BIG FISH COLUMN: Commercial pools provide decent catches

The commercial pools kick-off the column with some decent catches from a number of venues despite falling temperatures and worsening conditions – worsening for the stillwaters at least.

The Royal Berkshire Fishery is one of the  venues at which  you can guarantee action throughout the year pretty much whatever the conditions are because of the diversity of both the species present and the lakes which allow you to target, for example, the big perch if the carp are off or the roach if the perch are off.

Although there are roach and perch aplenty to be caught, it’s not quite time to ignore the carp yet as they are still feeding well if you get it right and the past couple of weeks have seen a couple of local anglers do well with them.

First up it was Big Fish Column regular Steve Buckland who made the most of a relatively mild spell of weather to get to grips with Lake One on the complex and he set up a quiver rod with an 8lb hooklength and size 10 hook to present a drilled crab pellet and a PVA bag of mixed pellets tight to overhanging trees on the island.

Despite missing a solid pull on his very first cast, Steve made no mistake from there on and the next three bites all produced carp to around the 6lb mark. After that the action was fairly steady all afternoon despite some very heavy rain.

Sensibly, despite the action to the island, Steve also fed the margins throughout the day and in the afternoon a tactical switch to the inside line resulted in three fish, two of them topping 12lb to give a final tally of 15 carp – an excellent result for October. Also scoring on the venue with two good carp was White Waltham angler Keith Fuller, who also targeted the inside line of Lake One but with a meat bait on a size 10 hook to 8lb line and a light sprinkling of diced meat and pellets to take fish of 10lb 12oz and 15lb.

Keith reported that a number of good fish were caught from the margins during his day on the fishery with the best he heard of an excellent fish of just over 18lb.

Some serious action over at Theale too for anglers targeting the carp at Woolwich Green with the cage feeder and corn – always a reliable cold water bait – the telling method.

One local angler who used the corn and cage combo was Wokingham angler Barry West who put eight carp to 12lb on the bank during a session.

Barry used liquidised corn instead of water to mix up a bag of Sensas Explosive Feeder mix and fished a short hooklength of 5lb line with a single grain of corn on a size 12 hook to get among the fish.

On the rivers the past week has seen a much-needed improvement with a bit of extra water going some way to revitalise most local venues but falling leaves will mean this improvement will coincide with some of the trickiest conditions of the year – it was ever the way in late October and into November!

Chub rather than barbel have been to the fore with fish to 5lb showing from most venues but there are some good roach showing too with local Angling Development Officer, Will Barnard, getting among numbers of fish around the 12oz mark during a quick sortie to the Kennet and Avon and Twyford rod Sam Dean netting fish to around a pound from the lower Kennet. Good news indeed.

To report catches, call me on 07780 755138. I may be e-mailed on ian@bigfish-trail.com