Fishing at Blackwool Farm

Address: Blackwool Farm, Colhook Common, Northchapel, Petworth, Sussex.Phone; Bruce Savage on 01428 707258Location; Take the A3 from London to past Guildford. Turn off at Milford and take the A283 towards Petworth. After passing through Northchapel, travel for another 2 miles. The fishery is signposted on your left-hand side. If you reach the petrol station on your left-hand side you have gone about 200 yards too far.The fishery: There are two lakes each of about 2.5 acres at Blackwool Farm. The top lake is the more conventionally stocked with rainbows from 21b plus. There are also plenty of better sized fish in the top water and I have seen a good number of 51b plus fish caught with the best recorded at 141b 8oz.The bottom lake is the big fish water stocked with large rainbows averaging about 61b. There is an exceptionally good head of doubles in this water. The fishery record stands at 21lb 7oz with plenty of backing fish.The day ticket prices reflect the size of fish stocked in the lake. On the top lake, a four fish limit ticket costs £24, three fish ticket is £20 whilst a two fish evening ticket is £16.On the bottom lake a four fish limit ticket is £45, three fish ticket is £38 and the two fish evening ticket is £27. Corporate days: This venue has outstanding facilities for corporate days where a number of country pursuits (shooting etc) can be combined with fishing for a days entertainment. The food menu has to be seen to be believed and the eating facilities are without equal. Corporate days can be booked through Bruce on the fishery phone. There is also a detailed separate brochure for corporate days that is available directly from Bruce on request.Facilities; Hot drinks, lodge, W.C., tuition and corporate days.

Fishing at Blackwool Farm

Both lakes tend to colour up with the Winter rains and go clear in the Summer. When the water is dark, I prefer to fish with very bright highly visible flies like cats-whisker changing to small nymphs when the water goes clear.Although the top water offers excellent value for money, I prefer the lower lake with its bigger rainbows. I have only once fished the top lake. That was in early Spring as the water was starting to clear following heavy Winter rains. I fished it with a damsel nymph with a number 5 floating outfit. It was a short evening ticket as I was again visiting my Aunt and wanted a couple of more sensibly sized fish for her. That evening I had two rainbows, the best was just over four pounds whilst the smaller fish was about 21b. Other anglers appeared to be catching fish at regular intervals with the odd bigger fish to about six pounds being caught.In Winter, I prefer to fish the deeper water at the far end of the bottom lake. My tackle tends to be much heavier than in Summer as I often have a wind blowing into my face. To this end, I normally use a 9ft number seven outfit with a high density WF7S line to get the fly down deep and use a slow tweaking retrieve across the bottom. I have done well with small lures such as viva or cats whisker. Another successful method is to use a bouyant lure with a short leader of about three foot to the high density fly line. In this case the retrieve needs to be very slow with little jerks so that the fly rises and falls across the bottom. Takes on this method tend to be very positive producing more than its share of big trout.As the weather improves and the water becomes clearer, I change over to a much lighter approach with a number 5 floating outfit. Most nymphs work with gold bead versions of the damsel and hair ear nymphs producing good numbers of good fish. In high Summer sedges appear to work exceptionally well whilst daddies score well in the Autumn. It would be foolish to neglect a selection of dry flies in the warmer months as these too can be very productive.I once had a very good day fishing with an 8.5ft A.F.T.M. number 4/5 rod with a double taper number 4 floating line. The leader was 9ft of a low diameter 61b b.s. line. I started off with a small green buzzer to fish halfway along the right hand bank. After four or five casts with slow retrieve I had not had a take and decided to cast out to let the wind take the nymph around. I kept a keen eye focused on the tip of the main line. The line was out for about five minutes before I saw a slight forward pull and made a strike. I missed the take but on the next cast I had another slightly more positive take; that resulted in a good rainbow approaching 81b. The fish gave an exceptionally good account of itself on the light outfit.About an hour later I had another gentle take that resulted in another rainbow of about five pounds. After this I could not buy a take on the green nymph and decided to try a daddy on the surface. There were not many daddies about so I was not too optimistic. My daddy sat on the top for ages without any fish showing an interest. Then as I retrieved it slowly, I could see a good rainbow following in the wake of the fly. I automatically sped up the retrieve and the fish flew at the daddy. It was on, and really stripped off a lot of line before I started to gain the upper hand. Eventually after a long fight I netted it, another good rainbow of just over 7.5lb.Naturally I continued to fish with the daddy but couldn’t get another take. I then changed over to fish a gold bead sinking daddy. I had a take just as light started to fail. This turned out to be another five pound plus rainbow.Although I have had bigger rainbows and heavier bags from Blackwool Farm, that day was rather special as I had fished so light and could not bully the fish in.

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