Tag: Keith moors

Another week done and another week closer to the friendly and productive temperatures. The lads really did well and caught some stunning fish. Some struggled while other plundered the stocks. That had nothing to do with angling ability and simply the fact that the fish parked themselves in front of the first four swims until Wednesday and then moved out en masse. Anyway, the final tally was 30 carp banked and very few of those were below 30lbs. The better fish included 8 forties, 6 fifties plus Half Lin at 67lbs.

Cant wait to see what the following weeks produce and I have been playing around with fish growth rates in order to try to come up with projections. I have monitored some of the bigger carp weights and compared them with the same time last year. I then took those same fish and checked to see what their best weights were by the end of last year and it has thrown up some surprises. Now I’m not suggesting that I can forecast exactly what weight each fish will achieve but, even conservatively, my calculations suggest that we could easily have at least 12 different sixties. Way beyond my wildest dreams!!!!

FISH WEIGHTS – 2018 FIRST HALF.

As we wait for the arrival of our first group of anglers to begin our second half of our season I thought it may be interesting to check some of the weights of our fish. I have listed 10 known (and easily recognizable) fish and have only shown those that have been banked in the first half of 2018. Those of you who follow our progress will immediately see that there are some noticeable omissions but, if they haven’t been banked this year yet, they don’t feature on this list.
One other thing that is noticeable is that a lot in this list are at their best ever weights while one or two are not. Obviously this relates to when they were caught this year (and last) in relation to spawning and as the big fish can lose 10lbs in spawn we can see that there are still some massive potentials for this autumn, once this ridiculously long, hot, summer eventually breaks.
Hope this is interesting and I will just add that we still have some summer and autumn spaces for 2019 while spring 2020 is filling fast.
Be lucky.

HALF LIN – 67lbs 14oz Royal Box (2017 best 74lbs 15oz)
PEACH – 65lbs 9oz 2nd Pontoon
GALILEO – 60lbs 7oz Stumps
PIPESMOKER – 60lbs 4oz Snag Bay (common)
DIPPY – 59lbs 1oz – 02/06/18 Dog Leg
HORSESHOE SCALE – 58lbs 9oz Dog Leg
PRETTY ONE – 58lbs 9oz Leaning Tree
BOB’S FISH – 56lbs 3oz Oaks
ANDY’S COMMON – 56lbs 0oz Mistletoe (2017 best 59lbs 15oz)
ROUND SCALE – 55lbs 15oz Pampas (2017 best 57lbs 14oz)

Right, we are now well into the first of our three week, mid summer break so it seems a good time to update the situation. We lost our telephone line in a recent storm and, despite the original break being repaired, our internet connection has been poor. That has now been rectified so I apologies for the lack of posts but here we go again.

Our season started really well but has slowed considerably with the extreme, hot weather conditions. We have seen several weeks with temperatures into the mid thirties and our highest so far has been 41 degrees. When this spell of hot weather started my main concern was that we didn’t have a “reserve” compressor in case the existing one should fail. I spoke to Vertex and decided to order the next size up as this was the biggest that our system would take. For some reason, as soon as it arrived I disconnected the original compressor and fitted the new one which now pumps 5.6 cubic feet of air per minute to the four diffuser heads. The flow of air to the surface is now much stronger and should be giving a much bigger water movement across the lake bed as it drags in the water from low levels. I took the boat out to check it’s power and I was amazed at the force at the surface and also at how much colder the water is around the area of each head. I think it’s safe to say that I’m glad I bought the bigger pump.

During this hot spell the Fishing has been poor BUT the fish have certainly been feeding well. Each morning I sit and watch the lake and scan the surface with binoculars in order to try to spot any fish and I can honestly say that EVERY morning has shown there to be numbers of fish digging across large areas of the lake bed. It seems that they are happier eating the myriads of bloodworm, snail, beetles etc rather than beds of boilies. However, I’m expecting that to change the minute the weather breaks.

I will end by saying that I really feel for the owners and anglers on the lakes which have been reporting fish deaths. It’s a tight rope that we all walk in order to keep the numbers of fish at a level that will give the anglers good sport but then pushes the biomass to its limit so that the dissolved oxygen levels can become critical in the blink of an eye. So far we’ve been lucky, we have seen several baby perch and baby sun perch dead around the margins but none of the carp are showing any signs of stress. Is also reassuring to watch the bigger predators chasing the breakfasts with some vigor.

Well the scorching weather continues with every day over 30 degrees and the hottest last week up to 38. In the light of that it’s not surprising that only 15 or so carp were banked but the fact that they included 4 forties and 2 fifties is not too sad and the post spawning weights are extremely good.

Unfortunately the photos of the other fish are in raw and this dashboard won’t accept them but the one above weighed 51 lbs 15 oz and the other fifty was 56 lbs 10 oz.

The day after the Bastille day celebrations and the morning of France’ attempt to win the World Cup of football and all is currently peaceful in our world. I’m sure the cavalcades of vehicles with thei horns blaring will commence if they win.

Anyway, let’s get back to the Fishing, which has also been quiet. That is not to say that the carp aren’t feeding, quite the opposite, but they are certainly on naturals and fry in a very big way. Of an evening and early morning we can see numbers of carp fizzing and rolling and throughout most nights there are the sounds of some very big fish crashing out. Two weeks ago the anglers were more into their holidays than their fishing and I’m not knocking them for that but winding in and spending two or three hours away from their swims at breakfast and dinner certainly meant that they missed the main feeding spells so there would certainly have been more opportunities to be had. Last week four lads had the lake as an exclusive and while they worked hard and had breakfast baguettes in their swims it was always going to be hard to keep the fish in front of them with four trying to cover a 14 acre lake.

The highlight was to see Steve open his Moorland account on his first ever trip with “The Pretty One” at exactly 52 lbs. Well angled mate.

Right, this isn’t a catch report but it is a good time (half way through the year) to put out some information on bookings and spaces. This year is full so that can be forgotten, but 2019 still has some summer and autumn spaces and spring 2020 also has limited spring spaces remaining.
There are a lot of interested people and many enquiries at present so if anyone is looking for specific weeks for the next couple of years, my advice is don’t delay your decisions.
So far, this year we have seen 28 DIFFERENT fifties banked (somewhere around 60 banked if you include multiple captures) but, probably more important, at least as many 48lbs and 49lbs fish. These are the very young, very fast growing fish that are very likely to overtake some of our existing, known, fifties and sixties.
I include some photos of Cav’s fish from this week as they included an unknown 49lbs mirror, “Garry Linear” at 50lbs 10oz which is close to its best and a fantastic post spawning weight. I’ve also included “The Peach” which weighed 64lbs 8oz and only weighed 51lbs 11oz on 14th July 2015. My target is to produce a stock density by autumn 2020 which includes 100 fifties. Let’s see how it goes.

Sorry for the gap in my posts but the last couple of weeks have been poor for catch results as the bigger fish have tended to hide away. On top of that I have had to spend a lot of time rereading and checking for spelling, the final pdf for my book. Hopefully that is all good now and we can get a proper print batch done.

It has been noticeable that these last two weeks have seen the fish ignore the big beds of bait which had been working so well. It is my impression that there gas again been some small groups of spawning fish which has led to the feeding carp following them to eat the eggs. That seems to be changing again now and early this morning the Lake was, quite simply, alive with fizzing and rolling fish. I’m confident that we are one the verge of seeing some big fish hitting the spreader blocks very shortly.

The only real highlight of these last week’s has been our first ever sixty pound common in the shape of Pipesmoker to Adam Garland. Well angled mate.

 There’s no point avoiding the fact that the Fishing was poor last week but there were factors at play which didn’t help. From the dam wall, early mornings, I could see a lot of activity down the Southern Arm from Wednesday on. The lads down there then commented that the fish were crashing around all night and it then became clear that spawning had recommended. However, even though only 21 carp were banked that number included 5 forties and 2 fifties so not all bad.

It was good to see Jason stick to his guns and put out a bed of bait on day one (he used 35kg of Dynamite ComplexT for the week) and continue to fish on it all week. The fish found it on Wednesday and continued to return every day from then on and he ended with six carp including a mid forty and two fifties at 52lbs 11oz and an unknown fifty at 56lbs 3oz. To date we have not yet been able to find a trace of this beautiful mirror as a previous fifty plus, so, at Jason’s wish she is now called “Bob’s Fish”.

Its also worth noting that all of the better fish came to beds of ComplexT.

well angled mate!!! I’m going to end on a bit of a moan but I simply don’t understand what would make a leaving angler think that the right thing to do with his left over boilies is to tip them on the ground at the back of the swim??? We work bloody hard to keep the rats at bay and then some moron encourages them by giving them a free meal????

 Another week completed and  a bit of a strange one. I don’t think any of the lads involved will argue with me when I say that a few of our guests struggled to get their heads around the need to get beds of bait in place right at the start of your week. It went against how they normally fish and was the main reason why a few of the swims didn’t produce as they should have done.  For the lads that did put in the ComplexT and kept topping it up the week produced some cracking fish.

‘The total of 37 carp banked is lower than I would have expected but that did include five forties and three of those were 49lbs plus and we also saw five fifties and a sixty so not all bad. The bigger fish were made with new fifty common at 51lbs 11oz, “Coffee Bean” at 52lbs 15oz, “Nemo” at 54lbs 2oz, “Andy’s Common” at 55lbs 8oz, “Dippy” at 59lbs 1oz and “The Peach” at 65lbs 9oz.

Well angled one and all.

 Another week done and, despite the hottest, sunniest and calmest weather conditions the five lads, plus me and Brownie did ok.  We ended the week with 58 carp banked and they included 11 forties, 6 fifties to 59lbs 3oz and the mighty Half Lin at 67lbs 13oz. Well angled one and all.

I will just end by saying that big beds of whole boilies proved, yet again, the way to go. By not using crumb, particles or pellet we managed to keep our baited patches waiting for the carp to arrive rather than being mopped up by the rudd.