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After all the excesses of Christmas and New Year, Jim, Connor and I decided to clear our heads and get in an afternoons fishing at Wood Lane Farm Fishery, situated in Iver, Buckinghamshire.
As we turned into the car park it became apparent that no one shared our thoughts on this grey, blustery day. At least we had first pick of swims as no one else had ventured out to try and tempt the match lakes large population of skimmers and carp. We chose our swim for comfort rather than one which may produce better fishing and set up with the wind at our backs in a sheltered corner of the match lake.
We all set up waggler rigs fished slightly over depth with double red maggot as hook bait. Small amounts of loose fed maggots and casters completed our plan of attack. It took quite a while to tempt the fish into feeding but after about an hour we stated to pick up the odd skimmer as bites started to come more frequently. Upping the feed rate a bit tempted the fish into feeding pretty well and amongst the regular skimmers we caught quite a few of the fast growing F1s in the lake.
Wood Lane Farm Fishery only opened to anglers around 6 months ago and already the F1s we caught in the summer have packed on a fair amount of weight. Fish we were catching around the 8oz - 1lb mark are now tipping the scales at around 2-4lb. Talking to Danny the owner (who I think was quite surprosed to see anyone fishing on this dreary winter day) he explained that the carp in the second lake are now nudging the lower double mark.
Around mid-afternoon the leaden skies opened and a steady drizzle soon got the better of Jimmy "Tangles" and Connor who had unfortunately forgotten their umbrella and they were soon heading for the car for some shelter. Bites dried up soon after as we approached dusk and we decided to call it a day. I caught around 20 fish in all including around 4 or 5 carp in under 3 hours which was pretty good. Apparently recent winter matches (one which even included Keith Arthur) have been won with well over 100lb. Not bad at all.
Give Wood Lane a try....I think you'll find its worth it.
Til next time, happy fishing!! Paul @ UK Fisherman
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Its always a pleasure to try out a brand new fishery. That sense of the unknown just adds to the excitement you already feel when going fishing. Well that was definitely the case today. Jenny had spied a sign to Wood Lane Farm Fishery on her way back from work one day and had been suggesting we try it for some weeks now. Then funnily enough, Nigel Laughton [check his pics out in the gallery] sent Fish South East an email explaining about Wood Lane Farm and the fishing on offer there.
When we arrived, it was, as luck would have it, pouring with rain. After a brief stint sheltering in the car, the skies started to brighten and we were on !! Wood Lane farm consists of two coarse fishing lakes. The larger lake is the match lake and is probably around 3-4 acres with I'd say room for about 20-30 swims. It is pretty featureless and exposed. The smaller lake is more sheltered with swims seperated from each other by tress and bushes, giving it more of a secluded feel. I guess its around half the size of the match lake. I was "reliably" informed that 4 hour matches on the match lake have already been won with weights approaching 200lb and that the second lake holds carp to 30lb. One word of warning - because the fishery is fairly new, the owner hasn't built proper swims/pegs yet, and as some of the banks are fairly steep, care needs to be taken, especially in the wet.
So enough of this waffle - was the fishing any good you want to know, right? Well in a nutshell, yes it was good. We made a start on the match lake fishing the far bank near the three big trees and it soon became apparent that the lake was absolutely stuffed full of fish. We caught an endless stream of roach, skimmers, chublets, tench and hard fighting carp up to about 2lb. Everthing was on the small side but we had great fun on light tackle and the action was non stop. Sweetcorn, pellets and meat all seemed to gobbled up with equal relish by the hungry fish. They won't stay small for long!
Having sent a few hectic hours on the match lake, we decided to try our luck on the second lake. We chose a swim in the left hand corner of the lake where it looked like there would be some likely fish holding spots. It was pretty evident right from the off that the second lake was very well stocked too and straight away we were catching ths same fish as in the match lake although on the slightly larger size. The weather gods decided to ruin our fun shortly after that so we decided to call it day.
Wood lane Farm is located about 500 metres down Wood Lane on the left hand side as you approach form Iver. Prices are £10 per day and you must use barbless hooks, dip nets and you cannot use groundbait, boilies and nuts. Despite these restrictions, I would suggest that once the owner has made the venue a bit more access friendly [forget it at present if you are disabled], this will be a cracking venue and will become very popular. So give it a go while you can still get a swim.
Til next time, happy fishing!! Paul @ UK Fisherman
UK Fisherman would be delighted to here from you if you would like to comment on any of our diary entries. To do so, please use the comment box below. If you would like to submit a diary entry of your own , please visit the CONTACT page.
