Great carp fishing at Holly Farm Lakes, South Walsham

As I had some bait left over from my visit to Hockering I decided to try out Holly Farm Lakes at South Walsham which is about half an hour's drive from where I live. It had been misty and wet most of the morning but when I set out about 11am it had begun to clear up and by the time I arrived at Holly farm the sun was out and I was quickly shedding waterproof gear. The owners don't seem to have a website of their own but in case you need to find them their postcode is NR13 6EQ. They charge £6 a day for one rod (an extra rod is another £2). They have two lakes, and after asking a fellow fisherman, it seems that the lake furthest from the car park fishes the best and that's where I went:-

I was using my pole rod again, as you can see, with the same set up as I used at Hockering. I wondered if this Middy Battlezone 4 metre Carp Margin Whip would be up to the job, but I am pleased to say that it was and it was really good fun. The bailiff reckoned that the margins would fish best for carp, so I began with a few maggots and then switched to sweet corn. Initially, I think I was fishing too close to the margin as I ended up getting tangled up with the bushes a couple of times! The bailiff had said to fish the bottom but I wasn't getting much success apart from a few small roach. Then I noticed that some carp were loitering around the surface so I tried the opposite tack of fishing really shallow with immediate success as I caught a small bream (or perhaps a roach/bream hybrid). I then began to catch succession of very nice carp. These two I had about lunchtime:-

This first one looks like a common and is about 36cm in length or 14 inches.

The second is a nice 40cm or 16 inch mirror carp. After lunch, whilst it was still sunny, I caught two more mirrors, both of which were unfortunately foul hooked.

This one is about 45cm or 18 inches.

This was a lovely looking specimen of 47cm or 18.5 inches.

The weather than began to close in and alarmingly, I could hear thunder in the distance. Then as the afternoon progressed flashes of lightening could be seen. I wondered if I should give up but I stuck with it. The lightening was at least 6 miles away. Still fishing shallow I had this lovely roach:-

This is 23.5cm long or 9 inches and probably weighs about 10oz. The rain started hammering down by then and instinct told me that I should fish deeper. In the rain I had another six more carp. The first two I photographed but then it became impossibly wet to photograph any more. I think they were all mirrors. Here are the first two:-

This first one is 37cm or 14.5 inches.

I think the largest fish I landed came soon after this but everything was sopping wet by then and the camera wasn't an option. All of these fish were caught on sweetcorn. I packed up about 5pm when the rain started to abate.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.