Clattercote not quite as good at the weekend?

I just walked around Clattercote reservoir at about 4pm to see how busy it got at the weekends compared to during the week. The sun was out so I thought that it would be really busy. There were quite a few people fishing but I expected there to be less room to fish but there must have been 70 or 80 spare pegs.

Nearly everyone I spoke to was having quite a hard time of it. Not many bites and not many fish. I only saw one fish caught which was a tench pictured below:



I did see one person completely miss a fish off of the surface, but apart from that everyone seemed pretty down hearted. It seems that both the mornings and the evenings are definately best at the minute.

Bailiff : 07740 534 892
For match bookings: 01908 302556
Peg availability 24 hour information line: 0113 281 6895

Fishing at Hadsham Farm, Horley, Oxfordshire

Hadsham Farm is literally 2 minutes drive from my house, so I classify it as my local lake. It never seems that busy when I drive past and the most other anglers I have ever seen there was 2 and that was only once, every other time I have fished the lake I have been fishing on my own, which I always find nice.

Fishing costs £5 per rod per day and you can just turn up and start fishing when you want. Evening tickets are £3 from 5pm and the lake can even be booked for matches and the lake is stocked with carp and tench.

I decided to do some early morning fishing so, turned up at the lake at about 6.15am and set up my method feeder with Dynamite Baits Strawberry & Ice Cream 15mm Boilies on a hair rig with Bait-Tech Special G Groundbait in the method feeder. I cast out and began to set up my second rod, which I planned to fish in the margins. Within about 2 minutes I had a screaming run on the method feeder! A nice hard fighting carp of about 4lb to start the morning. Once the carp was returned I refilled the method feeder added another boilie and cast out to the same spot and continued to set up the second rod.

I had just attached the float to the line, when the other rod went screaming off again, another nice carp!

I did have to scrap the second rod pretty quickly after this as there were too many bites on the method feeder and I did have a fish on each rod at one point, which was far too much for me to cope with! I have fished this lake a few times and each time it seems to be really good fishing early in the morning and in the evenings but during the afternoon it seems to die down. Also as far as I am aware there don't seem to be any fish over 6lbs or so, but you never know there could be a monster lurking in the water somewhere, this is one of the things that keeps bringing me back, apart from the fact it's really close to my house and the fishing seems pretty good!

To cut a long story short, I caught 21 fish, 19 carp and 2 tench up until midday and then I couldn't get a bite at all, so I gave up and went home.

Fishing Rules at Hadsham Farm Lake:

BARBLESS HOOKS AT ALL TIMES.
NO BRAID
NO MORE THAN 3 RODS PER ANGLER
ANGLERS MUST BRING THEIR OWN UNHOOKING MATS
CARP APPROVED KEEP NETS ONLY
ANGLERS MUST TAKE LITTER HOME WITH THEM
NO NUTS OF ANY DESCRIPTION
BOILIES MAY BE USED IF KEPT TO A MINIMUM
NO RODS ARE TO BE LEFT IN THE WATER UNATTENDED
NO HOOKS OR LINE TO BE DISCARDED ON THE BANK SIDE
ANYONE UNDER 18 MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A RESPONSIBLE ADULT AT ALL TIMES

NO DOGS AS THERE IS STOCK IN THE SURROUNDING FIELDS

My first visit to Clattercote

Having not been fishing for about 4 years I decided that it was time to hit the lakes again. I'd never been a very good fisherman, previously my personal best was an 8lb catfish that I caught in America, so the crap angler really does describe me well compared to all these carp anglers!

I arrived at Clattercote Reservoir at about 5.15am on a Monday morning in August 2008. Guess what, I was the first one there! I wanted to go against everything I had read on the internet that says you should fish the side pegs between 20 - 40, again this is probably why I am the crap angler.

I got to my chosen swim which I believe was swim 63 which had a small island slightly to my left and a bigger island a few swims to my right. I wanted to fish fairly close to the small island on my left as I liked the look of it when I walked around the reservoir a couple of days earlier, I also wanted to be by myself as I'm a crap angler.



Due to it still being so early I had to set up my rods using my mobile phone for light! I set up a Kobra method feeder on my first rod with a 3" hooklink. I used Bait-Tech Special G Groundbait on the method feeder with 15mm Pineapple Plus Birdfood Boilies by Dynamite Baits on a hair rig. I cast out my method feeder just to the left and short of the island and set up the bite alarm whilst I set up the other rod for float fishing. Before I could even get the line through all the eyes in the 2nd rod, my ledger went on a screaming run. I put the other rod down and played my first fish for about 5 minutes in some pretty poor light and eventually managed to land a mirror carp that was about 8lb. After returning the mirror to the water I refilled the method feeder added another pineapple boilie, cast out, set the bite alarm up again and continued setting up the second rod. I had just put the float on the 2nd rod when my ledger went off screaming again, after another nice fight it was another mirror of about the same size.

I eventually managed to get the 2nd rod set up and even got it in the water for about 5 minutes, but the method feeder was picking up bites every ten minutes or less, so I just decided to remove the 2nd rod from the water and fish the method for a while. I caught a total of 10 carp up to about 12lb by about 10-11am and then everything went dead. I didn't get a bite for the next few hours and had to entertain myself by watching a heron on the far side of the reservoir, a few kingfishers flying around looking lovely and watching the large carp behind the boards basking on the surface - such a shame you can't fish behind the boards!

I left Clattercote Reservoir at about 3pm as the bites had really calmed down and well I was knackered after getting up so early! I was over the moon though as I had a new PB and really hadn't expected to catch so many fish.

The reservoir looks a bit daunting at first due to the size of it and choosing where to fish, but I would recommend everyone to fish Clattercote as if I can catch about 100lb of carp in my first visit there, then so can you!

Tackle:
Kobra small flat carp feeder with 8/10 elastic

Rod:
Ron Thompson Zensorflex Carp Rod

Bait:
15mm Pineapple Plus Birdfood Boilies by Dynamite Baits

Bait-Tech Special G Groundbait