Dilham Fishery

Last Thursday I went to Dilham Fishery for the first time. I hadn't known about it until I had done a search online and it is even closer to me than Holly Farm. The postcode of the fishery is, if you wish to find it, NR28 9PZ. I turned up on a cold, blustery and slightly misty day. There is a single, attractively laid out, lake sitting in front of the owner's house. There is a car park and a toilet block. At first I decided to take one of the higher number pegs on the further side of the lake, simply because there were some water lilies there that looked promising for carp. Then once I had seen the lady owner, she suggested that the low number pegs nearest to the house did well (other popular pegs had been taken), so I moved. Up till that point I had caught a few small rudd.

I was fishing with my trusty old Shakespeare Eros Telescopic rod and, being windy, I decided to use a waggler float and a size 12 hook. It worked quite well, but casting in strong wind is always a pain especially as the surroundings were quite thick with bushes and trees. It didn't help that the best looking patch of lilies was near to the opposite bank. No doubt, if you stood anywhere nearby you would have heard me muttering under my breath about irritating wind.

I was fishing with cubes of luncheon meat again and using a can of sweetcorn to attract the fish. Initially, the bites were not very frequent, but I started to catch some reasonable size rudd and roach. The rudd were predominant and I had to put up with pulling these in all day, to catch other fish in between. The rudd were taking the bait in a classic fashion. Diving at it as soon as it hit the water and then swimming off with it horizontally, dragging the float behind them.

About 1.30pm I had my first serious fish and one of several bream:-

This fish is 12.5 inches long and may weigh about 1lb 8oz.

I had started to try and fish a bit deeper by then and I lost my first serious carp as it dived straight into the reeds. Just after 3pm I had my first common carp and these fish are very healthy and give a battle royal. I struggled to keep it out of the weeds:-

This 18inch fish probably weighs about 3lb.

About 40 minutes later I had another nice bream:-

This one is bigger than the last and is 14.5 inches and perhaps weighs nearly 2lb.

I think I lost another carp around this time as I just couldn't stop it as it went into the reeds. At 4.30pm I had the largest bream I had that day:-

This one is 15.5 inches and is probably 2lb plus. I carried on hoping that I was going to catch another carp and twenty minutes later I was successful and landed this big common:-

I decided to weigh this 20 inch fish because it was a really chunky fish and it came in at 5.5lb. So a nice end to the day.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.