As mentioned in the previous report on peg work, both myself and Bas are keen to improve both lakes as much as we can and we both felt the pegs should be high on our list of priorities.
Peg 1 before
However with anglers on both lakes every week this is a lot easier said than done as we are very conscious of disturbing areas of the lake we are working on. That been said from our recent experiences the building of pegs seems to attract more fish than scare them away, carp are very inquisitive fish and soon turn up where water is clouded up to see what’s going on. A very good example of this is the day we built peg 2 on the Large lake, the only angler catching throughout the day was Luke in peg 3 from close range, within 30-40yards from where we were working.
Peg 1 during the work...
With most of the pegs on the small lake completed or close to completion we opted to make progress on the Large lake. Swim 9 was our first peg transformed as I talked about in the last report, we have had so much promising feedback from anglers about this swim, a lot of people comparing it to previous years where it was so hard to fish from. Very nice to hear our hard work is making a difference, its also worth mentioning that peg 9 has been fished every single week since we built it, producing a lot of carp all landed and returned with ease from the platform. Next on the list was swims 1 and 2, both pegs that command the shallow end of the lake, and with temperatures getting up we felt these would be more and more popular swims in the near future.
Peg 1 complete
Swim 1, like many was just an area to fish from and apposed to specified peg, very shallow immediately in front making netting and returning fish difficult. This swim wasn’t the hardest to construct, all it really involved was creating a platform at water level going out into the lake slightly so anglers can net fish, return fish and use bait boats easily. The base for our platform was there, it needed digging out and shaping then simply drop the frame in position and stake in place. I make it sound like a 5min job but in 30 degrees heat it wasn’t the easiest of jobs looking back. Once gravelled we were happy it was now suitable to be used by any angler, in fact I’ve done a couple of day sessions from the peg since and have managed a few bites, with another angler called Kieran fishing the week we completed the swim, he fished his last night of the week in peg 1 and took an incredible 9 fish in one night! Very satisfying for us to see.
Peg 2 before with the collapsed bank
Moving onto swim 2, this opposed us with many more problems as it wasn’t half as straight forward as peg 1. The bank was dreadful in the old peg 2 as you can see from the photos, it was falling away by the day so it was very important we got this one sorted. We had an angler fishing this week called Mark Smith, a bloke returning for his second year at Roseau. He took a lot of fish from this swim including 21 x 20’s and a few 30’s, Mark had no complaints about a brilliant weeks fishing apart from the accessibility to the water. So if you read this mark, I hope your impressed with our work mate.
Peg 2 during...
The margin in swim 2 is very deep straight away giving us a few problems, we only really had one option and that was to use two rail way sleepers on top of each other to provide a solid front with extra long stakes to hold it in place. Once we had done this we used half sleepers to make the sides, these were dug into the bank and held in position with more stakes, finally we had a secure frame with a very boggy platform. We had further problems when it came to getting the platform solid, we ended up piling over 60 large rocks into the swim, pushing them down then piling more onto until eventually they stopped sinking in the soft clay. We then dug the step down to the platform, made the sides, covered both the step and platform in gravel and we were nearly done, after a little bit of tidying up we were happy we had improved the swim as well as we could given the limited tools and materials we had to use.
Peg 2 complete
Additionally I feel I need to say a big thank you and mention the new head chef here at Roseau, a very good friend of mine and a knowledgeable carp anger to boot; Alex Woodall. The workload here is very high with a large number of anglers visiting every week, so Bas and myself were struggling to physically get peg work and maintenance completed as we both had to do the meals morning and night. Now we have an extra pair of hands in the kitchen we have a lot more time to work on the lake and I’m pleased to say the results are showing.
Jack & Bas (Fishery Managers)
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