Night fishing is available at Willow Park, prices are on the main page, but remember, you MUST book before turning up because numbers are strictly limited.
Not being a carp angler myself, I've got the following information from Kenny. He describes the fishing as being exactly halfway between Wraysbury Number 1 (rock hard), and Godalming's carp fishery Broadwater Lake (one a chuck !). The carp are caught all year round, only last night (11th Jan 2000) the only angler on the water took 3 carp between 12lbs and 17lb 8oz from the Big Bay. He says that the big lake holds 3,000 carp, 50 to 60 of them are 20lbs plus, and 70% of the carp are in double figures i.e. over 10lbs, with a best fish of 28 lbs.
Fish are caught throughout the day and night, and even in the depths of winter, the carp will feed for an hour or two sometime during the day or night. In the summer months he advises a mid-week session whenever possible, because there are quite a few matches booked during the daytime at the weekend, which will restrict your choice of swim. The whole fishery is much quieter during the winter months, meaning that weekend night fishing is always available. When asked what the best carp catches have been, he said that he didn't want to make unrealistic claims, but there had been occasions when an angler had taken over 30 fish in a 72 hour session, and that 6 fish in a night was fairly common. From my own experiences of fishing matches at the venue, I must say that you should appreciate that these fish are not the huge bellied mirrors that so often adorn the pages of the fishing papers, but incredibly powerful fish, with a large proportion of commons, truly brilliant fish.
As to methods, Kenny says that most of the carp anglers fish boilies, with Crab & Mussel flavour being popular in the summer, and Tutti Frutti being best in the winter. He says that the biggest mistake that most of the carp anglers make is to hurl their bait as far as they can cast, and says that 50% of the fish that are caught are tempted by the 10% of anglers who fish the margins. A very successful method for fishing the margins is to fish luncheon meat over a bed of hemp. He says that a particularly good time to fish is after the matches have finished, when the carp move in to mop up all of the match anglers bait.
That's just about it. Give Kenny a ring on 01252 325867 for bookings or to get the latest info.
