Barford Lakes News

Day ticket anglers are enjoying some good sport at the moment, and its not just the carp that are putting a bend in anglers rods. Thomas Radford from Norwich fished the pleasure lake (peg 5) and had numerous skimmers and bream as well as a few carp during the day. Fishing the pole at around 6-8m out he caught on sweetcorn hookbaits loose feeding pellets constantly during the day.

A couple of weeks ago Kev Green (Editor of Improve Your Coarse Fishing and presenter of Carp Crew) came along to our lakes and had some tuition from Bob Nudd on fishing up-in-the-water on a pole.  This may not sound unusual but being an out and out carp angler Kev hasn't picked up a pole for 15 years!  The session was on Willow Lake and went well - so well in fact that Discovery Real Time decided that they would want Kev to put this master class into practice on one of our matches (he hadn't fished a match for 18 years!).

After a quick call to Alec Davison of St Andrews Angling Club I had Kev guesting (along with Alan Tuck and Mike Whittiker) on their match on the Match Lake.  My remit for the day was to come along and take the mick out of Kev during the match!  Something I found I could do with ease - sorry Kev once I started I couldn't stop... I was even taking the mick when the cameras weren't rolling!!!  All of which he took very well.

The film should be quite comical - I'm told it's edited quite well and Kev's result wasn't too bad.  He held his own (improved performance once we had him holding his pole properly and feeding better) and he didn't come last!!  I'll leave the rest to the film.  Carp Crew 2 starts around 24th/25th September and we are the 2nd episode. 

Listings can be found on http://www.realtimetv.co.uk/_listings

Back in May there was a charity match on our waters in aid of the RNLI.  One of the raffle prizes was a day's fishing with the former World Champion Bob Nudd.  The lucky winner was a delightful young man called Ross Warren who is a 9 year old budding angler and drummer! 

Ross came along with his Dad, Carl and they met Bob on our Pleasure Lake a couple of weeks ago.  Dad fished next door on peg 4 whilst Ross set out his stall on peg 5.  Bob spent the whole day sitting next to Ross giving him his wistful tuition and helping out when the bigger carp tired him out!  Ross had a brilliant day and had 2 Barbel to 2 and half pound, Crucian carp, 2 skimmers and a bream to 3lb.  He also had some clonking carp (Mirrors and Commons) with the biggest being a 12lb 10ozs Common Carp.  All fish were caught on corn, maggot, pellet or paste. 

Dad, Carl had 5 carp the biggest a 10lb 5ozs Common.  So Ross did beat his Dad on this occasion but I don't think Carl minded as you can't get a better coach than a four times world champion.

Thanks to Bob I think Ross had a most memorable day!

This wonderful 16lb common carp was caught on the causeway on the Pleasure Lake.  It was caught by Ryan Cornwall (age 11) on catmeat and corn on the bottom.  It was a good test for his friend's new pole (Tom Radford) on which he caught it on!

Pictured below is the friendly face that many of you will know and that is John Lake our Bank Steward.  John started on a voluntary basis as Bank Steward this year - my ever increasing work load in the office has kept me away from the bank and a friendly presence was needed to ensure all our customers got the peaceful day's fishing they'd paid for.

Originally he was to check tickets twice a week and deal with any problems that occurred during that time.  Now, down to John's natural ability of being a genuinely nice guy this has extended to showing new customers around (including 'the talk' of which pegs and methods are best), angler control - curbing swearing and general noisiness, helping disabled anglers to their pegs and with their fishing, increasing anglers catch rates with angling tuition and generally bringing a good feel to the fishery.

We are a friendly and welcoming fishery who are there to help our customers and this (along with the good attitude of the majority of our anglers) has created a great community of regulars - John's input has complemented this really well.   

We have had lots of positive feedback from anglers that he has helped and during the summer holidays and over Daniel's holiday week, John popped in every day to make sure all was well with the lakes and anglers. 

Well us at Barford lakes and all the anglers who you’ve been in contact with (well maybe not the two you chucked off) would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to you John.  It's been a pleasure having you around the fishery and thanks for bringing a positive and cheery vibe to the place - long may it continue.

The Cronin family visited us for the first time this year.  They are from Newmarket and Rebecca Cronin (age 11) fished the training lake and had about 70 fish and really enjoyed it.  Mr Cronin is pictured with one of his quality carp he caught too.

Among other fish Mark Shubrook had this carp from peg 5 on the Pleasure Lake on corn.  His friend was fishing the recent 2 day festival and came 5th overall.  The two friends didn't do too badly over the weekend!!