I loved it, of course it had changed a lot from the early days, but it still had a special feeling about it. Many of the older fish still swam in its depths and if you took away the planes it was a little slice of heaven in the Colne Valley. It still had mystery surrounding it, you never knew what was coming next, be it a lovely stockie or one of the ancient Redmire commons.

I had fished weedy lakes before, but Wraysbury was a different ball game. Quite a lot of the swims had huge 14ft walls of weed in areas, with small clear spots dotted around. It made feature finding vital, and as a result it really honed my skills. I swapped to braid on my fishing rods pretty quickly too, this vastly improved my accuracy as well as helping to get the fish through the weed. I had to use a Spomb to fish the tight spots, and I mainly focused on Lawn, Springates and Sunnymeads. The fish loved it in those areas in the warm weather pre-spawning. Unfortunately, I only really caught stockies at that point.

The fish moved from the corners and travelled to the middle. The weed was flourishing, and the carp spent a lot of the time. Spending hours with the leading rod searching out small, clear holes was the only option really. The fish were a lot more spread out and the main holding feature was weed and bait. They loved their food in Wraysbury and at times, you could not put enough out. I noticed that others were catching the odd big fish after or during a hit of carp, so catching the smaller ones to me wasn’t affecting my chances of one of the original fish.

I used a mix of pellets and crumbed Krill or Manilla with particles to keep cost down. I used a load of liquids too, just to make my bait stand out a bit more. The volume depended on the situation, but if I felt that I was on the fish, then I wasn’t afraid to start a session off fishing over a bucket of bait. The fish absolutely ripped through bait and they seemed to be pack fish too. I caught the majority of my fish on yellow Signature Squids too. I don’t know why, but they seem to have a real preference towards yellow hookbaits.

It was October time, I racked up over 60 fish before I actually fell lucky! Thankfully it was a cracker, one of the old Redmire commons. They are such special fish and it gave me a real buzz to add it to my album. That wasn’t all for that session either, I had the one called the Friendly Fully too, a cracking thirty-pounder.

They do, but they often come out at night time. At the back of Cigar Island there is a long channel of snags and out of bounds. Quite often during the day you see a large amount of the stock sat in there chilling out. They know that they can’t be fished for, so if they are not too keen on feeding, this is often where they end up. There are a lot of fish that you see in there that just don’t get caught, or haven’t for years, which is great and adds to the mystery!

I knew the Long Sutton liked an area of water in the shallow end of the lake, but as it happened on that session I started in the deeper area. The lake was busy, but there were a few fish on me, so I was happy where I was. Over the next two nights I had four bites, topped by one of the largest Redmire commons at 38lb.

I noticed more and more fish showing in the shallows and so I moved onto them. I felt I had a great chance of catching the Long Sutton. I had to be at work for 8am the next day, but I felt that I had a chance of a couple of fish. The rods went out bang on, all on clear spots and the traps were set. Unfortunately, I lost my first bite, but landed the second one, only for it to be the Friendly Fully again. Just when I thought I had made the wrong decision, another rod melted off and I was attached to an animal of a carp.

It was the rod positioned on the edge of the bait, which was there to try and catch one of the more wary carp. As it happens, that was exactly the kind of carp on the end and after an epic battle, I slid the net under the one I wanted most, the Long Sutton. She looked immense and huge too. A friend came around to give me a hand and she went 43lb 4oz, a truly special carp and a pleasure to catch.

Thankfully I did. The stockies decided to spawn again and I found a group of fish feeding right on the causeway between the North and South Lakes. I knew they were bigger fish and introduced a few boilies. I could throw them out there, they were that close in! I setup close by and positioned a few rods on Hinges nearby, and the following morning I had one of the Scotty’s, Pawprint at 40lb 2oz!

I ended up following that one up closely with another one of the real special ones, the Broken Linear at over 42lb! I really did enjoy my time on Wraysbury, despite the changes, it is a great venue with some incredible fish.