Re: Higham Farm, Alfreton
Afternoon all,
I went to Hugham Farm on Saturday afternoon/night witha friend. After negotiating Cardiac Hill (in the car) we arrived at the 4 lakes, allaround 4-6 acres in size each in the Derbyshire countryside.
Upon advice from my mates work colleague we fished the lake that says "no day tickets" and chose the far left corner to fish (everywhere else was taken up).
Speaking to the bailiff as we set up he says the fishing for the week had been very good, with some of the bigger fish (25-32lb) however friday evening dropped cold and no one was catching after that.
Undetered, we set up our kit and got talking to a couple of gents who had been there a couple of day. They had pulled the 30+ fish out on Thursday evening, they were originally fishing smelly corn and boilies, popped just above the surface, and up until friday were having a brilliant time. They had now resorted to spodding buckets of bait out but weren't able to catch a thing.
The lake bed in our swim had a very silty surface, so I set up using semi bouyant corns attached to an open cage feeder (Feeder mix of Green swim stim (locals shops brand), chilli hemp and corn) on one rod in a hope that it will just rest on the surface.
On the second rod a robin red pellet on the other rod, again popped up just on the surface, feeding with filled PVA bags of mixed size strawberry pellets.
Started off casting every 15 mins or sor for a couple of hours to put some bait down, then as darkness fell and a couple of cheeky cans downed, the buzzers got turned up and we turned in for the night (we'd been playing football in the morning so was rather shattered).
Got awoken at around 3 by an alarm going off (wasn't ours though) as one guy about 100metres or so away got a take and managed to land a lovely 28lb mirror. Back to sleep for a couple of hours awaitng first light.
Woke up at around 6ish, to a lovley still water with a slight hint of misting over the top. In the other direction some of derbyshires lovley countryside. Left it an hour before checking and recasting outr rods out. At the point it was around 4-5 degrees, the temp had dropped significantly since the day before and didn't look like rising again.
Most started to pack up around 9 ish, however we stuck it out for another hour and packed up our selfs.
Just before we left i had a look around the other 3 lakes. All seem very similar, with a few features to fish to, but the same reports from all lakes came back. Seems like the derbyshire fish don't like to bite in the cold.
Theres clear proof that there are big fish in there, the other anglers were talking of big tench and bream being taken, along with good heads of perch and chub. I will go back another day but when it's a bit warmer!
Hope this helps anyone that may be thinking about going down for a session.
And when he reaches Heaven, To Saint Peter he will tell, One more soldier reporting sir, I've served my time in Hell.
Ubique Loquimur
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