 |
 |
|
|
Facilities for disabled anglers Accommodation suitable for disabled anglers FAQ's Detailed history of the River Waveney Back to Angling Page click here
|
Dave Gladwell writes...I love the sport of fishing and over the years have learned much about it and I hope that by passing on fishing tips and answering questions, then I can ensure that generations to come get as much from the sport as I have. These are the answers I have given to recent questions which we have decided to publish in case they help anyone elseQuestion 1 - from Steve Answer from Dave Question 2 - from Terry Answer from Dave Question 3 - from Keith Answer from Dave Aldeby Hall Fruit Farm - Otter - Crossing Water - Long Water - Round Water - Bridge Water - Paul Gibbs - 01502 678121 1 rod £6 2 rods £9 3 rods £12 8am to 8 am includes night. Good treelined woody fishery with variety of stocks. Loads of small rudd for children. Barford Pleasure, but match only on Railway & Willow; & Abbey Lake Sarah Thomson - 01603 759624 BROOKE PITS East Anglian Pisc Soc. Season £21 over 60s £16. Day tickets £4. on bank. K. Priest 015087 538198 Home 01508 538432. Opens 1 May each year BROOME PITS - 01449 737313 or 07976 165325 Cider Farm Halesworth 01986 781353 - Jonathan Cowes - £6 Day Besthorpe Garden Centre - Trevor Day - £6 - 07900 825060 & 01953 456982 Camelot Lake - Wortwell - big fish in small deep Lake 01986 788208 - £7 day Diss Mere and Eye Ponds - Membership for Diss & District AC Roy Johnson 01379 644784 plus 5 miles of river. Ellingham - Bales Nursery - 01508 518205 - Nigel Bale £5 per day - no lone Juniors Field Farm Wrentham - House Pond plus Three Islands and two other small Lakes silver fish lake (01502) 675273 £4 for 4 hours £6: 4-12 hours. Tackle shop & Bait. (six lakes) Fritton Lakes tickets for bank fishing cost £6.70; £5.60 OAP's; £3.90 Juniors 3 - 15 yrs. . £6 for one in a boat, £15 for two in a boat. Keepnets in matches only. By booking you may go in at 10 am and stay until dusk. Otherwise its 10.00 am to 5.00 pm. To do this ring 01493 488288. More viewing on www.frittonlake.co.uk Hinderclay Lakes - New - Reed - Spring - Willow Len Platt (01379) 890420- Stew Platt (01379) 890110 - Marsh Trail Lakes - are situated near Morrisons and the Level Crossing at Beccles just off the by-pass. The attractive day ticket water is reached by driving off the roundabout down to the recycling centre and then up along the path for parking adjacent to some swims. Shallow in centre of A Lake 6-8' at edges. These established lakes are a good size with depth that vary on the far lake to 9 feet plus. In summer there are weedy bays and good marginal growth. This is traditional style gravel Pit fishing with carp but some big tench and pike present. Best tench so far 7½ lbs and pike to 22 lbs. No fishing under the overhead power cables. Any queries phone 07913 115610 (David Ragan £6 on bank. £5 prebooked and for concessions. Tickets available from Angling Direct. Quiet Sports - Creeting St Peter (01473) 327366 & 832237 Mobile 07930 403296 - Steve Barnes
Taswood Lakes Fishery - Tasburgh. 01508 470919 Seven Lakes. Spring; Lapwing; Osprey; Cinnamon; Kingfisher; Heron; Broadwing. Heron & Broadwing are not for Day Tickets. Also River Tas available ADJACENT. Thorpe Abbotts - Gary Miller - Rickinghall 01359 253454. Alfie or Robbie 07810 660470 Charlotte : 07736014763 £5; £7 two rods; 24 hour ticket £16; Junior / OAP £3.50 £2 two rods. Max 2 rods. e-mail: chazhighfield@hotmail.com Bailiff 07736014763 Good general fishery with 3 lakes. Weybread Mill Lane Fishery - Upper and lower lakes (013790) 588141 £6 day. Big roach, bream, Carp Weybread Pits: No 1. Harleston, Wortwell & District Ac - Ocean; Club Pit; Middle Pit ; Bottle/Turton Pit - Nigel Poll 01379 853571 Waveney Valley Lakes - Penge Angling - 01986 788676 - Mike Davies Highly rated specimen water ENVIRONMENT AGENCY 087708 506506 Question 4 - from Steve Answer from Dave CARP - Regarding the Venue. Broome Pits is not a place where one can just chuck in and hope to catch a carp like a Commercial Fishery. They are there but take a bit of catching and in wonderful condition. Fish far away from pot bellied over fed boilie broilers or tatty one-fin, one-eye renegades of the rapidly becoming most denigrated species. Firstly there are some basic facts to glean from this water which requires considerable thought for most success. A pair of binoculars for spotting are a necessity. It is not an old mature water having been still worked in pumped dry basins thirty to forty years ago. There are willow trees on 80% of the bank which introduce leaves and a heavy pollen making this a generally oily surface and a fairly gaseous bottom. Bear in mind the very high hillocks and the public dog walking use too; for a fine dust is continually being deposited by breezes on top of this surface layer thickening it even more. Therefore “cohesion” has a very important reactionary effect on water skim and a natural surface food supply which does not sink quickly in summer. Then for the water to be so far from the River the workings must be spring fed to retain their levels. Some of these levels are different between C Pit and the rest. The tracking of these springs is important because they introduce either warmer or colder water from the land as per seasonal implications. That in turn manufactures a different oxygen content and type of weed growth. Some emerge in the middle of the Pits and can be located when frozen over by large bubbles of air trapped beneath the surface The Pits can vary considerably in temperature too so readings are helpful. The mineral content varies considerably in places with a very fine sand in zones which creates a syndrome of not holding a sediment or other bodies to it, and consequently silt shifts around in troughs. Some of this is responsible for the high normal water clarity. Other areas the sand is remarkably coarse and may be irritative to the gills of feeding fish, but these generally herald heavier gravel further out holding together and retaining bottom matter. Rain continually washes in and places new deposit of sand around the edges. Roughly an approach based on the following may help you on your way to catching some of these pristine fish: A Pit. This is the sandy Pit nearest the Car Park and there right before you the bay is around 16 feet deep. There are shallower areas and plains off to the left in the corner, and opposite you. Certainly there is a 34 lb plus Mirror in here and recently the one of 41 lbs was taken. There are not many other carp in this Lake but some very good tench indeed which near 10 lbs. Whilst most favour the shallows; this time of the year you could well score by cutting yourself in down at the bottom of this steep bank to fish this deep bay. This sheltered area is little fished really. (See reply in FAQ’s on this site re tench). B Pit. This is a more gravelled bottomed Pit to the right of the gate and a popular area. Those after Carp with little imagination and relying upon the ruse of sitting it out with a boilie for passing fish, settle in here with the short walk, and use a long throw into deep water. Beware of a 3-foot deep, soft silt trough band the police divers discovered fairly close in. A better Winter move may be to walk up the slope to the Gorse Bushes and get down opposite the fairly close small island where it is sheltered and has deep water. Both the islands in this Pit cause and create a vortex for food to be deposited from the considerable surface flow they attract, and bring a generous supply of food with them. None of these lakes hold a very concentrated form of bloodworm or rich invertebrate’s life on the bottom as a food chain because the two big bream shoals are constantly on the hoover and the weed beds are in two specific shallow areas inhabited by ravenous perch shoals. These bream between 5 lb and 9 lb live off to the left of the larger island 50-60 yards out and will hamper your carp baits there.An even better move in this Pit here is to keep on round theLake until you come to the very narrow neck. In front of you the water looks gin clear, hopeless and full of weed in the summer. However, this supports prolific aquatic growth which with the first frosts falls to the bottom, taking with it insects. Also a big mussel bed lies off to the left. The aforementioned vortex sweeps this natural food along to the far bank where a deeper trough lies up against, and under, the bushes opposite. At least four Common Carp to 27 lbs winter out here patrolling the shelf and trench in milder spells. To your left the narrow neck opens out into another arm and three years ago several 3 lb to 6 lb indigenous carp were caught here which does excite me. This area is often one of the first to warm up. C Pit. Called the Kidney Pit. This has every prospect of breaking your heart and whilst a decade ago was the in place for carp has seen the stock die off and was Ottered somewhat. 20 lb fish were not uncommon. Maybe there is a few left in there but like the big roach which can be seen priming at dusk it is by far the most difficult to catch in, and inconsiderate dog walkers launch their bedevilled beasts in pursuit of sticks causing mayhem and disappointment. Least fished, with a colder and higher water level, plus with a main spring existing here, which may be partly responsible? It would not surprise me though if some fish still hang under the growth close in for this is not a deep lake, is overgrown and little fished on one side. A typical specimen-fish syndrome area. D Pit. Here we have the place where the often shirty and secretive carp angler pursues their prey with great enthusiasm and tells many half truths to delude their fellows. Basically over the Loddon road side there is 23 feet of water at just 14 metres. This shallows as it goes out. Opposite on the side backing on to B Pit’s small bay, there is a tongue which reaches out to the middle of the Pit but is only a few metres wide. In a dry summer sometimes it is exposed, and generally only 2-3 feet deep with some weed. This is where those who like to think they are the best carp anglers optimistically project too many of their free sample baits to - in great anticipation of their maple and hazlenut boiles on bolt rigs being engulfed by levathian giants. Unfortunately it becomes over fished and the carp canny, often dropping baits at the first signs of resistance. There are about thirty carp between 9 lbs and 34 lbs at a guess present and maybe one absolutely humdinger that could be classed as good as coming near to Homersfield Syndicate’s best – but then I am an optimist if nothing else! Perhaps to avoid this heavily fished tongue is a worthwhile gamble for the Winter. Maybe the bank which is still deep, and lies along where the houses are above it, is the patrol area to suss out, but you will still need a hair rig. There is a lovely little nooky corner where a sandy shallow runs out 10 yards before dropping off, so that the houses would be on your left. You can reach this from the Loddon Road where you can park. This left-hand bank is not access fished and a natural patrol path. Note the prevailing wind for a week before and visualise the effect that underwater tongue has had on currents and where food will have ended up is my advice. This is about the only Pit where floaters could work first thing in the morning in the early summer as there is lots of cover near the edges and places where it is overgrown and the method is largely unexploited. There are few bream here but some hefty perch present. Conclusions: Bear in mind I do not seriously carp fish these days but although it is thirty-five years since doing so, do not think I have lost my eye for it and as a constant rover around the Pits feel I do stay in tune with them. It is my belief that most of this basic information will set you off to a reasonable start. If I was pushed to say what would be my top tip . . . then I would both analyse and utilise all the natural facts before me and apply them. For instance freshwater mussels abound prolifically in all but C Pit. That means they are very much part of a natural food chain. This leads to the bigger and older fish with their slower digestive systems and metabolisms in winter seeking out and digesting softer baits. Avoid bullet hard boilies and bright colours, but go for mussel flavoured ochre coloured samples which will not glare out on a predominantly naturally sandy soft bottom. Would there be another colour to favour? Well with all the willow roots trailing in at the edges if you lift them out you will see that they bear a lovely red hue about the same as a bloodworm or red commercial maggot. This means it is a natural shade which may inspire confidence and diminish caution. It is a colour associated with a food source because insects live in it, and a reason why I think margin fishing here is under utilised. Remember continually these Pits are not an ancient water in any way with big silt or sediment formations, and the winds constantly shift thermal layers about and with them the fish, making them more nomadic than territorial. I have not unlocked all the secrets of the place, but hope this will in particular help young anglers visiting the web-site to appraise what research can reward one with on a venue, and provide a bench mark for thought in many other similar gravel pits. Dave Gladwell © Can you let us know by email if there are any questions you would like to ask Dave regarding fishing technique, equipment or any fishing tips. www.bungay-suffolk.co.uk
|
 |
 |
|
|
