I'm not a Carsington regular by any stretch (one visit, combined with a stag weekend), but I was impressed with the fish and fishing, so thought I'd let you know my experience as a first-timer:
We hit the water at 8.30am, 14th May - in a very cool, and blustery North-Westerly, and after a late night on the town, which is never the best preparation. I had around 4hrs sleep, the stag had a little more before I woke him up, but to be fair - he had drunk
considerably more... He was in charge of one boat, I was in another. I hasten to add - he was actually sober at this point, and accompanied by his Father In Law-to be, so 100% safe.
The water is crystal clear, and it's glacial hue strikes you straight off the bat - you can see 20ft down as clear as a bell, and the fish were clean solid lumps of silver. Plenty of buzzers in the sheltered margins (lime green, rusty orange and black) - obviously a really healthy body of water. I'm used to the slightly more impoverished Welsh water's, with small wild browns, sometimes not so small, but crystal clear water is rare- often ours is a little peat stained. However, whatever your background - fish the way you know and you'll get fish.
Because of the wind (wind surfers were traveling at the speed of light), all the boats were concentrated on the sheltered side of the lake in little bays etc - and it was quite restricted space-wise, but I managed a couple, lost a nice fish when it jumped and threw the hook, and missed a couple of takes. So not too bad in the conditions, and for a half day 8.30 till 2pm (fishing was £10 (sporting ticket) and £12 for the boat - with outboard & petrol thrown in, and with a discount for single occupancy).
I can imagine in a lighter and warmer wind it could be fantastic, and fishing on the top, or an evening rise - with room to spread out - it would be pretty special.
So we both took fish - I had a few on the point fly - a simple tungsten headed damsel (green and brown with a marabou tail) - quite a drab fly, and a simple black and gold rib nymph on the middle dropper, fished on a medium sinking line. Same sort of lies I might fish for wild brown trout if they were down deep. He had fish on a blob, a similar damsel and a dark marabou lure fished on a floater. So we surmised - they weren't being fussy, and they would move to a fly if they thought it worth the effort (the blobs). In fact they probably ate the first fly that passed their nose. Most anglers were fishing blobs and lures at depth.
I was slightly frustrated when some boats anchored up right next to me when I hooked a fish, limiting my casting angles - but in the conditions I think some desperation was setting in - they were all trying their best to keep that rod average up!
Hope that's of some use anyway - I think you'll have some great fun there. The staff were very helpful and friendly as well - a nice atmosphere about the place, and the best looking, and hardest fighting rainbow trout I've seen.
Back to the crystal water:
Carsington tomorrow!
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