem to be
ignoring all other baits, and eating only pellets. I don't think that the size
of pellet makes much difference to the fish, but we've found that smaller pellets
fished on mini bait bands seem to hook just as many fish as the larger ones,
and the fish seem to stay on the hook better, maybe the bigger pellets are blocking
the barbless hooks on the strike. Feeding is simple, feed half a pint of small
pellets when you first start, they will hopefully go to the bottom and keep
the fish interested, then loose feed small amounts of small pellets regularly,
nothing else. Don't 'ball it in' with groundbait, it's the kiss of death. That's
it...it's that simple !!.
Bank Fishing for Tench
Although there are literally thousands of tench in the lake, they are not an
easy species to target from the bank. Sweet corn, caster, pellet, and maggot
all catch a few, but there is no particularly special way to catch them, in
fact they just seem to turn up out of the blue. If you want to catch a bag of
Tench from Old Bury Hill, you need to fish from a boat.
Boat Fishing for Tench
At the far end of the Front Bank of Old Bury Hill is an area known as the Jungle.
It is quite shallow, and full of tree roots and branches that extend a long
way out from the bank. Bank fishermen can't get to the water in this area, it's
boats only. During the Spring, vast numbers of tench move into this area ready
for spawning, and it's during this time that huge bags of tench are taken by
boat anglers. Tackle is straight forward, strong float rods coupled to 4 or
5lb line, a small float straight through to a strong hook. Feed pellet and a
bit of corn, and fish banded pellet, pellet paste or corn on the hook. Pick
the right day and you will have the catch of a lifetime, next day the lake's
entire population of tench will decide to spawn, and you will not get a bite
!!. That's fishing I guess.
Carp Fishing
I haven't a clue. The people to talk to are the young baillifs who work in the
shop, and collect the ticket money etc. A perk of their job is that they (and
only THEY) are allowed to night fish the lake, and some of them are absolute
carp fanatics. Talk to them nicely, and they'll put you right.
Milton Lake
This lake holds huge numbers of crucian carp, tench and roach. Pole
or waggler are the favourite catching methods, with the matchmen favouring the
pole whilst the pleasure anglers prefer to fish the waggler. There aren't any
real big fish in the lake, so it's possible to scale down to 3lb main line,
2.5lb hook length and a 16 hook. For pole fishing I'd plump for a number 8 elastic.
Groundbait is not allowed on the 2 small lakes, so it's a case of loose feeding
caster or small pellet, and fishing banded pellet, corn, caster or a piece of
worm. Worm can be really deadly for the crucians. Pleasure fishing here one
day, I was catching steadily on corn or caster. Switching to worm, I started
getting 'one a chuck' up to the point that I was getting just a bit bored. Out
of idle curiosity I left the worm on the hook after catching a crucian, and
promptly caught another on the same piece of worm. To cut a long story short,
I caught 10 on the first half a worm, 11 on the next half, and 10 on the next
half. Voila, 31 crucians on one and a half worms !!.
Bonds Lake
There's not much that I can say about methods for Bonds lake. It's
pole or feeder to the island. If fishing the pole, the fish will feed up in
the water as the day wears on, provided that you are feeding regularly. Baits
are maggot, meat or pellet, feeding maggot or pellet.
