2012 05 April 13th Sidewinder Lake, More House Farm Fishery,Haywards Heath Sussex

I’d been looking forward a lot to today’s outing to More House Farm’s Sidewinder lake because I’d always had great days out there and because it was the venue where I achieved my first ever double figure carp.

The fishery advertises an online swim booking system whereby you send them your visit details and they send you a confirmation text – well I did this and guess what? Yep I’m still waiting for it.

The fishery opens at 7am so I left Croydon around 6:30 for the journey. The temperature on leaving was 4.5 degrees however by the time I arrived it had gone down to 1.5! Add a fog to the mix and you can imagine the scene that greeted me when I arrived.

I was the first one there so I had the choice of swims. Peg 14, the first peg on the front stretch so to speak was where I caught my double so it was this one I chose for today’s session.

As usual I mixed a small amount of groundbait and fed the swim with two golf ball size portions and with loose fed maggots and corN.

I made my first cast at 8:20 and then sat back to wait for the action to begin.

I only paid for one rod so my set up decision was easy today. It was a 2BB waggler to a size 18 hook with 2.5lb hook length and 4lb main line.

For hook bait I started with single maggot but was prepared to try sweetcorn, bread and even meat if the occasion called for it.

First cast went in at 8:20. For what seemed like an age I waited for the action to begin. By 9am I was still waiting.

With still no bites at 9:20 I was faced with a dilemma, normally I would feed another ball of groundbait after an hour’s fishing but today I didn’t know whether it would attract or distract any fish. I decided to stay with my normal pattern and so in went another ball and a few maggots.

The decision seemed to be a good one when the float started to move across the surface causing me to strike into a very small carp. I was happy that I would not be blanking!

Around 10am there was some good news, the fog finally lifted and I was able to see further than the far bank (it’s a snake lake so the far bank isn’t very far away).

I’d always had success with corn at this venue so I thought I would spend an hour on that which to be honest was more in hope than anything else. I was rewarded with a couple more carp of the small variety.

During the morning 4 other anglers arrived with the intention of having a match to determine whether the venue was suitable for a proper match. Anyway judging by the comments that I picked up most of them weren’t anymore successful than I was.

Never one to give up I persevered all through the remainder of the day until 5:30 when I decided to pack up. I didn’t have a choice on that as the fishery closes at 6pm.

By the end of the day I’d caught 11 fish, all carp between a couple of ounces and a pound. I am putting my failure down to the abnormal weather conditions. I will go down there again in the near future.

In conclusion, results wise it wasn’t a great day however I know that this place is good so I will definitely return later in the season.

Wildlife Update:

I didn’t see any llamas today. I think perhaps they were in the barn keeping warm. I did see a water rat hanging around my swim all day though. At one point he darted across in front of me only to run straight into the board with the peg number on it! It gave me a laugh.