Venue – Marsh Farm, Station Lane, Milford, Surrey, GU8 5AE.
Prices - Day Ticket Prices £7 for one rod & £10 for two rods.
Phone number – 01483 428885.
Website – http://www.marshfarmgodalming.co.uk
The home of the crucian carp, just seeing this sign got me excited.
Target Species – Crucian carp and Tench
If crucian carp are your chosen quarry then there is really only one venue in the UK that you should be heading to. Marsh farm is without doubt right up there with the best venues in the UK to catch crucians, with fish regularly being caught over the magical 4lb mark from the Johnsons Lake and there has been 4s from the day ticket Harris Lake too. I am certain it will break the British Record in the next few years.
A venue must have a very special appeal to even contemplate an 8 hour, 500 mile round trip but the lure of record breaking crucian carp and tench that run to over 10lbs is a more than compensation for such efforts.
After picking up Lee Swords in the early hours we spent the next 5 hours putting the world to rights and going through all the scenarios that we may have encountered at Marsh Farm. Lee had the added advantage of fishing marsh farm before, so we had a pretty good idea of baits, rigs and pretty much had all the bases covered. I on the other hand had never been to Marsh let alone even caught a crucian carp, so this to me was a whole new experience.
The first port of call for anyone visiting Marsh Farm has got the be the Apollo tackle shop, this has been recently extended and stocks everything you might need from terminal tackle to a wide variety of baits. More importantly you can talk to the complex experts who work in the shop and they will put you right on the fish, all while you are enjoying a coffee. The general feeling was that Harris lake was fishing “a little slow” but we were given permission to stay overnight due to the long trip and we felt that would be the key.
A must for anyone fishing Marsh farm. Even if its just for a chat and coffee.
After lugging all our tackle round to the pegs, right on the far side of the lake in a small bay area (which was not an easy task, especially as I had broken fingers), we set about getting the tackle sorted. The key here was simplicity; nothing overcooked just plain simple rigs.
2 Greys 1.5tc specimen rods with Gardner 6lb Hydro Flo mainline, a small method feeder 15g and then a short hook length of around 5 inch of 5lb Gardner Target Fluro and a size 16 Target hook. It really is that simple. I also fancied catching a crucian on the float rod, a bit of the old romantic was creeping out of me, so with that I was also using my Drennan 15ft DRX rod with all the same components as the method set up apart from I was using some handmade floats by Ian Lewis instead of a feeder obviously.
Rig bits for crucians.
As for baits it was simple again, 5kg of 3b mini pellets from Hook bait company soaked in 3b bait soak, a tin of sweet corn, tin of hemp and 1kg of 6mm 3b pellets and we were ready to rock and roll, well at least I thought we were until Lee walked over and had somehow managed to hook his own head, now that PB will take some beating I can tell you ha-ha.
With 2 rods out, one using a single grain of sweet corn the other an Enterprise sinking pellet, it was the corn that caught the first tench of the day at around the 6lb mark. Wrong species maybe but no complaining from me, within an hour there was another 4 of the exact same size tench in the keep net all looked like peas in a pod and if I hadn’t put them in the net I would have sworn it was the same fish.
Simple but deadly rig.
Another stunning 7lb mark tench.
Lee on the next peg was doing his best to empty the lake of its 5 to 6lb tench stock, after 3 hours we still had not found the elusive crucian carp but had managed to hook 10 – 15 of the tench.
A tactic change was called for and it was time for the float rod. I had been feeding a small area just adjacent to a small lily bed only around 6ft out but if I had learnt anything from my research it was they do love cover and snags.
I had plumbed the swim and was fishing dead depth, the float was shot right down so only a millimetre or 2 were showing. When I added the piece of corn to this rig the float in fact sat more or less level with the surface but the idea was if I got a take when the corn was lifted from the bottom, the float would rise and that was the bite indication.
It had been a while since I had done any serious float fishing, my eyes were playing tricks on me and my head was pounding after an hours hard concentrating when I thought I noticed a minute lift, then another. Hitting into it I felt resistance of the throbbing variety, which was good, and it definitely wasn’t Lee`s head so things were looking up.
The fight itself was pretty hectic, a few dashes towards the lily bed but the 15ft rod was more than capable of steering her away, with that I caught sight of the float and slowly inched it up hoping it was to be my first ever crucian. As each shot emerged above water level I looked further down through the depths looking for the fish. It was at that point I caught a flash of gold and my heart beat picked up and I was shouting to Lee to get over.
And there she was, gliding over the surface towards my net the most beautiful shimmering golden fish I had seen, the hook was barely in and it felt like it took a lifetime to reach the net before I could breathe again. Result.
My first ever crucian carp rested in the net, so it had to be my new Pb too, even better. Weighing her at 2lb13 it made the whole trip worthwhile for me. The fish itself didn’t seem too happy to be in a photo with me and its mouth looked distinctly downward, but it was the happy angler what matters.
Golden delight. Pb Crucian 2lb13
The rest of the day carried on the same pattern really, a dozen or so tench to each crucian for both me and Lee, we had to empty the keep nets at dusk as there were that many fish in them. A fresh batch of 3B mix was made up for the night and left to soak while I had a few hours power nap, that drive had done me in and I needed to recharge if the action was to be as relentless through the night as it had been in the day.
Through the night Lee and I kept up the hard fishing style, casting every 20 minutes and were rewarded with another 30-35 tench to around the 7lb mark. The tench fishing on Harris was second to none for the sheer numbers of fish, each one fought like a demon and each one was fin perfect, just after daylight we emptied the nets again and had a few pictures with a selection of the fish.
Hauling tench, Marsh farm style.
We only fished until 11am so we could miss the early rush hours and hopefully get home and avoid the tea time ones too, the morning was spent with yet more nice tench but also an increase in the numbers of crucians, Lee was on fire with a late burst of nice crucians and of course yet more tench. We ended the session with 68 tench averaging 5 to 6lb which is around 300lb of tench, then add onto that another 14 crucians to 2lb13. Not bad to say the bailiff said it was fishing slow at the time.
great brace of marsh farms finest crucians.
After emptying the nets I decided to have a walk around Johnson`s lake, this is on the Marsh farm complex but is season ticket fishing only, bearing in mind it has done several crucians over 4lb and could possibly break the British record at any time, it also holds carp to just under 40lb as well as perch, rudd and roach all to around to 3lb mark. The price of the season ticket is £135 (£65 of that is a new membership fee, so its £70 per year after) which I think is excellent value for money and gives you a genuine chance of a record fish.
The drive home was full of reflection and planning of a second trip back down later on in the year and already I can`t wait to return to the home of the Crucian carp.
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