Back in June I was lucky enough to fish Ladywell lake, a two hundred year old estate lake set in the essex countryside, being part of a group on Facebook I saw the offer advertised from Admin, so being a chance i thought I would have a go at, I put my name down for for two of us, myself and my son James who doesn’t do a great deal of fishing but still likes a chance to get out on the bank, although I think he came with me for the social side of it which I was happy with. We arrived at the lake on the friday afternoon to meet up with the other guys and took a look around this truely stunning lake   ,which was undergoing a few changes ie swims being sorted and an onsite lodge was being built , fully equipped for the angler, all in all it has a great feal about the place, and I couldn’t wait to get set up and wet a line, swims were decided by a flip of the coin, which was ok, although we were nearly last which really didn’t matter to much as we could see plenty of fish moving up and down the lake, so we opted for a swim right round the other side to the back of the island , which was a bit tight for two of us so we decided to fish just two rods each , which was ok to start with, I decided to spomb a bit of bait to the edge of the island as we could see the fish coming through, and after a couple of hours I was away for my first ladywell fish There was a fair bit of weed present and as they do it decided to kite round straight into the first weed bed , but I just kept the pressure on and after a couple of minutes it came through easy enough and in the net, not the biggest but very welcome, and a very pretty fish to, so rod ws cast back on the spot and topped up with a few more spomb loads , as the fish do like a bit of grub in Ladywell I was told . It wasn’t to long before it was getting dark and I was getting a good share of liners through the night and it wasn’t till the next morning that it was away again this time a nice upper double common. The trouble fishing as tight as we were I think I was cutting James off ,which I wasn’t happy with, so we reeled in and had another walk around to see if we could find a group of fish were we could both get a go at them, we decided to move over to the otherside on the main bank , there was plenty of fish cruising through the weed which wasn’t to thick to get a bait presented in it, so set up camp again and found a couple of spots in the weed so out with the spomb and this time I put around a couple of kilo’s on each spot , my main concern was to get James on the fish as when I fish with someone I can’t rest until we both have a fish in the net, a couple of hours later I had a mid double mirror, it was mad as I was playing this fish in fish were still rolling on the spot , and into darkness we could hear them crashing over the bait, and it wasn’t long before I was away again, yet another upper double mirror like a torpedo this one and certainly give a good battle .

well worth the move as just after slipping this one back I had another run within ten minutes, another small double, but they were having the bait so everything was going to plan, and within an hour I had the best fish of the session, A pristine 26lb Ladywell common . And finally James managed to get in on the action with a nice little mirror so pressure was off as we both caught fish And that was it, I put out what bait I had left as we certainly went through a bit, but no more action came our way , so next day it was up and pack away time and a final walk round this absolute stunning lake, and I am sure I will return here soon for another go as there really are some stunning fish to catch in here, and I would most certainly reccomend if you get a chance to fish Ladywell then do so its an amazing place and I’m sure owner Ben the owner won’t mind me plugging it . Take a look and make your own mind up. http://www.ladywellfishery.co.uk/ Until next time, be lucky . PD.