Three more 40's!

I am most definitely struggling to keep up with some of the excellent captures from around the fishery. Fortunately Simon is active on Facebook from us and he is almost always the first with the news.

Since my last update on 27 May, we have had three 40's caught from Cherry Lake. The biggest being caught by the Tackle Box manager Peter Jones at 43-08, pictured above. Peter is just finishing his annual holiday visit to Cherry Lake with his wife Angela, and he has had a very productive trip. In total Peter landed 30 Carp from Grebe Lodge. As well as the forty, Peter landed 4 thirties, the biggest of which was this 36-08 Mirror below . We hope to see them again next year.

Terry Clements had a fantastic stay in Cherry Lake Cottage last weekend. Not only did his family love the Cottage, and especially the hot tub, but Terry caught a brace of 40's with a 30+ bringing up the rear. In doing so, Terry beat his previous best twice!

His first 40+, a 41-09 Common came during the early hours of Saturday. Whilst not the best photo, I immediately recognised this distinctive Common, which was last caught by Alan cross in August 2023 at the slightly higher weight of 43-08. From my perspective it was great to see one of our 'missing 40's' turn up.

As you know we continue to run our 30+ catalogue. The running total for different 40lb+ Carp now stands at 9 for 2025 year to date. The similar figure for different 30lb+ Carp is 41. So 50 over 30lb in total!

And I am sure I have missed some, as well as not recording Common's unless they have distinctive unique markings. There are plenty more yet to feature in this year's catalogues.

His second 40+ came on Monday morning and I was delighted to be around to see both the fight and the Carp in the flesh. This time he landed a Mirror of 42-08. This particular fish was last caught by Mark Kearn's at the end of April at 44-04. Whilst 'plump' the fish did not look like she was carrying a lot of spawn (unlike in the Mark Kearn's photo below). Similar to the Common above, it could be that these Carp have spawned and are as a result down in weight. If so, we missed them spawning, or more of the bigger fish spawned in early May than we realised?

Unusually, I was also around for Mark's capture in April. As well as being able to verify the weights and as such I am confident in the comparison, I also remembered that the Carp had a couple of nasty lacerations on its flank. I was delighted to see that this Carp had fully repaired itself in less than six weeks, which I think is pretty impressive. You can see the comparison by looking at the two photos above. A further sign that the Cherry Lake Carp are benefitting from our new in-house boilies only policy.

Whilst talking about our in-house boilie range, I am pleased to confirm that we have added a second highly nutritious and digestible fish-meal to our range......Cherry Tuna. Both the Cherry Tuna (which we have been introducing for the last 4 weeks), and the Cherry Red are excellent baits and the Carp love them.

I will try to produce a further update later this week as there is a lot more to update you on.