Regular TC blogger and all round nice guy, Matt Kingsford, has a crack at Manor Farm's popular lake known as Winters...

After fishing Becks Lake at Manor Farm Fishery in Bedfordshire last week for the night I fancied going back and testing my wits on one of the more challenging lakes on the complex, known to be more tricky are Winters Lake and Booneys after looking at the availability for the Friday my mind was made up with one space available on Winters. I quickly secured my place on their online booking system and couldn’t wait to get on the lake and have a look, looking at the galleries on Manors website I already had a couple of fish in mind I would love to make friends with...

Arriving at the lake Friday afternoon with 24 hours on the lake in front of me and with the weather looking good I was eager to get fishing. Not having fished Winters before I had a good walk round, with 3 fishing it already I opted to move up to the quieter far end of the lake and found half a dozen fish in a small bay. Dropping the bucket in the swim I proceeded to grab the barrow and move in. After a nightmare walk round to the swim tipping the barrow twice on the way while fish spotting I got into the swim and proceed to rig up, the fish seemed to have sulked away from the area so I scattered a few freebies of Manilla 16mm loosely in the area they were in previous and dropped a Sticky Baits Manilla snowman on the edge of the bait with a small PVA stick made from the excellent castaway PVA 18mm mesh. The other rod went far bank tight to some reeds, which looked very carpy indeed.

With nothing more that a few beeps and an aborted take in the night, I decided to change things around 10am, opting to fish white Manilla pop-ups on a longish hair with small sticks as tight to the right and far bank as I had seen some movement in both locations that morning. Fishing as tight as possible to the read line more or less clipping it I felt may get me my first Winters fish, masking the hook with a couple of Castaway PVA nuggets ensured all was well when the rig hit the water.

The change of tactics didn’t take long half an hour later and the left-hand rod signalled a take, just a couple of beeps and the rod arching round, fishing locked up as there was nowhere for the fish to go, my recently purchased Nash Rod Locks doing me proud and holding tight. Pulling into the fish it was moving left towards an island, which if she got there would cause a few issues, dropping the rod tip and straining right, I managed to turn her. She didn’t feel particularly big but really gave a good account for herself, in the net, I estimated a low twenty, no need to weigh in and stress her further so a quick snap and back she went.

With the rod put back out to the spot I sat back pleased I had managed my first fish from Winters, and a gorgeous looking mirror with a small linear scaling. A little while after my right-hand rod went and after a nice rod tip fight I managed to net a very striking common to make the set, again not one of the bigger fish in the lake with fish up to 40lb but a stunning fish I estimated to be at high teens.

All in all I was over the moon with the session to bag to lovely looking fish on my first trip to the lake was pleasing and good to be out for the second time in 2 weeks...

Next up will probably be our Hauling for Cancer Match at Walthamstow, which I hope my recent run of form can continue....

All the best

Matthew Kingsford