The Suffolk Water Park - Match Lake 1

After a few sessions over the past few weeks carp fishing, and not much in the way of lure fishing found me on match lake one at the Suffolk Water Park for a practice session for a forth coming charity match. This sort of fishing isn’t something i would usually do but its for a good cause so why not. The idea being to have a few practice sessions before the actual match in September, after a slow day on the lake with a mixed bag of Carp, tench, Bream, roach, and eels for only about 40lb, which I wasn’t to happy about, more so for the amount of fish I lost rather than caught, but hopefully a a few lessons learn't for a following session that will improve my weight.

Match Lake Perch and Gold Vibe 70 Lure

After a chat with a few anglers and seeing a few anglers land sizeable perch up to 2lbs from under the willows on pole tactics and chopped worm, I packed away my feeder rod and made up my lure rod. It was almost six o’ clock and fry had been scattering throughout the day in the margins so I couldn’t resist a cast or two along the willows and margins.. After several casts alongs the margins and two follows off a decent double figured pike on a Storm Wildeye Minnow, but without any definate takes I decided to change, so I swapped over to a Lurepro Gold Vibe 70 lure, for more vibration and a bit of flash, as the water in this lake is very murky and I hoped something with a bit more flash would encourage him to strike, but after several more casts, it looked like he had gone. I walked around to the next swim and cast along the willow from the other side, It almost took me by surprise as a slaming hit on the lure, took the line straight under the stadging, after a few seconds it was under control and gently played in to the landing net.

A nice perch of 11/2lbs lay in the net, very pale in colour due the murkyness of the water but it was imacculate. Several more casts, bumping the lure across the bottom on the marginal shelf saw two more perch of 11/4lb and one more at 11/2lb come to the net, a pleasant end to the day, which was a good time to end the session as the heavens opened!!!

A chat with the Parks baliffs earlier in the day revelled that they tend to remove most of the pike below double figures out of the match lakes, but leave all the bigger ones in so with pike in excess of 20lbs in the match lakes and with recorded perch over 4lb’s this lake will definatly be worth a few more casts another day. I would think most people fishing the match lakes very rarely think about the predators in there, I suspect with the coloured water and abundant prey fish lure fishing the match lakes is a challaging prospect.

River Waveney - In Search of Chub

With a few days of Christmas I decided to get out for a few hours and head to my local River Waveney on the Suffolk/Norfolk border for a spot of lure fishing, the weather was far from ideal but considering it, I hoped that the river would produce a few fish as the fishing on the local gravel pits has been very slow recently.

The river was lower than I expected with almost no flow on it, the wind was cutting through the open meadows behind me and the rain was relentless. After throwing lures for some 4 hours and covering a mile and a half of river all I had to show was a 3lb Jack, but a fish! Over the next hour I had another three follows but no more action to the lures. I used our own DK130 redhead lure and one we have on test at the minute a sinking lipless vibratory lure soon to be on sale on the revamped website in the new year and is producing some good results - this new lure to us in our inventory, will be known as the Vibe 70, which is will be available in Gold and Red Flame on release, with the addition of another two colours at a later date,at 70mm in length and a weight of 13grams makes this lure lovely to cast, and has a nice vibratory action, and from results seems to work best on a slow retrive and bounched along the bottom.

We thought this would be a great addition to us as being smaller in size than our present stock and would be good for Chub and Perch, and of course pike althought we have a larger version the HD95 spefically aimed at larger fish species inculding pike, and from Thailand more recently, Barramundi and Red Tail Catfish of which you can see the pictures on the website shortly.

This section of the River Waveney is know for some very big chub and I wasn’t going to give up that easily so the following day I was back, the rain had eased and surprising despite all the rain the following day the river hadn’t risen, and had a horrible grey sheen to it, where it looked as if the rain had done nothing more than flush the drains into it.

I fished the same areas as the day before knowing there would be fish there and I didn’t have to wait to long after working my lure around a overhanging will tree I was into a small Perch, then another and another as quick as that, these were only up to 12oz in weight but were welcomed. After trying several other swims and couple of hours later, I came upon a favourite swim of mine and after my forth cast in to a crease in the water next to some overhanging branches - Whack! some a had hit my lure and as it swam up stream I could see it was a chub.

After a spirted fight and it trying to get into every snag under my own bank I netted it, and a smile graced me as it went 3lb 6oz on the scales, not big for this stretch of water but a fair result on a lure, I left shortly after a few more casts, contented and will be back on the river again shortly

Suffolk Water Park

With a couple of days off work this week visited The Suffolk Water Park fishing both on lures and dead baits, Day 1 Saw Ian on peg 3 in the back bay with fellow Fishery Management Consultant Chris, Ian had Pike of 13lb 4oz, and 13lb and Chris with Pike of 17lb, 8lb and 6lb respectively. And for Ian the loss of a very very big fish in snags, I would say what it was estimated at by several anglers on the day but he's gutted enough as it is!

13lb 4oz Suffolk Water Park Resident.

Day 2 saw, both myself a Ian Fishing and with so many carp anglers on the lake we the first available swims were peg 9, and 10 in the back bay, unfortualtly well away from where the roach are heavy in numbers, Ian produced fish of 4lb and 9lb 8oz and the loss of a low double after it went arial and shook the single barbless hook out. And myself not so well after missing multiple strikes on Abogast Surface lures and our own Surface Pops I switched to dead baits and also lost a very good fish in snags and a good double due to hook pulls again.

Recently Ian has been using single hooks on dead bait traces and these are offer very good hook holds in the scissors when combined with smaller dead baits just hooked through the lips, than i use on the venue and is well worth a go and make unhooking fish a piece of cake I will say my losses ocurred on convention trebles which is somewhat unusual and something which has never happened before, but new water, new issues to solve I guess and these fish really know where the snags are and with the water so shallow they run, and run and run! and give a excellent account for themselves.

The Suffolk Water Park is a water I would recommend for anyone want to pursue specimen fish it offers everything and has a excellent resturant onsite. SWP offers pike fishing all year around but with only lures in the summer months, which is great sport with Pike reported to high thirties in here and numerous 20's each season, and available on day ticket! I would recommend anyone wanting to lure fish here go mid week as more swims to wander around are available due to the excellent carp fishing here the place is rammed at the weekend, and getting a swim is a task in its own which offers carp to 40lb Plus, with Roach and Rudd to 3lb+ and Tench and Bream well into double figures, making it a good all round venue. We will definatley get a few more sessions in on here.

Perch Fishing - Weybread Fishery

After a odd hot spell in early October with temperatures to 29c and then dropping drastically to 12c in just two days here in suffolk, made the fishing somewhat challaging, I for a couple of days I picked Weybread Fishery, which is a local fishery to me after some large perch, the best from the fishery last year almost banging on the door at 5lb's and well know for plenty of fishing in the 2-3lb bracket, with plenty of pike present also which provides good sport on both lures and deadbaits.

I picked the venue due to it provides good depths on average 12-13ft, and had hoped with the bright sunshine, that the perch would take refudge in the depths, but after thrashing the water to a foam, and trying every lure in the box i had little to show for my efforts other than a small 5lb jack on a Crackel Perch HD95 Sinker. bounced along the bottom of the lake. I had suspected at the time it would be somewhat difficult given the heat on the day, and the weed growth in the lake still present, but knowing what a good stock of fish the lake holds, i will persue the perch there again when the weather has cooled.

Lee