I’m going to skate over the last three weeks as the weather has been ridiculously hot and with air temperatures reaching 42 degrees and water temps at 30 it isn’t surprising that the fishing was poor. Even in the poor conditions the lads still managed two 50lbs plus carp but both were well spawned out at 54lbs and 56lbs. On the positive side we’ve still seen plenty of feeding fish but, and this is a guess, the warm water has probably generated the bloodworm to pupate and in so doing have produced a lot of amino acids which are likely to be the feeding trigger for the carp. Yesterday we saw two very violent storms, one of which fried our internet and phone, and the carp have been kicked into life with the first night of the new week producing two 38lbs fully scaled, plus mirrors of 41lbs, 42lbs and 44lbs.
Tag: Keith moors
16th June 2019
I’m not going to waffle on about last week but I will let the photos do the talking. What more can I say than well angled fellas. It was a pleasure to be a small part of it.
Totals for the week were:-
68 carp banked made up of 27 forties, and more than half upper forties, and 5 fifties.
8th June 2019.
I will start this review of last week by saying that it continues to amaze me that carp anglers try to avoid June, because of the risk of spawning fish, and prefer May. I understand that you could catch them at their biggest in May but you’re also much more likely to find them spawning. Generally by June they are back on the feed, as this review shows.
With just 5 anglers on the lake I was invited to fish and, after their swim choices, I was also able to fish First Pontoon. This made the job of setting up etc. much less hassle and also kept me close to the house and lodge for meals plus exercising Porscha.
It became obvious, within 24 hours, that the fish were looking for food and the Dynamite ComplexT was far more attractive than particles. I chose to bait up 4 spots and fish 3 while keeping an eye on the fourth as a sort of reserve. I purposely ignored the aerator and Lillie bin and fished at 8 wraps maximum with my first fish coming to the rod at 5 wraps.
Everybody caught and everybody caught at least one forty. Unfortunately some of those upper forties were well spawned out and would have been mid fifties, or bigger, before spawning. However, we ended the week with 48 carp between us and that included 15 forties and 3 fifties. Most enjoyable for everyone so a big “well angled”.
I will end this with the list of carp that I managed to fluke out, just to show that we all need luck to be with us when it comes to which fish we hook.
in order of appearance;-
42lbs 8oz common, 37lbs 6oz common, 49lbs 8oz common, 37lbs 10oz common, 34lbs 5oz fully scaled, 46lbs 6oz common, 49lbs 9oz mirror, 43lbs 11oz common, 56lbs 12oz mirror, 36lbs 5oz mirror, 46lbs 1oz common.
11 carp including 6 forties and 1 fifty. I’ll settle for that.
11th May 2019
Last week was simply an exhibition of angling prowess. 5 lads turned, having never been to Moorlands before and showed just how angling without using bait boats can be a massive advantage. I’ve been saying for a while now that bait boats on shallow lakes work against you rather than for you. The noise of the motor running definitely spooks the fish and the bait dropped lands in a totally unnatural pile and carp don’t do “unnatural” without avoiding it.
Anyway, last weeks lads decided that all baiting patterns would be by throwing stick, catapult or wading and, my word did it pay off.
By the end of the week they had banked 79 carp including 17 forties, 7 fifties and 2 sixties. There were personal bests all over the place and we made five new friends very easily. Great week and well angled fellas.
27th April 2019
The last couple of weeks have been strange, to say the least, so I’m going to try to cover both weeks as a single report.
In general the last 14 days have seen the weather change from cold to red hot which saw the water temps soar from 10 degrees to 19 degrees in one week and then heavy rain, extremely strong winds and hail storms drop the water temp to 14 degrees in 24 hours.
The warmest and most settled period saw the carp kick in to spawning mode with several groups occupying the end of the Southern Arm as well as the the willow roots along the stock pond dam wall. The obvious, visible spawning lasted from Friday through to Wednesday morning and then stopped so suddenly that it was like throwing a switch. I will just add here that some of the bigger fish that we saw banked, just before the spawning activity kicked in, didn’t look ready for spawning so I’m honestly not sure whether we missed the first part of spawning by a small group or, perhaps, some of the fish will spawn much later.
The week leading up to the spawning was difficult but we still saw some good fish with 4 forties, 2 fifties (one of them at 55lbs 7oz not recognized as a known fifty) plus the Half Lin at 69lbs 10oz. We then suffered a lull in the action, during spawning, followed by another difficult week which produced just 12 carp but that total included 4 forties (2 above 45lbs), 4 fifties and The Peach at 67lbs 3oz so the averages are looking very healthy.
We now head into a new week with more rain forecast and the lake completely full once more. With the forecast showing the temperatures to be warming up I’m hoping that the next couple of weeks might produce numbers of big fish.
Be lucky.
14th April 2019
SUNDAY 14th APRIL 2019
I must admit that I done remember such ridiculously cold weather at this time of year during previous years. It was minus 3 this morning, the field was solid with frost and, although that’s the coldest for a week the previous days still started frosty and with a biting northerly wind blowing. About as far from “carpy” weather as you could imagine. However, the lads stuck to the challenge and even though only about 15 carp were banked over half of them were forty plus with 7 forties banked plus a common of 54lbs 8oz and a mirror of 56lbs 7oz so the averages are holding up.
The most frustrating thing is that we are watching numerous, very big carp, rolling from early evening, through the night and round to breakfast time but most of the captures are coming during the day when there’s very little signs of movement. Wired or what?
The forecast is for the weather to improve rapidly this week from Tuesday on so let’s hope these rolling fish start rolling over people’s landing nets.
8th April 2019
The week just ended was very quiet and mostly because of poor weather conditions but Roy did manage to bank 3 forties to 49lbs so it wasn’t a complete disaster.
Last night saw much better results so we are hoping that it’s a sign of things to come and the numbers of fish feeding this morning are underlining this hope.
The photos here are a mirror of 42lbs 2oz which has got Scott’s week started, Chris with a new PB in the shape of “Bungle” at 45lbs 8oz and Keith with his new PB in the shape of a common at 54lbs 8oz. Well angled one and all.
30th March 2019
SATURDAY 30th March 2019.
The end of our first week of the new season.
The weather forecast looked superb and the first couple of days suggested that it would be perfect conditions. Unfortunately the wind turned to a very cold northerly and dropped the water temperature from 14.5 to 12 degrees in two days and this seemed to immediately reduce the number of fish that could be seen rolling and fizzing.
All 9 of our angling guests remained happy and enjoying the challenge but it was noticeable that the fishing became very localized to different areas on different days. For instance, one angler would catch two or three early on and then suffer a few days blanking and not even seeing any fish while another angler who had been blanking early on would suddenly have 5 or six fish in two days and so on. Unfortunately, two of the lads struggled throughout the week and, while the carp continued to show in their swims, nothing that they tried would be accepted by the fish.
It has been, and will continue to be, very frustrating for me to have to be so careful to limit the amount of work that I do and this includes helping with weighing and photographing the fish but I know that I will gradually get back to full fitness and be able to be back behind the camera in the future so I’ll just have to be patient.
Anyway, our opening week was far from being a failure with approximately 25 carp banked and within that number were two or three twenties, several good thirties, 7 forties, 3 fifties (50lbs 15oz mirror, 53lbs 0oz mirror, 53lbs 12oz unknown common) and 1 sixty in the shape of “Horseshoe Scale” at a new best weight of 63lbs. So very well angled to one and all.
I should also like to add that two of the fifties and the sixty have certainly put on weight during the winter period and that fact alone could promise some very exciting surprises for the rest of this season. In fact Horseshoe Scale was only 58lbs 9oz last May when she was carrying a lot of spawn so to have put on 4.5lbs in 11 months with the effect of her spawn swelling not yet counting is amazing.
Be lucky.
3rd March 2019
At long last we appear to be getting near the end of our winter works and are now confident that we, and the fishery will be ready to welcome our first guests at the end of March. There’s always a lot of work to be done during the winter but we added to the normal tasks of clearing the reeds and the broken sticks and branches by ripping out the whole of the big bramble patch just inside the field gate as well as taking the top off of the drive and rolling out the carnage created with a large Bomag. Anyway, that’s done and Jan has been busy painting the lodge, cleaning the kitchen and bar area and we now need a few more dry days to complete some repointing and then painting the outside.
I’m pleased that the calcium carbonate is all done and, conversely to my comment above, I’m waiting for some more rain, which is forecast this week, so that I can get the last of the reeds moved from the spillway pool and off down the garden stream.
During my perambulations this morning I noticed that the Southern Arm is beginning to clear again after having appeared to be clouding up over recent days. That suggests to me that the carp are beginning to stir up the bottom and is good news for the anglers. It also made me imagine the numbers of big fish that might become more visible this year, especially during the fight while hooked and that got me to looking through some of the catch reports over the last couple of years. I was amazed to find that we have seen 17 different carp banked weighing in excess of 55lbs. That, for me, is mind blowing and I can only add that the oldest of these is less than 19 years old and several of them are less than 10 years old. Add to that that the other 30 or so lower fifties and lord knows how many upper forties, are all very young fish and we have a recipe for some very special results for the future.
Here’s a list of the bigger fish with their best weights over the last couple of years.
Cut Tail – 76lbs 15oz
Half Lin – 74lbs 15oz
Clover – 60lbs 5oz
Andy’s Common – 59lbs 15oz
Pipesmoker – 60lbs 5oz
Peach – 65lbs 9oz
Round Scale – 57lbs 14oz
Black Scale – 57lbs 3oz
Footsteps – 56lbs 10oz
Pretty One – 58lbs 9oz
Horseshoe Scale – 60lbs 15oz
Chunky – 56lbs 2oz
Arfur – 55lbs 3oz
Chunky’s Double – 55lbs 2oz
Bob’s fish – 56lbs 3oz
Dippy – 59lbs 1oz
Galileo – 60lbs 7oz
I’m reasonably happy with that list.
Be lucky.
25th February 2019
The winter work continues at a pace and the warm, dry February has resulted in us having to rake out the cut reeds rather than being able to float them over the spillway. The lake is totally full but the flow in the garden stream isn’t strong enough to push the cut reeds away so each pile raked out of the lake has had to be borrowed round to the field and burned. I’m sure you can imagine that a huge pile of soaking wet reeds takes a while to burn but we are getting there.
Now to more pleasant things. My grandson Lewis has taken advantage of half term to flick a white rubber drop shot lure around and has caught some fantastic looking wide mouth bass, a very welcome, and superbly marked perch and ……… wait for it, a 2lbs plus rudd, yes a rudd, caught fair and square on a rubber lure. Well angled mate, that’s something I’ve never done.
Yesterday we completed spreading the calcium carbonate across the entire lake and, immediately saw the carp feeding in the areas recently covered. I was concerned that the application would put them off of the feed but that was far from being the case. Today, this morning and this evening, I watched numbers if carp feeding over a wide area of the lake and I also watched three very good fish roll. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but seeing rolling fish is probably almost as exciting as catching one. I’m waiting to see the first ones caught in order to see whether the water clarity has darkened their colours.
More heavy work starts tomorrow but we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Be lucky.