3rd June Little Horseshoe lake Cotswold Water Park

Dave Rogerson the leader of the gang of the Tench Fishers in the Mid  West region had been telling us stories of this lovely little gravel pit in the Cotswold Water park. The Little Horseshoe fishery is run by WaterMark and can be fished on a £15 day ticket purchased from the Tackle Den shop which is close by.

The lake is a 4 acre mature pit with carp to over 30lbs and some large tench. Not the enormous ones of Bradley’s but some to just under 10lbs.

Dave had fished it just a week ago and had caught a few tench to just over 6lbs and as this was a recky he thought that the fish would be feeding.

We met at the allotted time 7am for a full breakfast at a nearby cafe (Waterside Cafe) while we waited for the tackle shop to open. There were to be 5 people fishing today so things would not get too crowded.

After getting the day tickets sorted we all headed around to the lake. Well I had forgotten what a 4 acre lake looked like, and it was small. I just couldn’t believe it!

We all headed off to our swims allowing Dave to have the first choice of swims.

My choice was to fish next to Dave where there is a shelf which drops rapidly into 10ft of water, with little weed on the bottom. Between me and this area was a bed of canadian weed which was quite thick. I thought that by casting just the other side of this weed might be the place where I could intercept the tench on their patrol route.

The swims were well kept with plenty of wood chippings on the floor to prevent too much mudding.

Swims were well kept with lots of wood chippings

 I put out some hemp and dead maggots and cast out.

To cut a long story very short, I had lots of short lifts of the indicators which I thought were perch. So I changed the end rig to a popped up lob worm and caught 2 perch of about 12oz each by 11.30am. Then nothing for anyone other than the odd liner.

It’s a beautiful water and will return again soon for sure.

The facilities are very good, female and male toilets and showers of course separate. Plus a kitchen with tea and coffee plus a microwave oven.

I left at 5.30pm as I needed to go to Martin Bowlers meet the stars Mac Millan charity bash at a local pub to me. Where we had great fun and raised much money for a great charity. The casting competition was very interesting. Trying to hit the board at about 100m proved to be difficult for most. There were 2 winners one of these being Tim Norman.

Then there was Elvis singing so many great songs, with some of the celebrity anglers joining in on stage.