Tom Hughes lands ‘The Scuff’ at 45-04. The fifth 40lb+ of the year

The Carp have most definitely woken’ up on Cherry Lake. We have had a great week in the Lodges. This week 22 Carp have been landed by the three anglers in Heron, Osprey and Grebe Lodges. All three of these anglers reported 30lb+ Carp.

Of these three were big thirties at 39-11, 35-04 and 36-02, and headed by ‘The Scuff’ at 45-04. Our 5th forty of the year to date. Given we have had some stunning Carp caught this update is just about Cherry Lake. We are also now up to 39 different properly photographed and weighed Carp over 30lb+ from Cherry Lake for the year to date.

Before I update you on the positives. Just a reminder to anglers that all plastic baits are banned this includes foam. We have also banned Zigs due principally to the regular foul hooking of the fish, and occasional anglers using line under 15lb. No line under 15lb is allowed when Carp fishing. We will be increasing the level of rig checks!

Back to the positives. Tom Hughes returned to Heron Lodge this week hoping to repeat his great week that he had last year (he had 5 Carp over 30lb to 36lb). This week Tom managed 6 Carp. His first was a Mirror I know as 'Crinkle Tail' at 36-02, this was followed by a fully scaled Mirror of 29-07 and then the biggest Carp caught of the year so far. 'The Scuff' looked great and really chunky when we saw her in the Carp Cradle following Tom's call. Her mouth looked like she had not been caught before such was her condition. At 45-08 'The Scuff' was pretty much at the same weight as when caught by Peter Callow last June at 45-12

Ryan Cresswell has been on his first visit to Cherry Lakes this week staying in Osprey Lodge. having been given a few tips from Dave and his friend Tom Nixon-Taylor, who fished the Lodge last week. He landed 7 Carp so far this week. Most coming from 3/4+ distance. My memory is hopeless, I am fairly sure he caught two thirties, including this Common of 38-11 pictured above. This distinctive Common is easily recognisable because it does not have an anal fin. It was last caught by Oakley Horne in April 2022 at 36-02. Nice steady growth and another new entry for this year's 30+ catalogue.

Craig Lamble returned for his second trip to Cherry Lake and fished this week in Grebe Lodge. He has been top rod this week with 10 Carp caught to date.

Until Friday morning, his biggest Carp was the 29-07 Mirror. Early on Friday morning he landed two thirties within 30 minutes of each other. A 31-05 Mirror and this lovely black Mirror pictured above at 39-11. I love this Mirror as it is probably our 'darkest fish'. It was last caught in November by Cameron Brannaghan at 41lb, so it is slightly down in weight.

Wafters and pop-ups over pellet and boilies doing the business for Craig. He mentioned that he had gone around 20Kg of boilies and pellets this week so far! He clearly got the Carp going and regularly returning to his baited spots.

It is not all about 30's. As an angler who 'grew up' in the 1970's, when twenties were rare and thirties were like 'rocking horse poo', I am aware I fall into the trip of principally talking about 30lb+ Carp. So I thought I would highlight a couple of the 'next generation' which should become real big ones in the future.

The first is this Common of 28-10 pictured above, which was the first Carp of his trip to slip into Craig's net on this visit. Craig said repeatedly that all the Carp caught during his visit were in excellent condition, not least this fish. This looks to have an excellent frame and could become a very big Carp in the future. To me this looks a young Carp (possibly one of our 'first generation' homegrown babies) and it has a great shape. The same can also be said of this 28-11 Mirror pictured below. Hopefully you can see why I could not resist including the photo of these fish. Both I am sure will appear regularly (hopefully) in the years to come!

Needless to say.....well done to all the anglers above on some cracking fish and a great week.