Nielsen Jeffery sent me this report on his latest short evening session at Horwood lakes(2.5 hours) he fished the top lake,and enjoyed some great sport. Landing three nice fish around 5 lb and around twenty pasties of up to 2 lb, plus three lovely tench.
Children under 16 fish for free as long as they are with a paying adult ; day tickets are only available from Summerlands at £5 a head. Both lakes have had an extensive overhaul with twenty nice platforms now in place. Both lakes are well stocked with carp to 12lb and tench.
Sue Seton-Smith, 53 from Southampton, and Friend Petula Little showed the men in their life how it’s done when they both caught Personal Bests! Sue caught a Personal Best 20lb 10oz Common from the Main Carp Lake using a homemade wafter rig with half cell bottom bait and trimmed half cell white pop up with a spread of boilies near to the lillies. Petula caught a personal 21lb 1oz Mirror from Xanadu on an Almond Goo Pop Up over Manilia Boilies. Both Ladies beat all the Men in their party and caught the Biggest Fish out of them all!!
Sue Seton Smith 20lb 10oz common carp
Petula Little 21lb 10oz mirror carp
Kieran Evans from Wales had a session with his Dad Mark on the Kracking Carp Lake before his annual week with us at the Main Anglers Paradise Complex in the hope of a New personal best Carp. Well, he did just that and caught a Personal Best 46lb 8oz Mirror on Fake Corn at 6.30am on the last day of his session! It certainly made his week!!
Kieran Evans mirror carp 46lb 8oz
Matt Outen, 25 from Rutland had a 48 hour session to remember on the Main Carp Lake after catching 6 Carp and 4 of them being Stunning 20’s! Matt caught a 20lb 4oz Mirror, 2 X 20lb 12oz Mirrors and a 24lb 4oz Mirror on JH Baits White Pepper Pop Ups presented on Multi Rigs over a spread of the awesome JH Baits KLF and Black Pepper Boilies alongside a large bed of lily pads.
Matt Outen 20lb 4oz Mirror carp
Carl Cliff Brown who caught the Complex’s 1st EVER 50 last year came back to the Kracking Carp to see if his luck would continue and managed to catch himself two Mirrors of 24lbs and 30lbs, and we have to say, we had to do a double take as they look so similar!! Carl caught the Kracking Mirrors using 40 Freebies with a White Pop Up over the top.
Carl Cliff Brown – 24lb mirror carp
Peter Gauci, from Cardiff, headed to our Day Ticket Specimen Carp Lake Xanadu in search of a PB. He picked the right Lake and the right Bait and caught a Personal Best 27lb Common caught on The Twist 18mm Boilies fished on a 6inch Hair Rig with a PVA Bag full of Crushed Boilies.
Joanne Combes keeps a steady stream of carp captures coming my way with some stunning images of captors and their successes.
Phil Bate with one of his catches a 20lb 15oz beauty fishing BQ Wafters in the dam wall on BeattiesInch Morgan with one of his many catches from the summerhouse swim on Beattie’s lake using sticky baits krill boilies here is his 20lb common (just one of his catches )Eddie Scott with just one of his 6 catches from lodge lake peg 14 using shoreline baits protein boilies .
Stafford Moor is in fine form with specimen carp regularly being tempted by visitors to the complex. Here are a few of the latest catches.
Lily Hammond with her 14lb catch from lodge lake using sticky baits krill boilies. Lily was here with dad Jason Hammond who is a regular here at Stafford moor.Scott Vern who had 7 fish out up to 15lb from lodge lake using mainline cell boilies .
Paul Hutchings who had 9 fish out up to a weight 29lb 7oz (pictured) from Beattie’s lake in a 48 hour session using krill & sweetcorn topper.Adam Price with one of his 4 fish out of 20lb from Beattie’s lake using krillDanny Hayman with one of his catches from Beattie’s lake a 26lb 8oz using cell over a area of cell & pellet.
Bideford Angling Clubs Midweek Evening Match Tarka Swims saw David Bailey take first prize with 28lb 12oz. Second was Matt Cross with 6lb 15oz and third Martin Hawker with 6lb 12oz. John Lovell forth with 6lb 11oz and Craig Crash Lamey fifth with 2lb 9oz. Winner David Bailey took 5 carp on banded pellet fished on the lead. Second place was secured using pole and paste tactics.
Furzebray Carp fishery has a well deserved reputation for its big pristine conditioned carp. Here are a few of the latest fish to be tempted from the venue.
Luke Davies with charlotte at 40.04Chris Madden with Angies common at 30+Chris Blythe with a stunning willow ghosty at 20+
Brad Laughton has been having great success on day ticket venue Jennetts reservoir, just outside Bideford, Devon. Brad recently caught 10 fish over two day sessions all landed using a hinged stiff rig cast tight to the far margin over a bed of QC Baits red candy boilies. The three commons attached weighed 25lb, 22lb 14oz and 20lb. Top Angling Brad!
25lb
Brad Laughton
22lb 14oz Brad Laughton
Brad Laughton 20lb
Whilst not North Devon fish I could not resist putting up these fish caught at Old Mill Near Dartmouth a water I fished once twenty odd years a go with some success. The two fish look fitting captures from this Old atmospheric water.
John Kneebone and Amy Maunder had these stunning mirrors from syndicate water Old Mill reservoir Near Dartmouth, Devon, part of the South West Lakes Trust portfolio. Amy’s was 20lb on the nose and John’s 18.04. both fish were caught on Mainline Essential Cell boilies.
Full report on the Pallatrax carp open held at Tamar Upper Lake. Thanks to Ben Smeeth for the write up.
Dave James and Craig Lacey receive £2000.JPG
Tamar New Boys win £2000 at Pallatrax Carp Open!
24 pairs of anglers took part in the second competition of the year with defending champs Phil and Sam Gilhespy looking to continue their very good record having won the competition twice in four attempts. Leading up to the competition Upper Tamar had sprung into life producing lots of fish up to 25lbs – hopefully this was a sign of good things for the weekend ahead!
During the water craft draw all anglers received a free Pallatrax goody bag with a range of their products and a complimentary 24 hour session on Lower Tamar. With the draw completed anglers were transported to their swims, an hour of baiting, marker rodding, spodding and spombing followed with the official start of the competition at 4pm.
Conditions seemed really favorable when it began and there were good prospects of catching lots of fish all around the lake. Friday evening came and went with odd fish caught in different areas of the lake but nothing consistent for any pair. Saturday was much the same with high winds and heavy showers not improving the catch rates. This did keep all the competitors really close together and all in with a chance of the £3500 prize money! The lake went flat calm on Sunday morning with a lot of carp seen cruising, and a lot of dog biscuits hitting the water to no avail!
There was a real tussle for the lead between Craig Lacey/Dave James, Jason/Leanne McEvoy and Danny Clarke/Nick Singleton. All three pairs had banked a couple of fish with only 20 hours to go before Danny managed another to take the lead before Craig and Dave landed two fish to move clear. Jason and Leanne stormed back with a brace of fish on Sunday morning to move just behind the leaders before the final horn sounded at 1pm. It was a tense finish to the competition which produced just shy of twenty fish. The angler pressure really showed and put the fish off the feed!
Dave and Craig, on their first trip to Upper Tamar, were first out of the draw and chose to fish peg 13 on the Devon Bank which was a new swim created especially for the competition opposite the ever popular bird hide swim. They managed to bank 4 fish for 43lbs and also lost another fish at the net. In what was a really hard weekends fishing they fully deserved the win and vowed to be back in September for the next Pallatrax Open to defend their title!
All the anglers enjoyed a free BBQ during the presentation of the prizes and trophies.
It was great to see some new faces to the venue and some returning competitors. A huge thankyou to Pallatrax for sponsoring the event and to our marshalls (Bob D, Bob O, Terry, Steve G, Ian, Amy and Roger) who did an excellent job transporting tackle, weighing fish and helping out throughout the weekend.
Dave James and Craig Lacey
Scott Bowden and Jamie Rusling
Aaron and Ashley Bunning
1st Dave James and Craig Lacey 4 fish for 43.00lbs Peg 13
2nd Jason and Leanne McEvoy 4 fish for 37.11lbs peg 25
3rd Nick Singleton and Danny Clarke 3 fish for 29.12lbs peg 4
4th Darren White and Taro Bell 2 fish for 20.05lbs peg 23
5th Jamie Rusling and Scott Bowden 1 fish for 16.07lbs peg 18
6th Phil Gilhespy and Sam Gilhespy 1 fish for 15.08lbs peg 1
7th Ashley Bunning and Aaron Bunning 1 fish for 13.10lbs peg 19
8th Constantine Nitoit and Darby 1 fish for 10.07lbs peg 21
The next Pallatrax Open is 23-25 September and it is another pair’s match, we are now open for entries but be quick!! 01566 771930
