Holly Farm, South Walsham 2017

Now that it is out of season on the Broads, it was great to get back to Holly Farm for some serious carp fishing. With the weather improving (sort of!) and warm sunshine to be had, I was very pleased to be by these lakes again. I have been down about five times since mid March this year and each time I haven't been disappointed. I haven't even been that concerned with any fancy baits and instead I have just been turning up with a small can of sweetcorn, but it is good enough. It is still £6 for a day ticket and £4 for the evening.

The first couple of times I was there I fished the 'canal' lake, which is the one furthest from the car park, but the third and fourth times I have been I tried the other lake, which I now think is better. The canal lake is very reliable and you will catch carp from it, but the nearer lake seems to have better specimens and decent bream instead of roach. I also caught my very first large tench there on the 11th April and is a personal best:-

I apologize for the slightly soft image but my camera phone lens was a bit mucky. This fish is about 18 inches in length. I should perhaps have weighed it but I didn't. I suspect it is probably around the 2 to 3lb mark and I don't want to fall into the trap of overestimating. For comparison look at the 10inch fish I caught on the broads. The one from the lake here is much more golden in colour and is not as deeper bodied.

There are also some nice bream in this lake. Take, for example, this nice fish caught on the same day:-

This fish is about 15 inches in length and similar in size to the one I caught at Dilham and so is probably just over 2lb. Some of the bream in this lake have a funny habit of spooking as soon as you catch them and come flying out of the water like some sport fish. I had one the other day that nearly landed itself on the bank.

Talking of incidents, when I was at Holly Farm on the 23rd March and fishing the canal lake, I had just hooked into this common carp

when there was a big splash and I caught sight of an otter's tale! It was trying to catch the fish I was reeling in. Fortunately, there was no entanglement and I got the fish in ok but it was a bit of a shock. It looked like a young otter that had broken in through the electrified perimeter. The above fish is about 15 inches in length and is a typical Holly Farm carp. There was no sign of the otter on other occasions.

Something else I have been trying is to feed bits of sweetcorn, one at a time, into the swim around my float. This seems to really work and sometimes you only need your float just in front of you, a foot so from the bank. I think on each time I have been down recently I have caught perhaps six or seven carp in an afternoon (I rarely get down for the morning session). So the lakes are not quite up to their summer catching rate.

All text and pictures copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2017.