Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Punching above its weight
Tiny Buttonhole Lake is big on specimen fish, as Tony Grigorjevs rediscovers on his return to the Norfolk gem
THE day you catch and record a new personal best will stick in your mind for the rest of your life. The moment the giant specimen breaks the surface sets the adrenaline running at full pelt and the hair-raising surge it makes for a dense snag before the elation of it sliding over the net will long remain vivid in the mind. It’s a feeling we would all like to feel every time we get on the bank. Unfortunately, several factors dictate that catching bigger-thanaverage fish is unlikely to happen every session. One of the trickiest parts is finding venues that are capable of producing these giants needed for us to keep setting the bar even higher. More often than not a different fishery is needed each time you set yourself a new target. Venues holding several species capable of toppling your personal records are a rarity. But there are a handful of hidden gems dotted across the country that could produce numerous personal bests in a single day. One of those is West Norfolk’s Buttonhole Lake. Located in the tiny village of Marshland St James, at first glance the 23-peg water looks to be an unlikely source for such delights. But dig a little deeper in to its history and it suddenly becomes a very enticing proposition. In all honesty, it has all the hallmarks of being a carp bagging water. Half of the pegs are able to reach an island with the pole, while the rest of the swims are located in an open-water bowl with an aerator in the middle. When I fished my first match on the 1.5-acre lake six years ago I geared up solely to catch carp. What I saw at the weigh-in, however, certainly raised a few eyebrows and changed my outlook on the venue forever.
Big-fish paradise
Having fished with big baits like meat and 6mm pellets during that debut contest, carp were the main species I encountered, with several double-figure specimens. It’s fair to say that this really is the place to come if you have never landed a doublefigure carp as mirrors, commons and even grassies are plentiful and you have a better than evens chance of banking one. I also landed a 5lb barbel and thought it may be a freak capture but looking at the other catches that day showed this was nothing out of the ordinary. Anglers that had drawn pegs where the carp weren’t showing had used smaller baits such as worms and maggots and the stamp of silvers was incredible, with plenty of roach around the 1lb mark and perch up to 3lb transferred to the weigh sling. In fact, these fish were quite
standard. Roach nudging 2lb had been landed previously and giant perch over 4lb stocked. Locals explained that even though they hadn’t shown that day, barbel ran to over 8lb and there were even a few rogue bream around the same stamp. In short, everything that went in seemed to thrive and pack on the pounds at a fast pace. Quite why is a bit of a mystery but there are several factors that could explain the extremely healthy nature of the fish. Located in the middle of the flat Fens, it has no spring or any other water supply running in to it apart from rain water. But the management of the fishery seems to play a huge part in the success story. Since being opened to the public by creator Richard Button in 2004, no rash decisions have been made. The initial stock were introduced several years before this and since then those fish have been allowed to grow and flourish, with no knee- jerk reactions to poor form such as putting in thousands more fish that would reduce space and stifle the growth of the originals. In fact, apart from a very small injection of miniature barbel and tench recently, locals can’t remember the last time the venue received a new stocking. Add to this that although the lake is popular, it hasn’t been ‘hammered’ day in, day out, with the number of matches kept relatively low. All these factors have kept the fish fighting fit and on the feed which inevitably leads to them filling out substantially!
The return
The amount of publicity the lake received dropped off in 2016 when Richard sadly died. Nobody seemed to know what was going on and fears grew that it would be lost to angling. But those worries were cast aside when husband and wife duo Beverley and Chris Smith bought the complex and instantly announced that the fishery was very much open for business. There was one big question though – would Buttonhole still be the haven for specimen fish it used to be? There was only one way to find out and my colleague Ian Jones and I headed over for an eagerly anticipated session on a cold day. Beverley and Chris may have only owned the fishery for a few months but they’ve wasted no time in getting on top of the site. They have ripped out several troublesome snags around the island, installed a new aerator and rebuilt
“Each fish looked like it hadn’t been caught before such was their immaculate condition”
several pegs that were crumbling. Big carp on the bomb and feeder were my main target, while Ian hoped to catch everything that swims using worms and maggots. Nestled on peg two, I launched the bomb with two grains of corn toward the aerator and instantly the tip started to twitch. Pegs one to four and 20-24 were always hotspots in the cold season as fish sat in the open water and that seemed to still be the case. Several casts later I had a rip-roaring bite and a 7lb mirror was soon in the net. A relative baby from what I remembered but very welcome. Meanwhile, Ian was catching a roach every put in. Each and every fish seemingly having never been banked before such was their immaculate condition. As he plundered the long pole line with maggot over groundbait, he had been feeding a few chopped worms well away hoping to lure in a big perch. Within a couple of hours I had managed four carp to low doubles and Ian had banked lots of redfins, several in the 10oz14oz bracket. A quick look on his worm line gave a response after a short wait and a 2lb 8oz perch was his reward. An absolutely stunner that would set a new pb for many. With the light dropping I had one last cast on a Guru Hybrid feeder with a Ringers Baits Wafter hookbait and that chuck proved more than worthwhile as the most stunning fish of the lot took the bait – a big common. In just a few hours on a bitterly cold day I had seen enough to prove that Buttonhole still held on to the magic. Double-figure carp, 2lb-plus perch and even a 1lb roach – fish that many – us included – would remember for years. Buttonhole is back to its best and is sure to be the place where dozens of anglers break personal bests this year – make sure you’re one of them!