Stillwater salmon fishing in England
Previous seasons reports and newsletters in the ARCHIVE on photos page
21/02/12 Ron Fullelove from Rise Park Notts also sent me this picture of a tranquil winter's day at the lake. Now that the bad weather has gone (hopefully!) and the temperatures are less icy, restocking has begun in earnest to get ready for the spring fishing.
01/02/12 January is a very cold month to go fishing and most anglers are warming themselves by the fire at home, but if you can't wait for the spring to get some action there are pleny of salmon to be caught here. Those that did visit Palm Springs had a slow first week followed by big catches for the rest of the month. Only one a day was banked for the first 6 days then nearly everyone had 3 or more. 34 anglers landed 108 salmon, 67 retained and 41 released. The average was up to 3.17 per day ticket and although the number of blanks matched December's, at 7 (5 in the first week) , the proportion rose accordingly. No large salmon were recorded, they seem to be biding their time and apart from a smattering of doubles, the vast majority were in the 5-10lb range. This size distribution has been intentional as this seasons project is to get as many fish in the net for each fisherman as possible, eveyone would like to catch a 30 pounder but it's no good blanking a few times to get it, although I can think of a few fanatics who would!
26/01/11 I don't think this should be in the Anglers Catch Report section even though it concerns the catching of a salmon so this is a good a page as any. The reason is that the salmon in question was caught by me yesterday by accident. I was casting out my grappling array of treble hooks to make sure the bed of the lake was free of any dead fish and I had a take right at the end of the retrieve! I can report that it was the first (ever?) stillwater salmon to be caught from a boat and they do indeed have the power to tow a boat about while being played. We had some of it for dinner last night and very good it was too. Carol has been asking me for a nice clean tasting salmon from the lake for a while, we usually have to put up with earthy salmon from the rearing unit, a flavour which disappears once they've been in the lake a few days. It was a bit weird playing a fish I didn't want to catch but it was damaged so had to be killed. I will never be troubled with any angler who kills a fish which is thin, poorly or damaged and actively encourage the practice, it's just good lake management and often it is not kind to (any!) salmon to release it in the hope it won't die slowly. It doesn't count on the catch total and nine times out of ten I allow the angler to take it as an extra fish anyway.
20/01/12 Just a quick note to say that the the fishery is the subject of an article in Februarys Total Fly Fisher magazine.
01/01/12 Yesterday was the last day of the year and it certainly went out with a bang. See Nick Elliots 34.5 pounder on the anglers report page. That was the only monster salmon caught though, but the steady catches of the autumn continued into winter. December was divided by the cold snap two thirds of the way through, catches moderated when the mild weather returned, something to do with the salmons metabolism and the gyrating temperatures I would guess. By the end of the month things were going well with Ian Barr catching 7 on the 30th, Gareth Jones 6 on the 31st and Nick Elliott's near record the same day. Earlier Bob Buckby had an 8 limit on the 6th, followed by limits for Arthur Sykes and John Eaton the next day. All in all 75 anglers netted 202 salmon, 127 killed and 75 returned, a rod average of 2.69, 0.17 less than November. Blanks were down to 7, 15 anglers caught one each; and 2 or more for the rest. 571 salmon have been landed in the three months since the season began on the 7th of October. It has been very pleasing that the year should end so upbeat after the depressing time we had 12 months ago. I remember some football manager saying that it's easy when things are going well but it's how you respond to adversity that counts.
30/11/11 I've got right on to November's monthly report so here goes. Most of the month was dull and still but mild so fishing could continue apace. After a slow first couple of days the catches were fairly consistent right up to the last few days when the weather broke into a more unstettled pattern with a frost and gales. The maximum catch allowed is 8 and this was achieved six times in the month. On the other side of the coin 8 anglers blanked but with 85 day rods fished this represented only 9.4% so any one rod had a less than 1 in 10 chance of going home empty handed. This years batch of largest salmon were stocked in the middle of the month but only one has since been caught, a 26 pounder caught by Lee Gapper on the 20th. I'm beginning to get reports of them seen at the surface so maybe the fishery record will be broken soon. There has been a smattering of larger fish ( see catch report page) but the vast majority have been stockies of 6-12lb. The 85 rods landed 243 salmon, a rod average of 2.85, 86 returned and 157 taken for the pot. We had a visit from Steve Cullen and team from The Total Flyfisher magazine on the 14th, so keep an eye out for the article, probably coming out in the January issue. The fishery is fully stocked and looking good, so long as the weather holds I expect similar returns to be made. Try to come on a bright breezy fresh day and you should have a day to remember.
14/11/11 There are two items to add here today. Firstly we were honoured by a visit today from Steve Cullen and crew, Total Fly Fisher magazine. Keep an eye out for the article which will be out soon. Sue Shaw showed me the magazine on her iPad , have a look at viewing it online, it was most impressive. They had 8 salmon for the day. It would have been 9 but Steve hooked a salmon, handed me his rod while he went for his camera and I promptly lost it! This was picture was taken just before, maybe he knew what was to happen judging by his expression!
Secondly I'm sorting the bigs for broodstock and hope to get some eggs for the next generation although there are only a few hens this time. Some other fisheries make a big song and dance about needing a wheelbarrow to carry their trout about, well, we'll be needing something bigger than a wheelbarrow soon. These two salmon, 37lb on top and 44lb below, only just fitted in.
31/10/11Here is the first of the monthly summary reports I hope to be making this season, more detail can be found in the Anglers Catch Report section.
The last week of September was very hot but did not delay the opening date of 7th October as I saw it coming and managed to get most of the stock in beforehand. Even so the high water temperatures slowed the catches down until the 13th when 14 salmon were banked. It was pretty steady from then on with more of the new stock coming on to the take. For the 3 weeks up to the 31st of October 71 anglers caught 126 salmon, 56 returned and 70 taken home, an average of 1.77 fish per day ticket. Nothing extra large was landed, Warren Langridge had two 20s on the 16th. To improve catches further I've decided to allow 2 salmon to be kept per day ticket, the first and one other. The large fish will be stocked next month so it is possible some lucky angler could take home two 30 pounders! There is plenty of salmon to go into the lake so it should help to keep the stock moving, I would like to see the average climb above 2.5. We shall see, there are salmon approaching 50lb back at base here, look up Carol with one in the photo gallery so there is plenty to look forward to in November.
20/10/11 You anglers get up to lots of things but the only thing that truly upsets me is when a fish is badly handled before being returned. I know what happens, you've caught a 20 pounder and kept it. Then you catch a bigger one and don't want to take home two, but you want a picture and find out how big it is, so the poor thing is flapped around the bank, weighed and photographed. It's already given it's all fighting the rod and even if staggers off the chances are that it's enough to kill it anyway. I really cringe when I see photos of wild salmon that are going to be returned, I work with salmon all the time and know how bad this is for them, keep them in the water and let them go! I recovered this fully finned 20+lb cock fish from the lake today.
06/10/11 On the eve of the new season all the scheduled work is done. Improvements include upgraded CCTV, and amazingly, toilet door lock and LOO SEAT THAT STAYS UP!!!! I've invented this machine for adding chalk to the lake, all automatic so I can sit down and have a cup of tea. It's no coincidence that a lot of the better trout fisheries are part of chalk streams so our lake can have it's own bit of 'chalk stream'. I seem to do a lot of finding out how to do things on purpose and not by luck or accident 
30/09/11 The lake has been stocked for the new season just before this really hot weather has set in. As an experiment/improvement I corraled off a small section of the lake to retain the stocked salmon so I could monitor any mortality. Out of 131 salmon in, 24 hours later there was only one dead, but interestingly another four were floundering on their sides. I would have thought that after a couiple of hours, they would be either dead or recovered ok. Caught in the net by accident was this rudd 
and a cock salmon who, once he had impaled his kype in the mesh, could not extracate it again.
27/09/11 Picnic area has been tided up, final weed cut done, paving slabs bedded in. 
21/09/11 Work is progressing well, I've got these new rubber mats to go on the fishing stages (no more fly line caught in the chicken wire!),
and a couple of benches so that you can have a sit down without having to go back to the lodge.
12/09/11 I'm still cutting weed but there's not much more to do to get the fishery tip top for the new season. Here's a nice picture of the lake being blown over by ex-hurricane Katia.
30/08/11 Work is going on apace making improvments to the fishery. Over 2 van loads of vegitation have been removed from the banksides alone. Will give full report later. I've removed some of last seasons updates to the archive (but left anglers reports for now) and added a new section just for the mermaids and they also have their own archive. The photo gallery will be for any other interesting photos and I'm going to try to get photos of other catches by any anglers especially, so send them in! palm.springs@tiscali.co.uk
18/08/11 Opening day for new season is 7th October! Booking charts have been updated.