Boothsmere Uncut

We arrived at Boothsmere early on a frosty November morning having checked in through the security offices. First impressions of the lake made us realise the size of the venue. At twelve acres this was to be our first big step onto the typical Cheshire mere. The lake appeared to be an open expanse of featureless water, with marginal reeds and an occasional clump of dying lilies along the meadow bank. With stocking levels of about 40-50 carp this was to provide us with a serious challenge for the coming season. With a long ‘meadow’ stretch, a long reed bed ... [full story]

After a couple more long blank weekends of watching fish at range I felt as though a change was in order and decided that maybe a roving approach might be worth a shot, with maybe some surface fishing thrown in. After yet another strip-down of the kit I was ready to go at them again, wherever they were to be found. I arrived equipped with a couple of kilos of dog biscuits which I was sure would get them up on the top in the fine sunny weather we had been having. Upon arrival at peg 1 I could see ... [full story]

The weekend could not come round quick enough, I knew where the common was feeding and I just had to get back up there. With a little reorganisation at home I managed to get back on Booths by the Wednesday morning just 50 or so hours after leaving. On arriving I found I had the place to myself. Elated I crept down to tench corner and proceeded to set up way back from the swim, whilst doing this I saw a few fish cruising at range, it was going to go off I thought. I was here till Sunday, it ... [full story]

Much of June came and went with little or no action from the carp for me. I had slogged away hard on tench corner for most of my fishing since May, all I seemed to be catching was more and more tench and big bream on the pellets, so had decided to fish the Active8 mix with a bit more regularity, often using the bait on two out the three rods, This was still producing tench but not so many bream, thankfully, as its no fun getting dragged from my slumbers in the middle of the night for the greedy, ... [full story]