Naturally this also means that as far as possible good sport is ensured

It also has the most advanced aeration system ever built at a commercial coarse fishery. This stops the water turning stale, making fish lethargic and lacking appetite due to lack of oxygen in the water. Naturally this also means that as far as possible good sport is ensured.I arrived on a cold Summer morning at the invitation of the owner David De Vere to meet him on the luxury new boathouse. The boathouse houses the estate office, cafe, bait and tackle shop and toilets. Everything is kept spotlessly clean including the toilets. In the middle of the building there is a purpose built boat house for the 12 flat bottomed fibre glass punts. These punts were specially built to provide a stable fishing platform for anglers. They are about 14ft long and over 4ft wide, fitted with concrete mud weights at each end. Unhooking mats are also fitted as are hooks to secure the mooring chain. The boats came with paddles and built in buoyancy tanks making them extra safe. I must say as an angler with over thirty years punt fishing experience on rivers, I was most impressed.Before starting I had a chat and cup of tea with David who advised me to go to the far end of the lake in the so called “Jungle”. There had been good bags of tench caught there with a few nice carp. He was exceptionally confident that I would have a good catch despite the sudden drop in temperature.I loaded the punt and paddled over to the so-called “Jungle”. This area was totally uncultivated with trees, roots and snags on the side. The technique was to moor up in clear water and fish to the snags where the majority of the fish were to be found. At times the snags could be seen to move as fish worked their way through them.I set up with an 11.5ft three piece rod with a test curve of a pound and a quarter. This is balanced with a centre pin loaded with the new Araty Diamond line at 81b b.s This line has the thickness of a conventional 5lb b.s. line but still has plenty of stretch left in it, making it a far safer line for big fish than many of the modern pre-stretched lines. The terminal tackle was kept simple with a small Pat Tarrant spliced peacock float, locked in position by the bulk shot with only a number 6 shot down the line. The main line was tied direct to a Preston Innovations pinched barbless hook baited with two casters. This would give me a good hook hold to pull any fish away from the snags.I baited up with a few of the new Richworth hemp pellets in the smallest size with a few casters. There were no bites for the first hour but then I had a fly-under bite and struck into solid resistance. This was obviously no tench as my tackle was tested to the limit. Using terrific side strain the fish was turned into open water where my only concern was the danger of the fish going under the boat. However despite constant heavy strain the fish remained deep and I knew that it could only be a carp. Gradually I could feel the fish tiring, even so it made several more attempts to reach the snags before I was able to net it. It was a nice double figured carp of 101b 12oz. That was a good start.I fished on, regularly feeding in half dozen casters to try to get the fish feeding. I did not have to wait long before hitting into another big fish that fought even harder than the first fish. It was obviously another carp that again required a lot of pressure and time to land. This was another mirror carp but bigger than the first one weighing in at just under 151b. My tench trip appeared to be turning into a carp bagging session but thankfully that was the last carp that I hooked that day.As I was feeding in more casters, I heard a tap-tap on the side of the punt. Looking around I saw two tame geese tapping on the side of the boat. It appeared that they were asking to be fed so I got Virginia to feed them with some of our rolls. Once they had eaten a good part of our lunch they left us. This was evidently a regular trick used by the pair.I continued to feed in a few casters regularly and could see signs of tench moving as hundreds of tiny bubbles came to the surface. There was no doubt that tench were in the swim. Then the float gave several slow dips and I struck. Although the fish lacked the weight of the carp it put up a terrific scrap before being netted. It was a very respectable tench of a fraction over 51b.I made a recast to the same spot and immediately had a fly-under bite from a dog (male) tench that really put up a terrific fight before being netted and weighed in at just under 51b. In the following two casts I had a couple of small bream followed by a 8oz still water chub that was in perfect condition. Then I again saw the tell tail signs of tench bubbles coming up from the mud. I slightly increased the feeding and more bubbles appeared. It was only a matter of time before I was into another tench which went over 41b followed by a smaller tench of about 31b. This last tench was a another dog and caused a lot of disturbance in the swim. The bubbling stopped – the tench appeared to have vacated the swim.I continued to feed on the little but often principle and after another half an hour was back catching fish again but these were bream. I had six bream out to over three pounds in the next half an hour followed by a nice 6oz rudd.The bubbles returned, I was back catching tench. I had a further four tench ranging from 2.51b up to just under 51b. This made my total up to eight tench with two carp and an assortment of other species. Not bad for a morning session on a new water.At this stage we decided to paddle back to the boat house for lunch. They have a great little cafe serving simple hot meals and a good breakfast. We discussed the morning sport. At £9 a rod and ten pounds for the boat, making a total of £14 each for a days punt fishing on a top class fishery, was excellent value for money.However we had not found any of the venue’s better tench that run into double figures, so we decided to change tactics and swims. We thought that we would move to a swim on the far side of the island to moor in open water and again cast towards the bank. Although we still fed the hemp pellets with a few casters as before, I also introduced a lot of chopped up worms. This time the hook bait was going to be a smallish worm on a size 12 hook.It didn’t take long before I had my first bite that produced a bream of over three pounds. I increased the feed rate and started to bag up with bream. It was virtually a bream every cast – no matter what hook bait I tried, the result was always the same – I caught a bream. This continued for over three hours and I must have had over 501b of bream. It was excellent sport.As the light started to fail, bubbles started to appear in the swim and the bream started to disappear. Then we started to catch some nice roach that were running up to about 10 oz before the tench came back into the swim and we started to catch them again. These fish were the same size as the first swim with the best fish going 51b 2oz.It certainly had been a good day out with well over 100 lb of fish falling to my rod, made all the better by great surroundings and a good punt.There is no doubt in my mind that this is a particularly well stockedvenue holding some very good specimens of most species. The puntsare well equipped, stable with plenty of room. They are perfect for thepurpose.However in complete contrast, I have been fishing an old gravel pit for tench from my inflatable dinghy. The water has a publicity ban so it can not be named. It has, like Bury Hill, produced some very big tench but has the reputation of being an ultra hard venue. This is possibly due to there being very few tench present but of a high average size. It appears that to stand any chance of success, the water needs to be prebaited for at least a week. Several years ago, I had to prebait a similar water every night for four weeks to get the results that I wanted.This means that I have to take the inflatable to the water every night for a week before fishing. I unload it, inflate it, load it up, row out to the swim, prebait, return, deflate the boat and load it in the car. This takes over an hour every night of the week. Then there is the time travelling and preparing the feed, which is a mixture of various grains, seeds and 6mm mini boilies. All this takes time and effort.Then when I fish it, I have not got the comfort of the Bury Hill punt. My inflatable is cramped which means that I generally restrict myself to a 5 hour session. This time I use the same road but with a fixed spool reel loaded with the same 81b b.s. line. The float is changed to a Pat Tarrant reversed balsa sight top waggler, as in the clear water I fish a fair distance out from the boat. The bait is either hair rigged corn or 6mm mini boilies.I don’t get that many bites but last year averaged 61b 7oz per tench. Although that sounds good, I must remind readers that it is not uncommon to blank on this venue. Yes, even after all that preparation, you can often blank.

It was a great pleasure for me to be punt fishing Bury Hill and it made a great change to those hard old gravel pits that I had been fishing. True the fish were not as big but the sport was terrific. If some enterprising angler could make similar efforts on the gravel pits to those put in at Bury Hill, I think we might see some big catches of very big fish.