South Creake Fishery, Near Fakenham, Norfolk

This is a somewhat belated write up of a short trip to South Creake Fishery during my summer holiday in Norfolk during July 2011.

I was recommended to try the fishery at South Creake by Rob Parnell at Dave’s Tackle in Fakenham near where we were staying. I visited the site the evening before to scout out and chat with some of the fishermen there. They were mostly Carp fishing with a mix of method feeding and feeder. The baits used were mainly sweetcorn and cubed luncheon meat. The fishery itself was quite small, really an S shaped lake formed with protruding islands. The depth of water was around 5 foot on average with quite clear margins and flat banks. It was quite exposed to the elements and just behind the fishing lake was the commercial fish nursery where they raised coarse fish for stocking of lakes.

I had a limited amount of time to fish the following day but I turned up not long after sun rise. I was at the bank for 05:30. I set up on the middle prominence and cast out 7 meters to a shallow bank which I had plumed the depth to be about 4-5 feet. I set up a lift float rig with a single SSG and the float a light waggler attached bottom end with a float rubber. The hook link was 3-4lbs mono with a size 16 barbless hook and the main line 6-7lbs mono. I was using the short 2.4m spinning rod. For hook bait I had normal sweetcorn which I tossed in as ground bait and put a single piece or double piece of corn on the hook, trying to hide the hook as much as possible, leaving only the point visible.

Weather conditions were overcast with mild drizzle and a light wind. I started getting bites around 06:30 but was struggling to hook into the fish. I suspect that I was not being able to pick up the line very well with the short rod. In hindsight, I was probably not sinking the line very well and the surface tow was creating a slight bow which was not helping with keeping tightly in touch with the terminal tackle. I got some nice lift bites but was also getting takes with the float just zipping under the water. I started landing a few small Rudd and Roach mostly in the 0.25lb and up bracket.

Selection of small Common Carp, Road and Rudd, possibly hybrid in the 0.25-0.5lbs bracket

They fought well for small fish. I also hooked into a small 0.25lbs common carp which may have been one of the recently stocked fish. I did then hook into something that was a bit bigger, the lift bite and the way the fish was keeping its head down and heading sideways for the margins made me think this was very Tench-like. Sure enough, it was a Tench, about 2.5 lbs. My favourite target species so I was very happy with this catch.

2.5lbs Tench

But I was even more impressed shortly afterwards when I got a more ferocious take with the float lifting and moving off sideways. When I struck into this, initially it felt like another Tench but it was really trying to power off. I had to loosen the clutch to let some line out. When I finally got the fish to the surface, I was surprise to see that it was a Carp. I had a sudden worry that this fish was too big for my small pan landing net but after a couple of minutes of fighting it to tire it out, I finally, just, managed to slip it into the small net. My first Mirror Carp of over a pound. It was a Line Mirror Carp according to one of my angling colleagues, I initially thought it might be a leather but it had a few scales near the dorsal fin. In the net the fish weighed 3.5lbs.

3.5lbs Line Mirror Carp

After this fish, I had a couple more small Rudd but had to pack up at 8am to be back to help with the kids. This must have been one of my best short fishing trips. Great fish and on corn with no fancy rigs to boot. Still of concern after this trip was the number of fish I missed which I attempted to attribute to short rod/line pick-up during the strike, barbless hooks etc. Also, I think I was rusty at the time on how to strike into a lift rig bite. I was probably waiting for the float to come up and go down again, which when I read about it later was not the right thing to do, classically, you strike as the float rises. I wonder what else I might have caught if I had been more proficient!