June 21st Boulthurst Farm Pond, Hurst Green, Surrey

Unlike the other 2 club ponds this one opened for angling on the glorious sixteenth. One of my mates had his 30th do on the Friday so I was not fit to fish it until the following Sunday.

I arrived at the pond around 6:45 to find no one there - what a shock!

I wasn't disappointed as this of course as it gave me first choice of swims. The favourite onon the venue is the one where the stream enters the pond. It's the furthest walk from car park albeit some 50 yards!

This is a view of the pond looking from my peg.

Even though I was on an end peg I still had 3 lines to attack at various points during the day. The first was directly in front of me. This I used for most of the day. The second and third were to my immediate right and left but these I wouldn't touch until later on in the day as the water was very shallow (about a foot). I did however know that from prior experience the bigger fish would arrive in there sooner rather than later.

This is the swim 1.


The pond is predominantely all carp, some to about low doubles I believe. There are some silver fish present, roach,bream and crucians. There is supposed to be one tench but I've never caught it.

Tackle and bait wise it was the usual starting point. One large ball into swim 1 and then a few hemps seeds per cast. A single maggot on the hook.

Initial response was good - some nice roach in the 4 to 6 ounce range. After an hour I tried the scopex flavoured sweetcorn but nothing doing. I tried bread as well during the morning to see if I could coax a better stamp of fish out but to no avail.

Around 9am two other people turned up, the first promptly asked for my membership card and the second turned out to the chairman who had put me on to this swim in the first place. Anyway they stayed to about 2 in the afternoon, when they left for their dinner!

Finally I did manage to catch a small carp of a pound around lunchtime which cheered me up somewhat.

I did catch a crucian and a mate wanted to know what one looked like. Here it is.




By 3 in the afternoon I decided a change in tactics had to be made. In came the float rod to be replaced by my feeder rod. A change of line strength as well, 5lb mainline changed to 6lb (the free invisible red line from the Angling Times). No feeder required as I was going to freeline meat underneath the bushes and in the margins, something that had worked for me before.

I fed swim 2 with a few cubes of meat while I continued setting up. The swim is barely a foot deep so quiet and a certain degree of stealth was necessary. I flicked the meat out into stream cuurent about 2 metres inside the pond and laid the rod down with the tip a few inches above the water. Less than a minute later the tip shot round. I struck and the fish spat the hook. Such was the force that my line shot up into the nearest tree! One hook down. Here is swim 2.


That swim was now dead so same tactics but this time into the swim on my left. Depth roughly the same except that it was underneath a tree. This time it was a good 10 minutes before the tip went round. Off the fish shot to the far side of the pond where it spat the hook.

I altenated between the 2 swims for the rest of the day. I did manage to catch a couple of 3 pounders using this approach but to be honest I've had better days there. I did manage a total of 23 fish by the end of the day.

I shall be back later in the summer to better my performance that's for sure.

Tight Lines

June 13th Private Pond, Hurst Green, Surrey

A rare outing for me on a Saturday due in the main to having a too many beers the previous Thursday and suffering for it on Friday.

One of the advantages of going on the Saturday of this particular week was that the weather for June had been pretty bad leading up to the weekend. There was relatively cold weather plus rain storms. The forecast for the day was 22 degrees with a slim chance of rain.

I was up at 5am and on the road by 5:50. Not surprisingly there was no traffic and within 35 minutes (it's only 17 miles) I pulled up at the fishery. There was one car there already, my mate from my previous visit. He had set up on the far side so I went in the opposite direction to peg 1.

The pond is about 2 acres in size, maybe a little less. Here is the view from peg 1 which is in the corner.

There are considerably more sets of lily pads on the far side of the island.

I selected 3 lines to fish - the first directly in front of me, which to be honest started off very slow and never really recovered. While I was trying it I could see movement by the lily pads off to my right all the time.

This is line 1 which I abandoned after the first hour. I was fishing midway across.

As my last visit to the venue was a success (by my standards) I decided to initially adopt the same tactics.

For tackle, I set up my 12' float road with 5lb main line and a size 16 hook. I used a 3 no 4 crystal waggler float which I set up for maximum sensitivity which was to pay dividends later.

For goundbait I used the usual mix of brown crumb, sweetcorn, some red attractor and scopex flavoured water. For hookbait I had with me, maggots, bread, sweetcorn, scopex flavoured sweetcorn and meat. I also had a small bucket of hemp which I fed every cast.

My initial casts caught the usual small roach and rudd. After 30 minutes or so of small fish on maggot I switched to scopex flavoured corn. Only one or 2 small (very) carp came to the net.

As stated above, after the first hour I switched to line 2 (see below) which is nice little swim right in the corner of the pond. At the most it's only 2 foot deep however there were signs of life all day around it. Some larger carp were also showing in the pads feeding.

I started off on the scopex corn and was immediately successful with a string of small carp plus one or two tench and the occasional crucian carp. Eventually the corn stopped working so I thought I'd try some bread. Here's where having the float set low paid off as almost a crucian a cast was brought to the net! I'd never caught more than 1 at a time and here I was getting a netful!

I have to comment that some of the tench did look rather thin. This one a 2lb example (my best of the season so far) fell to breadflake.

When I made my initial enquiries about the pond I was told that there were 5 perch in there, well I caught one of them on a piece on scpex corn! It was about a half pound. Going back to the bread I managed to catch some quality roach, not monsters but ones you have to use the landing net for. I reckon I got about half a dozen of these specimens.

At around 3:30 in the afternoon the float shot away and this just under 4lb carp was in the net.

The rest of the afternoon pretty much followed the same pattern as the rest of the day with the exception that I began to feed small cubes of meat into line 3, the margins to my left (see photo below).

By 17:30 I decided to give the swim above a go. Less than a minute after casting in with a cube of meat as bait the float slid away, I hit it and all hell let loose. The rod bent over as the fish headed for the lily pads in the centre of the pond. Dam, it had made it. I kept applying pressure and a short while later it came out. I then had it going up and down in front me which gave me the confidence to reach for the landing net. As I contemplated this move the fish rolled and broke the hooklength! I was gutted.

I put the experience down to only having a size 16 hook on so I fed a large handful of meat into my original swim by the lilys plus 2 or 3 large handfuls of maggots and set up again this time with a size 14 hook. Cast out again, no more than a minute later the float shot away and after striking the fish dug itself into the nearby lily pads. This time the hooklength snapped as I begun to apply pressure. Even more gutted than before!

I sat on my box for a few minutes contemplating whether or not to call it a day. Finally I talked myself into giving it one more shot. The rest of the maggots and meat were dispatched into the same swim as before and I re-cast to the same spot. Not an instant take this one, I had to wait for about 5 minutes before the float went and I struck. Off it went, not into the nearby pads this time but the ones in the middle of the pond. Applied pressure and sure enough it came out. When it rolled on the surface I had a good look at it. The blood pressure rose but I kept my cool. The fish was now going across in front of me but unlike before I banished all thoughts of the landing net until it was good and ready. It finally decided to have one last bolt for freedom which as it arrived on the far side of the pond it got! It had spat the hook out! At that point I was ready to jump in after it!

I decided it was time to call it a day. On reflection it was a great days fishing. I must have caught close to 100 fish. Although the last hour was a bit of a failure I do know 2 things, the first is, there are good fish in there and secondly, that I can hook them. I'll be back for them that's for sure.

Tight Lines.

June 1st 2009 - Private Pond, Hurst Green,Surrey

Today was my going to be my first visit to this venue. It's run by Hollands Anglers Society in Surrey.

Still partially suffering from the sunburn from the previous Friday and with the weather forecast saying expect more of the same I actually had the good sense to put on some sunscreen!

Although I hadn't been to this venue before, I discovered via the power of the internet that it was only about a mile from the club's other pond at Boulthurst Farm.

The best thing about fishing a club lake as opposed to a commercial is that you are not tied to any particular opening time. Bearing this in mind I was up and out by 6:00. The drive was really easy as it was mainly against the flow of traffic and in 30 minutes or so I pulled up at the ponds. A minor irratation was that you had to park in the road next to the pond fence however the road was fairly quiet and I could see my car from my swim all day.

The club has 2 ponds at this site, one on either side of the road. The one on the left as I arrived is called Dunks and the one on the right is called Private(?). I'd spoken to the main man at the club (Dave Walker) a couple of days previous and he told me to fish the Private pond, pegs 1, 10 or 11.

There were already 2 people there before me - one was setting up and the other was just entering Dunks. We had a quick chat before I entered the fishery. Having never been there before I had to find how the pegs were numbered - It turned out peg 3 was at the gate so that made peg 1 off to my right.

It was obvious that the fishery was well looked after, as the swims had a nice stone path leading to a very spacious fishing platform and the vegatation had been cut back. The swim itself was at the corner of the pond. The far bank was about 20 yards away and as the land was not part of the fishery it was non fishable. There was a set of lily pads right in the corner about 15 yards to my right. The margins between pegs 1 and 2 were separated by another set of lily pads.

After plumbing the depth I discovered that there really wasn't any where I was. Two feet deep at the most!

Having been told that the pond contained a good head of carp, I decided to ensure I was on the right set up from the start. I used my Shimano 12' float rod, 5lb main line and size 16 hook with a 3.5lb hooklength.

Bait wise I came armed with almost everything I could think of. As it was going to be a long day I mixed more goundbait than usual but kept it simple, 90% brown crumb, some Van Der Eynde silver fish attractor and half a tin of sweetcorn mixed with scopex flavoured water.

I fed a large ball of groundbait plus a couple of handfuls of hemp directly in front of me (the swim below). Almost immediately there were signs of movement in front of me which I took to be roach or rudd.

The old nerves began to jangle as I wondered if I could catch in this new venue. Ten minutes later I had the answer as the float disappeared and I landed a very small carp - still they all count! At the end of the first hour after I'd switched to scopex flavoured sweetcorn a few more small carp were caught.

After the first hour I switched to the swim by the lily pads - See the photo below. I had a good bite almost straight away but it spat the hook.

The day settled into a pattern of small carp plus the occasional 2 or 3 pounder. In between the carp I did manage 3 tench the best of which was one about a pound.

As a new face I was attracting some attention from fellow members and before long one came round and asked to see my membership details. I didn't mind I keep everything on me.

Around 10:30 the float dived away and out came this nice common.

My swim I later found out was the only one that didn't get any shade at all, even as the sun went down! After Friday I could feel that familar tingling on my arms and face.

When I fish Stubpond I have to pack up around 4:45 which always appears to be a shame for me as I think the evening is the best time for fishing - the sun dips and the fish come close in and feed! I stayed until 8:30 when my eyes couldn't stay open any longer.

As is always the way as the sun went down the bigger fish appeared. Around 17:30 I caught my biggest fish of the day.

In conclusion I would say that as this was my first visit to the venue, it was GREAT! I caught all day long, it was nice and peaceful and the pegs are spaced a deal apart. I will be going back there soon.

Tight lines.

29th May 2009 - Stubpond Fishery Mill Lake

This was the first of a fishing weekend double header. Today was going to be my last visit to Stubpond prior to the opening of my club ponds on Monday.

It was half term this week so I didn't have to do any ferrying about before I left for the fishery. This, coupled with the fact that the fishery had been open before 8 the last two times I'd been meant that it might have been worth leaving a tad earlier.

Anyway the car was loaded and ready to go by 6:55. The sky was clear, there was no wind and I only had a t-shirt on (plus trousers ha ha) - this was a sign of things to come!

Arrived at the venue at 7:30 and yes the gates were open. There was one car in front of me and one behind so I wasn't the only person with the same idea! Anyway after parking the car by Mill Lake I realised they were here for the speci lake and I was left to trundle along the bank on my own. There was no one about to pay my money to so I began to set up.

The lake was calm and the carp were already cruising the surface. Decided to fish the same tactics as I did on my last visit. One swim close in by the reeds to my right and one three quarters of the way across straight in front of me.




I groundbaited both swims with the usual mix of brown crumb, red attractor and scopex flavoured water. Two or three handfuls of hemp were also thrown in. The right side swim (line 1) was my initial target. Single maggot on the hook plus 2 or 3 with every cast brought a fish a throw (rudd mainly but interspersed with the occasional perch, roach and skimmer bream).

After an hour I switched swims and bait to a piece of scopex flavoured sweetcorn as I had seen loads of bubbles signifing fish activity. Alas I never had a single knock. The float was being knocked a lot but I think these were line bites as the float only lifted and never dropped away.

Bread atracted the first carp of the day in swim 1 but this seemed to purely be a one off. The sun was really powering down now and for the next 2 hours both swims died. I continued with the feed in the hope that fish would come in later on.

During this lull in the proceedings every rudd in living creation seemed be swimming on the surface including some which could have easily topped a pound. There were quite a few carp in with them as well. The bailiff came round about this time and said the snakes were out as well! One was curled up in peg 7 - I was on peg 2, charming!

Around 2pm after starting to feed the swim to my left with luncheon meat I had a big knock and out came a 3 pounder. Same tactic on swim 1 yielded this 5lb carp.

The rest of the day continued in the same vein, practically a bite a cast on meat. I missed 2 or 3 good fish, one took me into the reeds on the far side and wouldn't come out. It finally spat the hook.

The last cast of the day brought a definite bite, the rod bent over and the fish came mildly to the surface. It then realised it had been hooked and bolted. Three times it stopped and three times after gaining some ground it made off again. Finally it decided it had had enough and threw the hook out. I was cheesed off big time. It was a monster!

That was it then. A funny old day. Caught 30 odd fish including 1 5lb and 2 3lb carp plus a load of small ones. The sun beat me in the end - I was burnt to a crisp! Went home when they threw me out.

On Monday I'm off to the club's pond in Hurst Green. Never fished it before so am quite excited.

Tight Lines

15th May 2009 - Stubpond Mill Lake

Not the best of days as I awoke on Friday. There was a large cloud cover with a definite threat of rain in the air but thankfully no sign of the predicted wind.

Arrived at the fishery at 7:55 to find I was the first one there, and as it turned out, the only one in the entire complex (except for the weekend night fishers who turned up around 3pm) for the day!

I read on the Maggotdrowning.com forum that fish that hug the island will move away from the bank if there is little or no fishing pressure on them. That is, the more confident they are the further away from the island they will patrol. Coupled with the flat water and next to no wind I decided to fish 2 swims. My normal one by the reed bed (swim 1) and another about three quarters of the way to the island (swim 2). Not far as the island is within pole range but sadly I don't have a pole.

Using water with scopex attractor in I mixed my groundbait - 75% brown crumb and 25% groundbait mix. I fed a large handful of groundbait into each swim plus a large handful of hemp.

As per norm I started with a light match rod setup (4lb line and a size 16 hook). I fed a few maggots and using a single red maggot I cast to swim 1. I thought I would fish this first whilst giving the island fish a chance to move in on the bait in swim 2. Second cast a nice carp of about a pound was in the net.

Caught another carp in the first hour in the same way and then had a few silver fish. Each time I caught a fish I fed 2 or 3 red coloured scopex flavoured sweetcorn into each swim. On the hour I fed both swims with more groundbait. After the first hour I attacked swim 2 as I'd seen bubbles around the area of the bait.

I also switched hookbait to the scopex sweetcorn. Barely had the sweetcorn hit the water when off the float went and a few minutes later another carp was in the net. For the rest of the morning I was fairly successful on the corn, switching swims did the trick as the fish kept on the feed.

At mid-day it all changed - the rain arrived and with it the wind and as a consequence the temprature dropped as well. Casting to swim 2 became difficult so I decided to concentrate on swim 1. I also changed baits to bread and meat to see what, if anything was interested. I caught carp on both however the highlight of the dinnertime session was when the float disppeared while I was fishing a large(ish) bit of bread and up popped a gudgeon!

For the rest of the day I couldn't fish the second swim as conditions were too bad. I had one wonderful bite on meat which felt like a good fish however it spat the hook out after 3 runs to the island - shame. As it was 16:40 I decided enough was enough (it closes at 5) and headed home.

Here is my best carp of the day - just over 3lb.

All in all I enjoyed my day (which is the main thing). I had around 40 fish including Carp, Roach, Rudd, Perch, Gudgeon, Tench (just the one! Why always one?) and Bream.

Less than a month now until my club waters open so am looking forward to that.

Tight Lines.

1st May - Mill Lake - Stubpond Revisited

Summer's here, or at least that was what the preceeding few days were telling me as on Friday I headed back to Stubpond for my first session in May.

The car was loaded and ready for the off around 7:10. The sky was clear and I suspected that today was going to be a hot one. An uneventful journey down meant that I arrived around 7:55 to find the gates open early again.

I set up in my favourite swim as there was no one on the lake, if the swim was taken I would have trekked up to the top swims and try my luck there.

The lake was dead calm and the vegatation in the margins and on the far bank was getting greener. Still no real sign of the lily pads though.



I intended to incorporate the same game plan as last time, which was to target the silver fish early until the carp and/or bream moved in. To this end I set up two rods. A light setup on the 13' match rod (size 16 hook with 4lb pound line and a heavier setup on the 12' float rod of size 14 hook and 5lb man line).

I'd watched a Matt Hayes program the other day and he was raving on aboout Scopex as a flavour to mix in with groundbait and/or sweetcorn. I decided to give this a go. The night before my visit I'd flavoured some sweetcorn with Scopex and also flavoured some water so that I could add it to my groundbait mix. I'd also coloured the sweetcorn red.

A large ball of goundbait (brown crumb and an attractor plus a few bits of normal sweetcorn) plus a handful or two of hemp were dispatched at the point where the weeds met open water.

Half a dozen maggots were thrown in with every cast.

The first hour yielded 25 rudd and roach, no monsters but pleasing to see there was life in the swim.

For the second hour I switched to using the Scopes sweetcorn and feeding a few hemp seeds every few minutes on top of the second ball of groundbait. The only real success was a F1 around the pound mark.

I also had a small tench and a few small carp (up to a pound) on the sweetcorn but nothing spectacular.

I alternated tactics btween the sweetcorn and single maggot until two o'clock when I begun to loose feed meat on the chance the carp had woken up and moved in.

As the day wore on it became obvious that the carp were not going to show. I continued to catch roach and rudd on the maggot. Was it the weather? I did see 3 good carp on the surface but by Stubpond standards this wasn't very many.

Anyway towards the end of the day I finally got a bite on the meat - it was this 2lb bream.


So what was wrong? There was a guy 3 or 4 swims along from me fishing the pole to the island and he could only get bites when he switched to paste.

At the end of the day we decided that they must have been spawning. Still I had a great day, I caught 69 fish including, rudd, roach, perch, a single tench, FI, common carp and a good bream.

Tight lines

April 16th Mill Lake - Stubpond Again

By last Thursday I had finally made up enough hours at work to take a day off and head for a days sport at Stubpond.

The weather forecast said it would be about 17 degrees with the possibility of showers, some thundery.

Minutes after leaving the house a few drops of rain hit the windscreen and I thought I was in for a wet one. However after driving the 20 miles to Stubpond the rain had abated and the sun was out.

I arrived at 7:50, ten minutes before opening time to find the gates already open!

Paid my £1 day ticket fee, had a quick chat with the owner and then headed for my swim.

After the last trip's disastrous result which, after seeking advice, I put down to over-feeding on a coldish day, I felt I had to change my approach somewhat.

Previous experience told me that the larger carp didn't usually show up until around mid day so I decided to set up two rods. The first, my 13' match rod, was set up using 4lb main line to a size 16 hook. The second was my 12' commercial float rod which was set up with 5lb main line to a size 14 hook.

I cut back on the initial groundbaiting. One large handful of brown crumb with a few pieces of sweetcorn plus 2 or 3 handfuls of hemp were thrown in. After that it was a small ball of groundbait every hour and I alternated between a few maggots and a few hemp seeds every cast.

First cast, and out came a nice roach. A fish a cast was the order of the day for the first hour as the little roach and rudd grabbed the single maggot as it dropped through the water. Every half hour or so I switched baits. Sometimes bread, sometimes corn trying to tempt a bigger fish and to see if there were signs of the carp were moving in.

When the bait was able to hit bottom I also managed a crucian, a tench and a few gudgeon. Also a few bream were showing, mainly skimmers but also this nice specimen which was around the 2lb mark.

At mid day I switched rods and began to include meat into the feed. I also tested meat on the hook from time to time along with maggot, bread and corn. At 12:30 I was rewarded with this carp which was around the 4lb mark.

The rest of the day I caught a few carp albeit pretty small ones until 4pm when I caught this lovely common which looks like it's carrying spawn.

So by the time I packed up around 5ish (why do commercials have to close so early in the summer months?) I had caught 45 fish, a mixed bag of roach, rudd, tench, bream, gudgeon, crucian, common and mirror carp.

For once I had to share the lake with one person to my immediate right and 3 people 4 swims along to my left. The sun shone all day and for the most part I had just a t-shirt on. Wonderful.

Tight Lines.