Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Bacchus sets the standard as season starts in style
Coarse angling
The traditional 2017-18 coarse fishing season is underway with carp anglers enjoying a tremendous start, writes Paul Mercer.
Fordwich Lake saw anglers of all levels of experience catching, despite hot and sunny conditions.
With 18 carp, Richard Bacchus has arguably had his most productive start for several years. His best fish was a common carp that tipped the scales to 36lb.
Keith Minter bagged 11 more including a specimen brace of commons weighing 26lb 8oz and 24lb 8oz.
Sam Clugston and Stuart White both landed 10 fish with Clugston’s haul including five fish over 21lb and his best a 28lb common and White’s heaviest, a mirror carp, weighed in at 21lb 8oz.
Fish have been landed from the ‘north bank’ and the ‘deeps’ at Fordwich. Alan Boxall tussled with nine more big fish including a 24lb mirror and Andy Davies had three fish over 20lb, the best a 27lb common.
Dave Knight reeled in a brace of common carp of 20lb apiece and Tom Bennett a 21lb 8oz mirror, a 17lb common carp and seven eels to 2lb 8oz.
Opening week regular Steve Cock caught another fine fish with a mirror carp of 21lb.
Trenley Lake, adjacent to Fordwich Lake, has also opened again after the three-month closed season.
Dan Boden fished overnight to catch an incredible 172lb that included 50 bream and three tench. Two nights’ angling gave Neil Harrop 26 bream, six tench, three big eels and three carp to 9lb 8oz.
Stonar Lake at Sandwich has produced some mammoth bags.
Gary Taylor targeted roach and bream and caught fish to 1lb and 3lb respectively. Plenty more bream have come to the net including some sizeable slabs.
Carl Rose’s haul included bream to 6lb 2oz, while David Sturge landed bream to 4lb 8oz and most notably lots of rudd to 1lb.
Gwyn Wiltshire hooked a 16lb fully scaled mirror carp and a fine bream bag of over 150lb that included fish to 5lb 12oz and Mark Wiltshire banked six carp, his best a 24lb common.
The best Stonar carp haul for some time has been taken by Peter Wade whose 36 carp included all types of carp to 25lb 4oz.
The first of this season’s Canterbury & District Angling Association competitions will be held at Fordwich and Stour lakes on Saturday night for the Baldwin Cup.
Carp and tench are the only fish allowed to be weighed-in after the 12 hour overnight match. The draw will be at Fordwich car park at 6.30pm and fishing will be from 8pm-8am on Sunday morning.
This year’s Stonar Charity Shield will be fished from Friday to Sunday, July 7-9 at Stonar Lake.
The competition is open to all and anglers should meet at Jock’s shed at 4pm on Friday for the draw with fishing from 5pm until 10am on Sunday. The largest fish over the weekend wins the match.
The CDAA has membership vacancies for the new season. For details, call 01227 710830 during office hours.