Carp Fishing in Small Pits and Estate Lakes

For most of the 23 years I have spent carp angling, with the exception of a couple of years on Horton, a season on the North Lagoon in Broxbourne and a bit of time at Horseshoe, I have concentrated my fishing on small pits and estate lakes between 1½ and 7 acres in size. This has generally been because I fish purely for my own pleasure and have always been drawn to the peace and tranquillity offered by most of these type of waters. Because of their size, memberships tend to be low with fees relatively high and are often run on a syndicate basis. As a result of this combination, these type of waters tend to attract friendly, capable anglers that fish hard but also have that close-nit community spirit about them that often leads to unplanned but extremely enjoyable social evenings, and surprisingly enough some of my most memorable captures have often followed such times.

In general, carp stocks in these type of venues tend to be low with most of the resident carp being quite old, and with the exception of a couple of pounds either way do not tend to change in weight over the years. In the waters that I have fished, a similar trend seams to have emerged with respect to the weights of the carp, the average weight tends to be around the 20lb mark with a handful of mid to upper doubles and a handful of mid to upper twenties with one or two pushing through into the low thirties. I am not saying that all small pits and estate lakes conform exactly, and can come up with a number of examples that quite obviously do not conform, however in my experience on the lakes that I havefished this is the case. The lakes also tend to be mixed fisheries with other species including roach, rudd, pike, tench and some very big perch.

A 22lb 4oz mirror from a 1½ acre Estate Lake in 1986

History - Whilst the small pits tend to have been created by extraction of gravel, clay or sand; estate lakes tend to have been created for other purposes and by different means. Rather than digging a lake, estate lakes were usually created by damming off a stream, brook or river that runs through the estate, and is the reason a number of these waters have an inlet and an outlet. The majority of these type of waters will have a deep channel running through the centre where the original stream bed ran. These waters were created for a number of purposes, sometimes as a water supply, but often just as an ornamental lake, sometimes for his lordship to take guests fishing, usually for pike, or in order to attract ducks and geese to the estate for shooting. Lazy summer days were often spent floating around the lake in a boat, and is the reason why a number of estate lakes will have an old decrepit boathouse. Redmire Pool is probably the most famous example of a lake created by damming of a stream.

Quite often in clay areas, lakes were created by the construction of a mansion. Bricks and tiles for the mansion would often be hand made using the clay in the ground and the bigger the mansion, the bigger the lake as more excavation of clay was necessary. Similar lakes were also created by small independent brick companies, and even now, years after the demise of these businesses, evidence of this still exists in the way of broken bricks and tiles in the earth around the lake.

The lakes tend to be quite old and therefore very mature, some to the extreme where anglers who are not used to waters of this nature would class them as being too overgrown. To me this is part of their beauty and attraction. It is in these estate lakes and brick pits that I have gained most of my fishing experience, and despite their small size the very nature of them can make for some difficult and interesting fishing.

Location and Feature Finding - As with any fishing, location, even on pools of just 1½ acres are the singular most important aspects to catching carp with any regularity. It is true to say that on such small waters some fish will most likely pass over your bait at least once in any given period, however this does not necessarily mean that they will feed on your bait. In the small pits and estate lakes that I have fished I have been able to divide the stock of carp into two categories when it comes to their movement around the lake and their feeding habits.

Firstly are the fish that patrol around most of the lake. These fish tend to follow a set pattern over a 24 hour period, and although it is easier to follow the carp around these patrol routes during the spring and summer months, I also believe that some fish continue the pattern throughout the year, only changing if forced to do so by movement of natural food sources. Throughout the patrol route taken by the carp will be regular feeding areas and as a rule of thumb feeding fish can often be found in these areas during the early morning and at around dusk.

By working out patrol routes, feeding areas and locating residential fish, your catch rate can improve dramatically on such waters.

To increase you chances even more it is important to spend time feature finding. Now obviously you are not going to be trying to find gravel bars in a small silty estate lake as you would on a gravel pit, however there are numerous other features that can be found. These can also be divided into two categories, visible features and hidden features.

Visible features are those that can be seen such as snags, Lilly pads, reeds and in clear water weed and shallow areas. Unlike the small pits I have fished, most of the estate lakes have murky, coloured water making sub surface features difficult to see, with Redmire Pool a complete exception to the rule being very clear and weedy.

Some of the hidden features to look for are hard areas in amongst the silt, gravel patches, snags, marginal drop off's and concentrated areas of natural food such as blood worm or water mussels. Always smell you bait when you bring it in and if it stinks of rotten silt particularly if it has not been there long don't fish that spot. I've never caught whilst fishing over smelly silty areas.

I have found that this understanding of fish movement coupled with the knowledge of both visible and hidden features with in a lake has enabled me to fish far more productively than the angler that believes due to the size of the water fish must pass over his bait and soon enough one will find it too irresistible. This does happen but not often enough for me and I am grateful that there are anglers who are happy to sit and wait.

Incidently, I have never weather conditions found to make anywhere near as much of a difference as it does on larger waters, although temperature, strong winds and rain fall do obviously have an effect on feeding patterns.

Move With Them - Because of the low membership figures on a lot of these waters I often find myself in the fortunate position of being the only person at the venue which therefore allows me to move around the lake unhindered by other anglers, this gives me the perfect opportunity to move around just ahead of the fish and set my traps.

When possible I tend to pitch up for the night in the swim that best serves the first light feeding area of the patrolling carp. I try and lighten my fishing gear to the bear essentials, which during the summer months means carrying only an umbrella as protection, and then only if rain is forecast. This helps me for three reasons. Firstly for the method of fishing that I am about to explain you need to be able to move as quickly and quietly as possible. With just the bare necessities to carry you will find that you are able to move swims in just one trip therefore making you more incline to do so. As an extension to this I also favour the use of rod pods as they can be carried with your entire rod set up and once again, because there is no need to put bank sticks into the ground, noise and vibration is reduced, particularly important when fishing the margins, an area that accounts for about 85% of my estate lake fishing. I will say however that it is always worth securing the back of your rod pod because even if you are fishing with bait runners, carp can move so fast that rods and pods can follow them into the water as I found out once at Horton, but that's another story.

The second advantage of fishing in this way, ie not using a bivvy, enables me to see signs of moving or feeding fish without the restriction in vision bought on by side panels, and even when it gets too dark to see these signs, I am able to hear the fish crash and get a far more accurate positioning as sound tends to get thrown around a bivvy making a noise form the left sound like it has come from the right.

The third advantage is that you are rudely awaken by a light in your eyes as the sun rises and as we all know, first light often makes for some of the best catching opportunities. Use this time to see where the fish are feeding, don't just look out for bubbles and discoloured water, watch for knocking pads, reeds or even snags and check the margins to see if the free offerings you carefully placed there the night before have gone. Don't start throwing out loads of bait where you suspect fish are feeding.

Set up for the night - Bivvy up? Rain must have been forecasted

If you have found feeding fish and they are not near your hook bait reel in slowly and quietly, move a minimal amount of tackle (landing net and unhooking mat are essential) to a swim that you can easily reach them and carefully and quietly cast your bait to them. In this situation I do one of two things depending on how confidently they are feeding and how close to them I can get. I will either drop a fee line bait in front of them they are feeding in the extreme margins, or I will use a very light lead and cast past them slowly drawing the rod back to feather the lead as it falls through the water in order to get the bait to land nearer to the feeding fish. I don't reel back once the lead has landed due to the amount of debris that you find on the bottom of most estate lakes which could mask the hook.

In these situations I fish with a slack line and watch for line movement. It's a very exciting way to fish as the line constantly flicks across the surface as the feeding carp swim into it, however unlike fishing tight lines a slack line dose not spook the fish as they hardly feel it. There is no problem identifying when a fish does prick itself as the line pours of the spool. It is important to remember to strike as free lining or using only light weights will not set the hook properly.

It is not always possible to fish in this idyllic manor due to the presence of other anglers and when I am in a situation where there are a few other people on the lake or in my favoured swims I will use this opportunity to get to know a swim or an area of a lake better.

I will still fish in the same way as that way at least I can be confident in something even if it is not the particular area I am in. More importantly, it has paid dividends. I have discovered new feeding areas in parts of the lake that I have tended to ignore in the past.

Baits and Rigs - we've all got our favourites and I am no exception. Over the years I have fished 25% of my time with at least one rod that has a pop-up on and yet I would guess that only about 5% of the carp I have ever caught have been on pop-ups, needless to say, I now use bottom baits wherever I can get away with it, which fortunately for me is most of the estate lakes I fish. Funnily enough a lot of the anglers I speak to say the complete opposite. I believe that it is all down to personal preference and what you are confident in, although it is important to be aware that some rigs are designed to overcome certain problems like weed, silt, crayfish etc. and like them or not, these will work if used correctly.

My favoured rig is very simple and for me has been very effective over the years. The only real changes I have made are the components, which have improved over time, however the basic rig remains the same.

Size 6/8 Fox series two, ESP T6 or a Gold Label penetrator attached to a short length of Kryston Snake Skin (3 ½ - 4") using a knotless knot and bulling back the first inch of the skin from behind the hook but leaving about 2mm of skin coming off the eye to act as a built in line aligner. The other end is fixed using a loop to a Korda swivel. A 1 or 1 ½ oz lead then fitted to the swivel using a Big fish adventure rubber tadpole.

I prefer to use small fresh baits between 10 and 14 mm. During the summer I use a bird seed mix with a spice flavour from Solar, Hutchinson or John Baker. This then changes to what ever the latest Mainline bait is for the Autumn months. As I am not trying to keep a large shoal of fish in my swim, mainly because in most of the estate lakes I've fished the carp don't shoal up, rather go around individually or in pairs, I don't put out too much in the way of free offerings, maybe just breaking up a dozen or so boilies and throwing them out with a handful of trout pellets or hemp. Once again a confidence thing probably but I have caught regularly enough for me not to consider changing.

If there are not too many nuisance fish don't over look maggot, worm or luncheon meat, especially when stalking. When 'static' fishing I tend to fish the margins of the opposite bank, which on most of the venues I fish is no more than an 80 yard cast or less. When fishing like this I will usually place the rig in the opposite margin by casting my rig over to the opposite bank and retrieving it, although on some of the small over grown waters I fish this is not an option due to the over hanging trees. 

When fishing in this manor I will use a back lead although I don't like to as I have had experience of hooked fish pivoting on the back lead and not giving me any indication, however I have caught fish that I probably would not have done had they been spooked on a tight line.

To conclude, I would recommend anyone who intends fishing these types of venues to get to know the pattern of the carp's movements around the lake, find the features and watch for feeding areas, particularly at common feeding times such as first light and dusk. Feed the margins and keep an eye on them. Don't be afraid to try something different, and don't be worry about sticking to winning formulas.

Talk to people and find out what they have caught, where from, what method and what bait they used. Some won't tell you, some will, and other will tell you but not the truth, its up to you do decide which information to take on board and which to discard.

Persevere and eventually the penny will drop making fishing other similar venues far easier and more enjoyable. Don't think that because of the size of the lake a feeding fish will come across your bait eventually, it probably will but by then you'll be at home.

Keep catching!

Richard Stangroom