Golden Ponds, Hickling

On Tuesday of this week, I visited some new carp lakes that I haven't been to before. I came across them when driving between Hickling and Sutton. These are Golden Ponds, Hickling and you can find them with your SatNav using postcode NR12 9SH. They appear to have two small lakes with nicely spaced-out pegs. After talking to a couple of the fishermen there I sat down by the first lake at a pitch that was out of the wind as much as possible. There has been no denying it - April has been cold here in the East and May is starting off the same way. As I had set off about lunchtime, it looked like it might be sunny but for most of the afternoon it was resolutely overcast with temperatures of about 12 or 13C.

It's £7 for a one rod day ticket and £10 for two and it definitely seemed worth it. I had brought with me sweetcorn and cubed luncheon meat and I started fishing with the meat on a size 14 hook. I was using my 12 foot Maver Abyss X Series rod and 5lb line. As usual I was float fishing using a float that was more designed for a pole. I started fishing near the rushes on my right:-

The water wasn't very deep and a depth of about 2ft was sufficient. As before I was dropping in bits of bait and sweetcorn into the swim. It didn't take long to hook my first common carp (at 1.53pm):-

This wasn't very big, just 12.5 inches, however, all the carp I caught that afternoon (and all but one of the fish I caught were carp) were in good condition. The commons also had this sort of ruddy looking tail. The next one I caught was just 7 minutes later:-

This common is a bit more chunky and is 14.5 inches long. In another 14mins I caught this slightly more golden coloured common:-

This is another 14.5 inch fish. I did weigh a fish like this and they are only about 2lb. The rest of the afternoon went in a similar vein and I was constantly catching all afternoon. I did pick up a couple of mirror carp as this one testifies:-

In all I caught 24 carp in about 3 and a half hours which is about 1 every 8 or 9 minutes! The largest fish came towards the end:-

This 16 inch fish weighed in at just 3lb.

All text and pictures copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2017.