A cold but successful day at Martham Pits

I have fished Martham Pits on a couple of occasions before but I have not written any blogs about my visits. Last Friday (the 5th April) I decided to go there on the basis that the weather looked fine but, although there was hazy sunshine all day, there was an awful cold wind that had me well and truly chilled by the end of it.

Martham Pits is run by the Martham and District Angling Club and day tickets can be purchased from the Co-op (88 Repps Road, NR29 4QZ) in Martham for £7. There are four pits labelled A, B, C and D. Some parts of the pits are only open to members and sometimes pits are closed for matches. You can use two rods.

When I arrived I decided to have a go at fishing pit B because this was the last one that I fished successfully. I always stick to float fishing and I had a variety of baits with me but it quickly became apparent that I was getting nowhere. Hardly a nibble. The club has also cut the vegetation back considerably around all the ponds so it did feel very exposed. However, I wasn't put off and about lunchtime I decided to have a wander round and chat to one of the other fishermen who was on a different pit. It seems that I wasn't the only one struggling and the guy I spoke to very kindly suggested I try pit A near the bridge. As he said this was where someone had won a fishing competition in the last week or so. He suggested using sweetcorn (which I had been trying anyway) and 'keep feeding it in'.

So I moved across to pit A and this was the view from my new peg. I began feeding in bits of corn and unlike B, I began to get a few nibbles very quickly. I always fish near the bottom and check the depth using a plumb weight. Soon I was catching a few roach and after a while one or two skimmers. The bites remained very tentative all the rest of the day and nothing like a firm carp bite.I eventually landed my first of three good bream at 2.35pm:-

This fish weighed 2lb and is about 38cm or 15.2 inches long. Ten minutes later I caught this lovely 4lb fish:-

This has the classic look of a mature bream with its humped back and bronze colouration. This fish is about 50cm or 19.5 inches in length. I reckon this is a personal best for me. Later on I had another fish of 3lb but I didn't photograph it.

I came back to the pits on the 9th April and fished A pit again. It was still quite cold and windy but there was more sunshine, so it didn't feel so bad. I had another couple of bream of 2 and 2.5lb on that occasion. Still no carp.

Al text and images copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2019.