2022 Round Up

Hi folks, we hope you had a great Christmas and New Year. I'm penning a few words, an end of year round up if you like, sat at my desk contemplating a couple of hours pike fishing this afternoon despite the forcast of more wind and rain!  I’m not too down beat though because the fields on the Isle of Axholme are slowly beginning to resemble quagmires and the levels in the lakes at Alderfen are beginning to rise nicely after the driest year we’ve ever had to deal with whilst managing the fisheries. The long hot summer seems a distant memory and although challenging, we came through it relatively unscathed on all the lakes. It was certainly a wake up call as to what we may have to face in the future. I’m hoping that the recent rains carry on through in to spring and we can avoid a repeat of the low water levels suffered last year.

Fishing wise, its been a great season so far for many of our members and I can’t hope to do their catches justice on a brief write up such as this. Both complexes have done some marvellous catches, I'll try and summarise Mesters first then return to Alderfen. I can’t remember a year when the carp have spawned so heavily and so often on the main lake. Although the fish weights dropped mid summer, they abandoned their normal mardy August routine and fed well throughout late summer and early autumn rewarding the members who braved the hot conditions and heavy weed with some fantastic catches. What was pleasing was the way in which they recovered weight so quickly after spawning. Theres no doubt that the efforts made by members to use quality bait and pellet rather than particles is really paying dividends now, some of our younger fish are piling on the pounds, as a result we’ve never had so many fish in the mid and upper twenties. Although i’m not a fan of the term 'A team’ our known fish have all done top weights this back end, Merlin is up to 28.8, Sergeant at its best ever weight of 33lb 4oz and Wurzel at a new best of 35lb 14oz, awesome when you consider Ben backed that fish up with commons of 29lb10oz, 28lb and a 23lb mirror! Little Mesters has been doing some smashing fish as well. I’m still amazed that its as quiet on there as what it is. Petal came out a couple of times at exactly 30lb, but the big ghosty common which looks enormous has evaded capture to date. My favourite catch of the year off Little Mesters was  Bruce Laughtons brace of catfish taken this autumn, these are rarely caught and a mid 30 and mid 20 in the same day session is something pretty special. I’ve not even mentioned the Mesters tench, it did some stunning tench from both lakes this year, no end of 7’s and 8’s and I think Pete Guest with a 9lb and 10lb fish late summer stole the show, I honestly think its capable of a 12lb fish late spring. I was down at Mesters a couple of weeks ago, tidying swims, when I bumped in to Andrew Deeley who’d had a few hours on Little Mesters braving the ice “Nothing today”  he said  "but I had a lovely 19.8 common last week as the lake iced over”  It was minus 7 that night he told me and it was a right carry on the next morning trying to free his landing net from the iced up margins, the lakes still fish in winter if you’re hard enough!

Alderfen, Wyndham to start with, the lake goes from strength to strength and we’ve now more twenties in the lake than ever before, some of them however are beyond cute when it comes to evading capture. Theres a hardcore of fish that grace the bank once a year if your lucky, top of the pile being the “Woolpack Linear”, its not from the woolpack but it is a very nice linear that drops his guard usually around October and thats your lot, all I have from his latest capture is a mat shot! Greg Beard posted a write up on the members Facebook page recently regarding his captures, I’ll post it on the website in due course Theres been loads of superb captures and the average size of the fish has increased this year, we’ve so many fish now that are 18 plus that we should have plenty more next year sneaking over the twenty pound mark. Pads lake has done some wonderful catches, Pete Bilton and Nathan Snowdon doing huge bags of carp in summer. Matt Hill had a fantastic winter catch recently, multiple doubles in the day. We were doing a bit of stock management on the lake at the weekend and removed over a dozen smaller carp in to Gate Pool, we’ve taken the decision to introduce some more young doubles this winter to keep the bobbins bouncing! We also caught some stunning big roach to over 2lb from pads as well!

Gate Pool continues to be a very popular fishery with its committed bunch of anglers. We’ve had Tommy Pickering bagging up with bream this year, numerous huge captures of carp to various anglers. Kev Tipton was on last week and in 3 hours had 8 carp and 2 nice bream on method feeder and pellet. Theres a good number of carp sneaking through in to double figures at the moment, so if you fancy a winter bend in the rod scale down your expectations and your hook size and give it a go.

Their will be a small number of places available on the syndicate next year, get in touch at info@islefisheries.co.uk if you are interested?

All the best for 2023 and tight lines, Elaine & Mark