This week's match

This week's winner was Keith with a lower than normal result at 13lb, closely followed by his son. I think the huge amount of rain we had in the preceeding 24hrs must have put the big fish off the feed.

Mean while the Lighthowler family always run their own inter-family competitions complete with trophies! As we understand it Steve is currently winning with 4 good carp to 16lb in one short session. Steve doesn't like to get up too early or fish too late - much to the rest of the family's annoyance! Steve says "I do what I have to!"

The Secret Pool has been fishing well this week, as of Wednesday it has produced 10 Carp to 26lb, plus numerous nice chub.
Keith who stayed in the Secret Cottage last week had a very memorable catch when he landed a beautiful specimen Perch - which is veryinteresting as we never stocked any of these gladatorial fish. So it's appearance and apparent growth rate hold great promise for the future. The Perch came alongside cracking Chub and Roach, Bream, and Carp all taken on his pole.

A Passion for angling

Well as promised here's the second half of Paul Wood's story!

Paul stayed and fished with us for two weeks, mainly fishing during the daylight hours.
In the end he had 62 'good' fish, which gave a total weight well over 700lbs!
In fact almost everytime Dad or Julian went past Paul seemed to land a fish - you can see he even had 'the boss' acting as gillie! In fact Dad was so impressed he decided to award Paul a signed copy of 'A Passion for Angling'

Had Paul decided to fish through the nights, he might of topped our previous reported record of over 1200lbs of carp in a 2 week stay by regular Colin Chambers.

Of course other anglers have been enjoying the fishing this week too, for example Warren who had 21 good Carp in the week.

PS: I know there are a couple of photo's in this post that were in the previous one, but when there's this many pics to try and remember, I hope you can forgive me!

Touch Wood

Paul Woods is stopping with us again, and I'm sure many of you have gotten to know this friendly chap over the last 15 years.
But do you know he has topped his PB every year for the last 15 years?
He's here for 2 weeks, and is half way through his stay, with 30 good Carp so far.
His favourite being a 21lb 10oz Grass Carp which is another PB!

He's kindly given me his photo's for the blog (though I have to be quick with his card because he knows he'll need again soon!), and with a week left I'm glad I can write it up his catches in 2 posts!

Paul also keeps a fishing diary (like me) Where he can record, date, location, weather, baits, and of course catches. A good idea and a treasure trove for future years!

3 generations of Team Finnegan

Hi there, just a quick note to say thanks for a great weeks fishing. We
all had a brilliant time, alas no monsters, but we got loads of silvers
and on the last day we had three decent jacks out of Reed Mere, with
Charlie (my son)  beating his PB with a nice 7 1/2 lb (photo attached).
Can I also add it was great for my dad who as you know is not as mobile
as he used to be, but was able to get anywhere within the complex
without any major assistance. Cheers and hope to see you all again
Thomas Black (N Ireland)

Email from Mr & Mrs Adrian, and the dogs

We recieved this lovely email the other day, so I thought I'd share it!

"Hi PAUL and Julian,
just a quick message about our week we,ve just had at the Arches. My wife and i have had a great relaxing time,the dogs loved it too, the accomodation was spot on, the tackle shop was second to none, the cafe was great and very handy, the fishing could have been a little better, but you cant book the weather,can you, but the fish i did catch was of top quality,the tench and roach were stunning, the match was good fun,and every one there was very friendly.
Thanks once again,i will recomend you guys to one and all, and would we book again, OH YES,
hope to see you in the future.
From Mr & Mrs ADRIAN and the two dogs."

We love it when we recieve emails like this! We know you enjoy your stays with us, but it's so nice when someone takes the time afterwards to send us a little message to say Thankyou!

To Mr. and Mrs. Adrian and your dogs, we're very glad you enjoyed stay with us, you were a pleasure to have and we look forwards to seeing you again soon. Now you're a regular, you are entitled to a 10% discount, and extra special deals for breaks in the same year!

Middlehurst vs Swindells in the Match

The second match of the week ended in a draw for first place . John from the Middlehurst party landed 17lbs 12ozs of lovely Roach whilst Andrew from the Swidells party did exactly the same.