Its Crucian O'Clock at Marsh Farm.

This month we decided to re-visit an old venue, Marsh Farm, famed for its huge 100% true Crucians knocking the British record and huge Tench, I was really looking forward to returning as the last 2 visits have not really gone to plan, the first time we went it was the one of the hottest days on record, then the next time we went it was torrential rain the whole time, so I was hoping for a better day.

I left home just before 6am to pick up Steve then headed for Milford, Surrey. We arrived at Marsh Farm at about 6:45 and the gate was open, result, we know we cant start fishing until we have a shop brought ticket, and as the shop doesn’t open until 7:30 it gave us plenty of time to look around and choose our swims before it got busy.

We decided to fish the windward end of Harris lake, as its known to produce monster Crucians including the lake record which is held by Anglers Mail own Bill Rushmer, who gave us some information and tactics on this lake.

We put a bag in the swims we chose and headed back to the van to wait for the shop to open.

One thing you need to make sure of when fishing Marsh Farm is that you turn up with a completely bone dry landing net, because if you don’t, you cant use it, you can burrow one of there’s for a returnable £10 but then you will have to stop fishing at 5:30pm when the shop closes.

Marsh Farm has a really good and well stocked tackle shop and café on site which means you can just buy your bait there in the morning, I got myself 2 pints of maggots, a pint of pre-ordered casters, some pellet and paste, a Crucian banquet.

Once paid up we headed back to the swims to start setting up, I decided on two lines of attack, on the left side of the swim I would fish double corn on a bolt rig and alarm for the Tench, and on the right I would use a much lighter float set up, a 13ft rod coupled with a centre pin reel with 4lb mainline, a 2lb hook link, size 16 hook and a very light pole float.

I pre-baited both sides of the swim with pellet, maggot, caster and Tanches ground bait, a legend of a ground bait and got settled into the swim.

I began fishing and was soon into the Rudd and Roach, there was loads of them down there and most of the time took on the drop, which I was fine with as action from the off is a great confidence booster. After about an hour the high winds was really getting to me so I decided to take a break and go and grab some breakfast with Steve, another great advantage to Marsh Farm.

With a Bacon burger and brew sorted we headed back, I sat in the swim having a munch thinking how to tackle this wind, the best way would be to move to the other end of the lake, but with this much wind pushing down this end it was bound to bring the fish, so I decided to swap my set ups over and fish the float on the left so at least the wind with push the float towards the rushes rather than away, and bolt rig the other side. Caster on the hook was producing allot of bites so I decided to stay with it, the float just dipped a couple of mil so I struck, and felt a good resistance, at this point I was petrified of loosing it, then up came a big bar of gold, and it was in the net, it looked huge barring mind my previous best was only about 1lb 8oz, this one went 2lb 6oz, I was ecstatic.

The whole time I was fishing I have been feeding a handful of pellet and caster every 2 minutes or so and it seemed to have worked, and now with a massive confidence boost I continued fishing.

The Rudd and Roach where really getting on the feed with fish to over 10oz it was going well and it seemed an age before the next good resistance, and again it came in the form of a Crucian.

When it lay in the net I thought it was smaller than the last one, but it had quite a hunch back to him, and when on the scales it went to 2lb 9oz, another PB, this was turning into a great day.

The constant feeding seemed to be really paying off and they were loving the casters, but with the sun high in the sky I pulled the rods out to give the swim a rest but continued feeding, we decided to have an on site website meeting, so with a brew from the shop we discussed what we can do to better the site, which as its already brilliant not allot, but we spoke about our 4 day fish in August, venues for next year and our 2013 fishing holiday.

With the weather clouding over around 3pm we carried on fishing again, and was soon into more Rudd, Roach and Perch, but soon the float dipped delicately and I was into another Crucian, this one really gave it some but huge fun on a centre pin, once in the net it looked even bigger than the last one, but it was exactly the same size, 2lb 9oz again, but still a specimen Crucian and very happy to catch it.

The wind was getting silly now and was probably missing some Crucian bites, so we decided to move in an hour or so to Mill pond as its more sheltered and a better chance of a Tench, and although this swim had a real chance of a monster Crucian, I don’t think I would see the bite.

But not long before the move I was into another Crucian, this one was about 1lb 8oz or so, still a fantastic fish.

With that Crucian returned I packed up and joined Steve on the Mill pond, it was allot calmer with hardly any ripple in my new swim, and was soon into Rudd again, just on a smaller scale.

It didn’t take long for the Tench to move in, and my god did they fight, although most around the 1lb mark they really went for it, after a few I did eventually bank a 2lb 10oz Tench so was happy with that. Soon after it started to get really cold, its bloody JUNE and its cold, what is going on, so around 7pm we packed up and left.

Today was a real red letter day for me, I beat my Crucian PB twice then matched it again and some nice Tench. Marsh Farm really has it all and I do think that is mainly because of the lack of king Carp, although I love my Carp fishing it can push me to fish for them when I am at any venue with Carp in, which can not happen here as there is next to none, also it really helps having an on site tackle shop and Café.

A really great day and cannot wait to return.

Its who you know.

Friend of the website Martin aka Martinoff had invited me down to a private estate lake near Romsey in Hampshire, I have been here a few times before and love it, its quite rare to be able to fish in near silence, apart from the wildlife, sadly for me and Steve its highly private and only available to a very select group who have to work for a certain high end supermarket, Martinoff is a farmer for the supermarket so is allowed to have a ticket for the water, and is allowed a guest, which on this occasion was me.

Sadly Martin had been told there will be another 5 people on the lake when we were going, which may not sound allot on a lake of a few acres but we are used to having no one there when we fish, so we decided to get there early so we can secure a good swim, so I was up at 3am, van loaded by 3:15am and at Martins house in Stockbridge just before 4am. We arrived at the lake just before 5am and happy to see there was no other cars in the car park, result.

We grabbed a bag each and went for a wonder, after a lap there was nothing showing around the lake, not even bubbling, so we decided to set up across from the islands as we have done well here in the past.

We returned to the van, loaded the barrows and headed off to the swims, as I had the rods already set up it took moments till I was fishing, 1 was set up for solid PVA bag fishing, the other for maggot fishing. I cast them both to the island as close as possible, with the Delkims on I sat back to enjoy the view and make a nice cup o tea.

It took a hole hour for one of Martins rods to scream off resulting in a small Common, at the same time mine screamed off but sadly dropped off. I started baiting the margins as they can be very productive.

So far I had no bites on the maggots but the odd bleep on the boilie rod, my boilie of choice is CCMoore Live system with matching pellets.

Finally the alarms screamed into life which resulted in a little Common around 5lb.

Around 10am the other people had arrived and the fishing had gone very quite, and the weather really hot, so I went for a wonder. Most of the Carp where up on the surface, so I had a go for them using standard surface tactics, but to no avail, they were being infuriatingly fussy, just nudging the bait, I tried bread, banded dog biscuit, side hook fake biscuit but nothing worked. So I returned to the swim and put the rods back out to the island, baited the margins and had a kip.

Nothing really happened for a fair few hours apart from a couple of bleeps from my boilie rod, and as there was movement in the margins I decided to reposition the rods there, the right hand rod was on the boilie, and the left on maggot. After casting in and re-baiting it was about 15 minutes until my maggot rod screamed into life, it was obvious from the take that the Carp had some real issues, it powered all over the swim for around 5 minutes then it was netted, the result was a beautiful 15lb 12oz Mirror, 10 minutes after the rod was back in it was away again, this time a stunning dark Common of 10lb.

The time was now getting on, it was about 7:30pm, which is not that late but when you have been up since 3am it was starting to get to me, so we packed up slowly hoping for one last fish but sadly it did not happen.

We fished the venue in hard conditions, cold morning, hot day and high pressure, not excuses but this can be a really productive venue on the right day, but still a fantastic day and a big thank you to Martinoff and look forward to returning if given the chance.