July 12th Boulthurst Farm, Nr Limpsfield Surrey

After nearly not getting a swim for an afternoon session last week and ending with a 7.5 pound carp I thought I thought that was good enough reason to devote a whole day to the club pond at Boulthurst Farm.

I arrived about 7am accompanied by a light rain. The forecast was for rain all day so I put my waterproof trousers and fleesce on. I carried my tackle through the undergrowth to my swim. I was glad I had got changed as my legs were covered in water!

On the way to the swim and I could see fish moving all over the pond including several good ones near the bank where I was walking and planning to fish. I had the feeling today was going to be a good day.

I set up in the usual way, the only difference being that the pond was a couple on inches deeper thanks to the recent rains. Out went a single piece of corn and I sat back and waited for the action to begin. Here is my swim:

No immediate action, not even any signs of life around the swim. Very strange. I kept up my normal feeding pattern but to no avail. By now the early morning rain had disappated and the sun had broken through. The carp continued to cruise on the top all over the pond.

About 8:30 a father and his 7 year son turned up and set up in the swim next to mine. They had all the modern carp gear including rod pod and buzzers. By the sound of thier conversation the young lad had the left hand rod and the dad the right. They were casting to the far side of the pond, I could tell because the height of the bank meant that I could clearly see where their lines entered the water.

After 30 minutes or so off went one of their buzzers and in came a carp of around 3lb. The father came round for a chat and told me what his tactics were, tutti fruitti boile on 10lb main line fished as close to the far bank as possible. The far bank is inaccessible to anglers. He asked me what the largest fish in the pond was and I told him about 15 pounds.

The rest of the morning session followed the same pattern. I was getting absolutely nothing and for them the buzzer went off every 30 minutes or so although to be fair not all were landed. Around lunchtime the young lad came round to see if I had caught anything yet - I replied no and he said "not to worry" as he had had 3 so far - all good uns!.

I decided to have my lunch around 1pm - feeling confident that by now that it wasn't my day and that the float wouldn't go under while I was eating! After lunch I decided to feed the swim under the tree, as that is where the previous week I'd had some success.

I gave it half an hour before dropping the float in - as I did the young lad and his dad came round again for a chat. As they were standing next to the tree I really didn't expect much action but in mid sentence the dad jumped back as the float went and I struck. After a few minutes into the net came a nice cap of around 2 pound. Off the mark at last - not a blank!

I thought a change of tactics might be in order so I switched to the feeder rod and sent the feeder out for a couple of hours. Nothing, not a sniff of a bite. Yes it was definitely one of those days.

All the time I was using the feeder I kept feeding the swim under the tree. Eventually I took the feeder off and feelined meat under the tree. One carp almost immediately was in the net. I fed bread as well as meat and corn. Some of it floated around the tree. I kept seeing the same carp come to the surface and eat the stuff. I put on a large flake and flicked it out. After a few minutes the tip went round, I struck and in came a 4 ounce roach!

4 o'clock came and my 2 new fishing buddies decided to called it a day - I reckon they must have had 10 carp between them - I was struggling on 2 plus a roach.

Over the next 2 hours I managed to extract one more carp from the bush swim (see below). By now the confidence was low and I started to think about packing up. In went a large handful of meat and some corn. I waited and waited and then the tip flew round and we were off again. A few minutes later, with the fish well and truly beaten I went for the net. The fish took this as a sign to leave so it did but gave me my hook back first!

That was it for me - I called it a day right there and then!

Tight lines.

5th July Boulthurst Farm, Limpsfield, Surrey

Now I'm no different from most anglers in that I believe the best time to attack a venue is the period late afternoon until it gets dark. To this end I set off at 2:45 for Boulthurst Farm, the club pond just outside Limpsfield in Surrey.

I arrived around 3:15 to find 3 cars in the car park. I began to panic - there are only 4 swims there! Anyway after a quick walk round I discovered that one of the swims was free - it was the most open and probably the worst on the complex except if you are one of the buzzer brigade in which case it's perfect. The best swim was occupied by a father and 2 small boys. I got chatting to them and they were going to pack up soon so I thought I'll have a quick try in the margins under the bush on a small float rather than the open water and then move round when they leave.

I set up a float rod and plumbed the depth. The water level was very low - the depth was just over a foot. The recent lack of rain was really having an effect on this small pond. I throw in a few grains of corn and flicked the float out.

Immediately there was some action around the float. I took it to be small roach just knocking the line. Suddenly the float shot away and I struck, the fish turned and headed back under the tree where it stayed after returning the hook! Undettered I threw a few more grains out and flicked the float out again. Five minutes later the same thing happened!

The dad and 2 boys decided to call it a day at this point and I took the oppertunity to move swims to actually do what I intended to do and that was have a little go at feeder fishing with a normal cage feeder.

I decided to fish about 20 yards in front of me and about 2 or 3 yards to the right of the fallen down tree. This was near enough for the carp to come to and far enough away I hoped not to lose any feeders.

The plan for the rest of the afternoon and evening was to use the feeder as stated above and feed the swims under the tree and in front of the bush with luncheon meat so that later on I could try fee-lining some meat.

I know my casting isn't brilliant but I did manage to put it quite close to the spot where I intended it to go. The pond has quite high banks but with the stream forming a gap I was able to position the rod 90 degrees to the feeder and about 6 inches off the surface of the water. I tightened up the line so that the tip was slightly bent and then waited.

A little knock and then another which was quickly followed by the tip slowly going round. I struck and up came a nice roach. Not a bad fish for my first cast. Next cast exactly the same thing. I must be getting good at this. I swopped baits from corn to luncheon meat and was rewarded with a nice carp of about 2 pounds.

Time was moving on and as I'd seen some fishy movement under the tree I thought I would give it a go. So in went some meat and out went a nice big piece on a free line. At the same time I started to pack away my stuff which I would no longer need. Now this a bit of a knack - tidying up while keeping an eye on the tip!

Here is the tree/bush.

Just as I finished the tip bent round and we were away. At first I thought it was in the 2 pound range but once on the surface I saw it was a good size. My feeder rod is strong and with 6lb line on I was confident of landing the beast. Finally into the net it came - a nice 7.5 pounds of common carp! My personal best for the season so far.

And here it is....

That was it for me - It was about 8 o'clock - I'd had 5 hours or so of fairly good sport so it was time to go home and have my dinner!

Tight Lines

03rd July 2009 - Mill Lake, Stubpond Fishery, Felbridge, Surrey

Having given the club ponds a hammering over the last few weeks I thought it would be a good idea to pay Stubpond a visit today.

The previous 4 days had been the hottest of the year so far but the forecast for today was for a drop of some 7 degrees so I thought if the fish had become sluggish in the heat they may now come back to life and feed.

I arrived at the fishery dead on the opening time of 8am to see a change to the notice which notified anglers that the fishery will now close at 6 rather than 5 - great an extra hours fishing for my quid!

Had the pick of the swims again as I was the first on the lake - only just though as another fella was only 2 or 3 three minutes behind me. What struck me about the swim that was different from this time last year was the absence of the lily pads to my right. There were replaced not by clear water but by the type of thick weed that grows under the water. Not to complain too much thougn as the swim was one of the more weed free on the lake. The further you walk away from the car park the weedier it becomes.

I decided to start by fishing as tight as I could to the weed bed that had replaced the lily pads. It wasn't difficult as a good underarm cast did the job wonderfully. I had groundbaited the swim and thrown in a handful or 2 of maggots to get them going. For set up my comercial float rod with 5lb line plus a size 16 carp wide gap hook was used. I knew if I was lucky that the carp here could be anything from 1lb up to around 15 pounds so I wanted to be prepared for anything. Also the set up had to be able to cope with a fish getting in the weeds (the visible and the invisible).

I decided to start with a single maggot to see if the silver fish were active in the swim and to ensure I didn't blank! Ten minutes later I had 3 rudd and a roach, the last of which had swallowed the hook deep and it was an effort to get it out. That made my mind up to change. Off came the maggot and on went normal sweetcorn. To be honest I'd been using scopex flavoured corn a lot lately and only using the 'normal' corn in the groundbait mix. Immediately there were indications on the float that something was interested. Down it went and in came a small tench of just under a pound.

Even though it wasn't yet 9:30 the big yellowish ghost carp that live in Mill Lake began to patrol the surface. They are big. The odd mirror could also be seen feeding on the surface weed. Sometimes they would literally swim beneath my feet!

Back to the action and I began to realise that the swim was alive with fish. Carp up to 2lb and 5 tench up to a pound found their way into the 'net' by lunchtime on corn, bread and scopex flavoured corn. So far I had only lost one fish which judging by it's run, I thought was another small tench.

If you are a regular reader of my reports you will know that 9 times out of 10 I tend to be the only person on the lake/pond. Now something very wierd happened in the morning. Another angler turned up and started to fish in the swim nearest the car park. First off he set up the biggest umbrella I've ever seen (which I mistook for a bivvy at first), complete with one of those beds that carpers use. Ten minutes later the umbrella was down, 10 minutes or so after that he was gone! Very strange.

Around 11 a father and son turned up who told me they hadn't fished there before and wanted the local info! What they did know came from the woefully out of date website which still stated that there were 5 lakes on the complex when in actual fact there was only 4. They decided to set up to my right in the 2 swims nearest the car park. They talked to each other all the rest of the day but it wasn't affecting my fishing so I didn't pay it no mind.

At noon I was feeling confident enough to make the switch to meat. I began to feed the swim to my immediate left which was against a reed bed about a rod length away. I decided to attack the swim at 1pm.

First drop into the swim and almost immediately the float went away and I had a good size carp on. As I said before the pond has a lot of weed in it and as the fish fought the line gathered more and more of it making the whole job slightly more difficult. Anyway I managed to get it in - a nice one of around 4 pound. See below:

For the rest of the afternoon I alternated between the two swims. The only difference being that the swim on the left I fed exclusively with meat and the other I fed the same way as in the morning except for a few cubes of meat. The fish kept coming in. All good fighters but none bigger than 4 pound. This was probably the best of the lot.

I did however break one of my personal bests - in fact I caught a species of fish I've never caught before. A nice goldfish of about 6 ounces!

I packed up about 5:30. I caught steadily all day for a total of 35 fish, the best being a 4lb carp. The weather as predicted was a lot cooler (although not uncomfortable) than the previous few days and I think this accounted as much for my catch as my skill!

In the words of Arnie - I'll be back.

Tight Lines.

26th June - Private Pond, Hurst Green, Surrey

Off again Friday. This time I was back to the Private pond in Hurst Green to see if I could catch at least one of the 3 carp that got away last time.

I arrived at the venue about 6:30 to be met by one car (someone else here) and a notice saying that due to a pre-booked match the pond was closed from 3:30! I was devastated because as you know the hours before dark are when the bigger fish come out to play!

Peg 1 was free again so that part of my plan was successful. Here is my swim.



According to the forecast the weather was going to produce another sorcher however having driven for 35 minutes in the rain and setting up in the wet I began to doubt it.

Learning from previous experience, I didn't even contemplate fishing the swim directly in front of me but directly went for the one by the lily pads. I fed the swim early as I set up with my usual starting line up (5lb main line, 16 hook). There was a slight difference in that I used Drennan wide gape hooks to nylon this time in the hope that should I indeed hook a good fish my chances of catching it were improved.

I was not happy with having to pack up at 3:30 and this initially affected my concentration. I knew there were plenty of fish around but I just couldn't get into any of them. The first hour yielded only a couple of small roach on single maggot. They were so small I switched immediately to scopex flavoured sweetcorn.

I started to get small carp of a few ounces nearly every cast but nothing more substantial. The pattern for the day was set. One ball of groundbait every hour, a few hempseeds every cast, a few pieces of sweetcorn into the margins to my right every fish caught and an alternation of hookbait between the scopex sweetcorn and bread everytime I caught a fish.

This worked perfectly as I had a bite a cast and almost a fish every other cast. They were mostly small carp but interspersed with these were some fine roach and a good head of crucians (see below).


The odd tench also made it in to the net, including 2 or 3 like this one.


The other angler packed up at 9:30. We bumped into each other as I was returning from a call of nature. I told him I wasn't happy with the situation and he showed me the list of matches booked. Today wasn't on it - so he said according to club rules I couldn't therefore be removed. I didn't particularly want a confrontation so I split the difference and took the chairman's number. I rang him about 10:30 and left a message explaining the situation and asking him to ring me back.

Around lunchtime another member turned up and after an hour or so I went to stretch my legs and had a word with him. Good news he told me the match would only be attended by 5 or so people, including the chairman. I was feeling confident about things now. I even got into one of two decent fish (nothing spectacular though).

Back to the fishing, they were flying in now. One of the guys at work was astounded when I told him that on a previous trip I'd caught close on 100 fish - so this time I counted each one. One piece of sweetcorn for a digit and a piece of meat for the 10's. By 2:30 I had around 60 in the hyperthetical net. I knew things would slow down when I targeted the better quality fish so I took nothing for granted.

I finally spoke to the chairman about 3 o'clock and he said it was fine, I could stay where I was. I took this as a positive sign and immediately switched tactics. I feed cubes of luncheon meat into the 2 swims and then loaded up the hook. First cast away goes the float and in comes yet another very small carp. How do they manage that?

I stayed on the meat until I packed up at 8pm but couldn't connect with anything larger than a few ounces. The sun reflecting off the water had finally taken it's toll. I was knackered. The match finished at the same time and I thanked the chairman, Dave Walker for the favour. All in all I caught 87 fish, 13 shy of my target. Not many of them topped a pound but I did catch a nice cross section. The bottom line was I enjoyed myself.

Here is a picture of my lone spectator. He stayed hanging aound my swim all day!



Tight lines.

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.