News at Oakwood

After all the hard work we have done recently I had been itching to get the rods out to test the new bark chipped swims.  I had promised my friend Brad a nights fishing on the lake after he helped me build a covered seating area so the anglers can enjoy there meal times in the dry should it rain.

We set up in the two end swims the plateaux and rhododendrons. I must say the swims were pure luxury even in the rain. Brad didn’t even get time to put his bivvy up, he was straight into a fish after less than 10 minutes!

The result was a 31lb 2oz golden common and new PB for Brad. To say he was a happy chap was an understatement!

A BBQ followed the fish capture and then it was my turn for my first take of 2012 at around midnight.  A very welcome 27lb 9 oz mirror graced the net.  With perfect proportions I recognised this fast growing baby as an off spring from the original stock. She has the potential to become a very big fish being only 5 years old.

Both fish fell for the “lake special” boilie tipped off by a 12mm matching pop up from Carp Company.

No more action followed that night as the cloud cover disappeared and temperatures plummeted but a great time was had by all.

Well looking forward, we are off on holiday for a week tomorrow and I have some family members coming over to look after the lake and no doubt have a fish as they are keen anglers.

Here's the video of Brads PB common...

Luxury!	Brad's Common	My mirror

Owner Dan takes us on a walk round the lake.  Looks gorgeous!

For the past 2 months we've been busy refurbishing all the swims here at Oakwood Fisheries. I can thankfully say that all this work is finally complete and ready for the new season - 2 days before our first guests were due!

All the swims have had the full treatment including new wooden fronts, fully boarded and bark chipped for a professional look.

First of all we began by selecting large straight trees to cut down for the new fronts. We felled 4 large ash tree and lengths of up to 7 meters were cut for the fronts. The next job was to get the cut lengths into the water so they could be towed by boat down the lake to their designated swim. This was no mean feat as they were extremely heavy!

Next we dug the tree trunks into the front of all the swims and staked them in position. We then had a visit from my friend with his mini digger and he scraped away a 4m x 4m area 15cm deep which was then boarded with planks, levelled and finally filled with bark chips from the local saw mill.

It was a lot of back breaking work but in my eyes definitely worth the effort. 

The first guests of the season have arrived at Oakwood Fisheries and it didn’t take long for Rob to obliterate his PB twice on the opening night.

Rob started with a mirror of 32lb 6oz mirror and followed it up 4 hours later with a fine 36lb 12oz specimen, adding almost 21lbs to his PB!

Rob described the success as his best nights fishing, ever!

Rob was fishing swim 3 and using Carp Company’s Cranberry and Caviar boilies along with the house pellet to tempt the brace of thirties.

Moving into the autumn months we began work to the final area of the lake that had been left un-touched until now. It had become a vast network of lily roots and weed beds during the last 100 years, so we had our work cut out!

The weed beds cannot be tackled until the lily pads roots are first removed as the weed rake cannot be pulled through the rhizome roots. We were lucky with the weather as it had remained nice and sunny and the water was warm. Wet suits and waders were donned and we began to remove the lily roots.

This is done by physically pulling the root off the bottom of the lake and where the weed was so thick in places just getting down to the bottom was exhausting enough as you have to fight your way through it. Then as you come back to the surface with your root you emerge as a weed monster!

All good fun and definitely worth the reward, the difference the work has made to the lake. In all we removed 6 tipper trucks stacked high with lily roots which took us a week.

The week after we started the weeding work. I was in two minds whether to do this job or not as the weed would shortly be dying back but from past experience I know that when I come to do the job next year in 2012 I will be at lot easier and less thick. So it was done!

The lake now looked fantastic so we decided we wanted to open more of the bankside up which was also quite overgrown in this area. All the nettles, brambles shrubs and trees were cut down and cleared and replaced with new flower beds and water plants which I hope will flourish next year.

I think in all we spent 3 weeks on this project but what a difference!

Before...		Now that's a lot of lillies!
After...	After.....