How did you get on?

[Ray Roberts]

I liked fishing there, my son Josh caught his first zander there.

 

[no-one in particular]

Not much to say about my fishing, blanked apart from a few nibbles, probably roach zilch. thats 3 in a row and about 4 before that. Fishing very close in with sweetcorn on the park lake again, after reading Seth's fishing with sweetcorn I thought it may be worth a try, it was about 8ft deep in this part of the lake so plenty of water for the fish, but nothing doing..
More interesting was a carp angler came and sat next to me, he did ask first and its a long swim and I was right on the end of it. Nice to see his skill, catapulting dog biscuits right under the trees on the far bank and then waiting for the carp to get interested before casting. He had some sort of transparent big bubble float thing and the dog biscuit about 4 ft from it, he accurately cast this right to the trees as well. Anyway, he ended up with this 15lb+ carp. Interesting watching him fish and a nice bloke. I get it with carp, lovely fish, not sure I could do with all the paraphernalia though, carp sack, weighing slings, huge landing net, bucket of dog biscuits etc. I think he thought what the "----" with my shopping trolley and garden canes but kept it to himself -but we got on and he let me take this picture.

 

[Alan Whitty]

It is a beautiful place Skippy but its taking the pee, greed with a capital G....

 

[Ray Roberts]

It is a beautiful place Skippy but its taking the pee, greed with a capital G....

I like the place and have had some brilliant days in the past. But it would stick in my throat to have to pay for the privilege to pay. I presume the reason is to make it easier to ban people who break their rules.

 

[Alan Whitty]

Possibly, I fished it a couple of times, very nice, but they will be upping it to 20 quid a day plus 20 joining fee if they could get away with it...

 

[nottskev]

At risk of butting in - I know nothing but what I've read here and in the angling press about the place - I wonder if it's such a terrible deal for someone who likes the place and lives within a reasonable distance? If I read their website correctly, I could get Senior Day Membership for £30 then day tickets for £14 or £12 if I qualified for concession. That's not cheap and I couldn't afford to go too often. But I paid £80 last year to a club whose waters I haven't fished this time - partly because if you lapse you cop for a joining/re-joining fee, and that is money for nothing. Wasted money, but the opportunity was there if the river they run, in the doldrums for years, sparked up again, and a good friend I like to fish with haunts their waters. At the same time, the golf course at the end of my road does day tickets (whatever golfers call them) for £80 a time. I think if I were a denizen of Surrey (hard to imagine) and the place is as lovely as we're told, I'd be up for at least half a dozen days there, maybe more. When you pay £170 per month to have your bins emptied and a football match costs an arm and a leg, it puts the cost of fishing, if fishing is the thing you love, in a different light.

 

[steve2]

At risk of butting in - I know nothing but what I've read here and in the angling press about the place - I wonder if it's such a terrible deal for someone who likes the place and lives within a reasonable distance? If I read their website correctly, I could get Senior Day Membership for £30 then day tickets for £14 or £12 if I qualified for concession. That's not cheap and I couldn't afford to go too often. But I paid £80 last year to a club whose waters I haven't fished this time - partly because if you lapse you cop for a joining/re-joining fee, and that is money for nothing. Wasted money, but the opportunity was there if the river they run, in the doldrums for years, sparked up again, and a good friend I like to fish with haunts their waters. At the same time, the golf course at the end of my road does day tickets (whatever golfers call them) for £80 a time. I think if I were a denizen of Surrey (hard to imagine) and the place is as lovely as we're told, I'd be up for at least half a dozen days there, maybe more. When you pay £170 per month to have your bins emptied and a football match costs an arm and a leg, it puts the cost of fishing, if fishing is the thing you love, in a different light.

I do find that fishing these days is very cheap compared to other sports and other bills. The local golf range is now £10 just to hit a few balls my golf club is now £1100 a year. I am in a position in life to pay these bills but I dread to think how others cope. So hopefully fishing will stay "cheap" that is until other water sports come along and are willing to pay more

 

[Alan Whitty]

You may be right Kev, but if I paid £250 for a years ticket/syndicate, whatever, that would be fine, because that could equate to 365 days a year, but the situation at Bury Hill has worsened imo, fishing around London and in the south certainly isn't cheap. Last year you went to Christchurch, to join Ringwood DAA is a lot of money if your running close to the wind, but value for money wise for a fairly regular angler it's great, venue choice is enormous, in fact I would say you couldn't get to know the waters 'properly' in a lifetime, if you could join Bury Hill for a season without the day ticket side the value would be great, but they want to 'fine you for stepping on the estate it seems...

 

[nottskev]

Fair enough, Alan. I haven't followed the conversations about the place, but I gather the general deal, the terms, the days you can go etc have all changed in ways that have disappointed people who liked it the way it was. I suppose I'm only thinking of the bottom line compared to far inferior places, other sports and pastimes, cost of living etc. You're right, I did swallow when the bloke in the ts told me the price of a day ticket on The Harbour, but then holidays are when you treat yourself, and that's pretty much how I'd look at a place like Bury Hill. I think it's a bit of a life stage thing too - I can't get interested at all in the latest gear but if I can find some fishing of the sort I like I don't stint myself though you could definitely call my lifestyle modest. The difficulty is finding those places.

 

[Ray Roberts]

It isn’t the fishery that it was anymore. There is no angling on the main lake, this used to hold some decent; tench, bream, crucians, carp and zander and you could rent a punt to access the jungle area. What used to be a carp syndicate water is now a day ticket water, but at a price of £100 membership and £38 per day. Their day membership covers two lakes, one is Bond’s, a small 2 acre pond and the other is Milton which is a good mixed fishery. Bonds isn’t much different to any overstocked runs water. When I fished Bury Hill reasonably regularly it was good, there was a well stocked tackle shop that was run by a very helpful and knowledgeable angler, also there was an onsite cafe and clean toilets. Now, no cafe, no shop, no access to the main lake. I don’t mind paying for decent fishing, I fish the LIF once or twice each season and that is dearer and has a two hundred miles plus round trip journey. I am fortunate to belong to a couple of fairly local clubs that provide a good variety of fishing and possibly better tench and crucian fishing than Bury Hill and at a far lower cost. I doubt they will be seeing any of my money anytime soon.

 

[Alan Whitty]

It's a shame as you say you cant access the main lake, I thought it was the best part of the fishery....

 

[riverman]

decent session today.went to the mushroom ponds at south milford.ended up with 15 bream 5 roach 5 crucian and a perch.biggest fish of the day was a bream around the 3lb mark.the bream fell to mussels and prawns the crucian roach and perch to maggots.fished the waggler and as hard as i tried couldnt entice the carp today .my mate did manage a carp around the 7lb mark taken on robin red luncheon meat.nice venue peace and tranquility at its finest.

 

[Alan Whitty]

After yesterday's car battery issues I got to the lake around 10am, dropped into a swim and fished the pole with a rig I'd had made up perfect for the swim, meat fished over pellet, I had 11 crucian/things, best 2lbs 1oz 8drms, 3 tench to 3lbs plus, two carp 4 and 5lbs and two skimmers about a pound...

 

[chrisjpainter]

Blanked today. Then again, I'm not sure that really matters with a dawn like this

 

[no-one in particular]

For a change I didn't blank, two small roach on the left over sweetcorn, forgot to take my bread and I had just bought a seeded brown loaf for the purpose, left it in the shopping bag, numb wit. Still two roach is better than no roach, swapped to a smaller 14 hook so I think that did it. Still wouldnt have minded some bream like a couple sessions ago, I could see them swimming about over the other side.
Getting a bit bored now so I am heading for my river banker swim on June 16th but might have a couple more goes on this park lake, it is convenient and the weathers nice and had the lake alltomyself yesterday, a sunny sunday and £5 concession day ticket which I never paid as the bailiff didn't come round, must have been having his sunday dinner, I have only had him once in 5 sessions so £1 a go. but no one on the lake!

 

[Islandbear]

Yesterday enjoyed a little 3 hour get out. "Last cast" after a no bite session, lil skimmer. But it was just lovely to be sat bankside in some warm ole sunshine.

 

[nottskev]

Out to the tench pit for another 3pm start. I love this time of year when you can laze around til nearly tea-time and still fit in a bit of fishing. There were anglers in the swims I usually head for, but as Whitty was saying the other day, why stick to the same old pegs? So I embraced the challenge, though I have to say the tree overhead was a bit of a nuisance, and I had to opt for the pole. And sitting in the water, thanks to the high level.

Even with a top kit shorter than a float rod I managed to leave a float up the tree thanks to a hook pull at the net. It's lucky I took some maggots; last year's best bait here was 4 or 6mm expanders over micro's, which I soaked/coloured with Robin Red powder and drinking chocolate. I couldn't get a bite on these today but some old maggots did the trick.

It was a pleasant enough afternoon, but the east wind was in my face throughout. I started off in a tshirt and ended in a jacket and hat and it felt nice to get in the car. And despite the cool wind the tench are warming up

 

[seth49]

On our club water yesterday with Mick, only three on and the peg I fancied was free, set my pole up first, fishing maggots over groundbait hopefully for the tench, but no first fish a roach and then the skimmers moved in, swim was bubbling like a jacuzzi, so changed to worm, and first fish was a five pound carp which was just right for the pole.

after that I was catching quite steadily, more skimmers plus a few tench, a nice crucian a few ide, and also some F1s,
when it went quiet around 12 am, I shortened to one section plus top kit, fishing paste on the marginal slope, this worked and had a few more tench and F1s, plus two more crucians, and got done with a large carp which shot off and snapped the hooklength.

lifted the keepnet around 3pm and started fishing floaters for the carp, which where cruising around on the top, I managed to catch five to around eight pounds and missed a few more.

so a good day out, a nice days fishing in warm dry weather, and my plans worked well for once, Mick had a decent day as well.

 

[@Clive]

Had a days lake fishing on the River Charente.

The river, only a couple of feet wide, enters this lake about 300 yards away to my right, goes through a sluice about half a mile away to my left to enter the main basin and leaves that a couple of miles away as a small river. I have walked past this place countless times over the last 12 years and never fished it or seen anyone else fish it.

Started out with a 13 foot glass match rod, ABU 506 reel and a home made balsa and quill float. There was a ripple left to right and about 7 foot of water 3 rod lengths out. I started catching small roach on maggot and larger ones on caster. When I cast further out the roach got bigger but the bites on caster were increasingly harder to see when the wind got up. A change to sweetcorn sorted that as the bites were more decisive. Then it all went dead. I changed depth and baits to no avail. It started raining heavily so I went back to the car, got my holdall with brolly inside and then got my swing tip rod out.

Fishing a cage feeder and sweetcorn got three straight roach and a bigger bream. Then it died again. In one hour and forty minutes I endured three seasons of weather and no bites. When I came out the other end I had changed back to float, changed the float twice and gone back to the swing tip.

In the last hour I got three more roach to float fished caster, but it was hard work.

Just a footnote; many of the roach appeared to have suffered injuries. There were cuts on some of them and grazes on others. Their mouths however were undamaged so it can't have been caused by repeat captures especially as nobody fishes here. I really have no explanation.

 

[chevin4]

I went back to the syndicate lake on Monday. Although the conditions weren't ideal being bright and sunny with a cold NE wind it made a change from the miserable weather we have had at late. I elected to fish with 3 rods one was set up with a dedrabena kebab with open ended feeder the second rod maggot feeder and the method set up on the third rod. I had some freshly rolled Bio Shellfish with me so early afternoon I switched over to an In-line lead with a 15mm boillie on the hook with a small PVA bag of crushed boilies. By mid afternoon I thought I may be facing a third blank on the trot but at 4.30pm had a run the the worm rig which resulted in a lovely coloured tench of 6lb 2oz. I had spotted out several pints of dead maggots during the session and had decided to put 3 dead maggots on the hook as well as the hair rigged worms.