Thread: If you were me - honest opinions please!

As a few of you know I am in the process of building a venue, the first lake is about 2.5 acres and will have 32 pegs on it - my aim is to produce the best of the best, I am not digging a square hole and stuffing it with carp. The setting is a very peaceful countryside field well away from any road noise and flanked on two sides by mature woodland and with a non navigable canal along the other. I am putting alot of effort into making the lake look as natural as possible but at the same time it is designed to be as fair as possible with pronounced shelves and a unique system that will filter the water.

The pond sits on a heavy clay soil with bands of natural sand meaning that the water will remain coloured all year round.

The last part of the plan and possibly the hardest part for me is to decide is what to stock into the lake - obviously at the end of the day I want to attract as many anglers to come and fish as possible but I am hopeful that the quality of the setting and the peace and quite will be one major attraction - but what to stock???

Tricky one that. I'm agree with PSB: carp, F1s and silvers for sure, but then why not tench and crucians as well?

I don't have any fisheries near me with Ide in, but suspect they would be a good fish to have for the colder months. And when I've fished or filmed on commercials with chub in, they are always reliable.

I think that having fish like those that feed all the time will spur the others into feeding outside their normal comfort zones, so the carp may switch on at times you might expect them to be balled up tight.

I voted for carp, f1's because even though anglers wax lyrical about silver fish venue's those that have tried (moorlands and halcroft) to have silvers only lakes have not attracted the attendances and reverted back to carp lakes.

The one thing i would definatly not do is have a mixed fishery, if the main target is carp and the angler is bitted out with 1oz roach he will soon move to another venue, also if its mainly silvers and you are getting a nice net of roach and a carp comes along and trashes the rig once again the anglers will get fed up.

Just a point of note ide are supposed to be a good winter fish, however from the venue's i fish (little john) the owner see's it as a waste of money because they just havn't shown even to worm, caster or maggot.

fill it with F1's..

cheap and hardy fish than feed all year round and dont catch KHV.

i went with f1s and all the fish that arwe classed as silverfish f1s feed in minus temputer so ur garanted a bit of sport all year round