New Cherry Pool Lake record. A 36lb Mirror

Stephen and Elaine Mitchell stayed in Egret Lodge on Cherry Pool and had a fantastic result.

As regular followers know, we have been striving to improve the quality of the fishing on Cherry Pool by removing the huge quantities of Bream which you to be present and replacing them with younger and bigger Carp and a few Tench. Whilst the lake is generally slower than in the past (if the Carp were not feeding then the Bream were), the quality of the fishing has certainly improved.

This week both Stephen and Elaine beat their personal bests for Carp. We were delighted to see Stephen with the new Cherry Pool lake record, a Mirror Carp of 36-04. As you can see from the lead photo above, this bruiser looks every bit of its 36-04 weight. It has certainly been feeding on the food which we regularly introduce. In the past we always felt that the (300+) Bream eat the lion's share of the feed, resulting in skinny underweight Carp. This is no longer the case.

It was interesting talking to Stephen and Elaine because they certainly observed that the Carp would have periods of activity and feeding and periods where they seemed to disappear all together. The good news about this is that Stephen enjoys fishing for other species, and Cherry Pool is ideal for float fishing close in.

Stephen during the course of his stayed managed to catch two Crucians of 3-01 and 3-02. I love these little Carp. Both of these fish stem from the introduction of 50 small Crucians some 10 years ago. There are some even bigger ones, 4lb plus, which are probably closer to 20 years old, and are there to be caught. I think laid on sweetcorn in about 6 feet of water did the trick for the Crucians.

We have introduced around 20 additional Tench this winter to around 7lb in weight, to give the Tench stocks a bit of a boost. We have seen a number of these be caught over the last few weeks and the Tench are certainly more catchable than in the past. Stephen had several on the float including this 6lb 7oz beauty.

The combination of both the new lake record Carp, and these other specimen fish have certainly put a smile on our face this last week. After a lot of effort, we can at last see the improvements made starting to come through. Whilst Cherry Pool is increasingly a good Carp water, the lake remains a good mixed fishery with specimen Crucians, Tench, Roach and Perch to be caught.