I am taking a beginner to Frensham in a couple of weeks.

Anyone fished it recently, methods etc ?

Thanks

Charlie

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Sonik Sports Team Pitsford Pirates

I've fished Frensham several times but not in the last month. Here's a simple report from back in the depths of winter which includes a few images of the lakes/ponds:

Frensham

It's obviously far more green and lush now! Don't ignore the little ponds, especially for your "beginner". I've had plenty of fish on buzzers fished deep and slow, small olive damsels and bloodworm patterns have also worked well for me.

Good luck.

I'm going there next Friday, 4th September.
Any one on here a regular or any more recent news?
Thanks in advance

i used to fish it on a regular basis and it is an excellent dry fly water. i have caught on a dry in the winter with frost on the ground. there are 5 ponds the main lake and the bottom lake(under the far bank trees) seem to have the bigger fish (only my findings) but i have had some lovely wild browns for the inlet on the small pond to the right hand side of the lodge. usual small water nymphs and dries. stay off the lures it makes it to easy.

post your results. jon mcmillan.

Thanks Jon, will do.
I'll probably be using mostly traditional nymphs/dries anyway.
If it's looking any good for dries then the old Hacklepoint Coachman will definitely come into play.
Tying this or a leaded GRHE nymph on the end of my leader is usually my first port of call in a new water.
I only resort to lures in cases where other methods fail & then tend to fish them slowly.

Got there at 08:00 today.
Beautiful place, but not one for beginners!
There are some places where you can have a decent cast, but the place is full of snags. I lost 2 Hacklepoint Coachman's without even trying

You can see how people have problems in the photo below.

This is the lake where I caught my first fish, at about 08:30. This was on a Hacklepoint Coachman dry fly. The fish weighed about 2 1/2 pounds.

I caught my next, in the main lake, about 45 minutes later.

This was also caught on the HC dry fly, after casting between 2 fish. Fortunately for me, the bigger one got there first & after a tremendous fight, I had a 3 3/4 lb'er on the bank.

I got the last fish, another 2 1/2 lb'er on a GRHE nymph, also from the main lake.


After a lovely morning's fishing, at 13:30 it was time to go home.
I would definitelty go there again. Let's hope they get the strimmer out & cut away a little of the overgrown stuff.
Apparently my dry fly tally is quite usual at Frensham. Lot's of fish genuinely rising & even though it was quite sunny it didn't really put them off.

Is there still dead fish in the puddlesand there was a leach into the water of some kind of oily looking stuff, i really didnt like the place, its like someones gone mad in there garden but nice to see you caught

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I thought it was very nice.
The 2 puddles were a bit of a joke. I've seen much bigger stew ponds on some small stillwaters but anyway...

Where out of interest, snaggit, do you prefer in the Surrey/Sussex/Hamps area?

looks like you had a good day,however i slightly disagree with your report. i think it is a great venue for beginners! the fish are an average of 3lbs with a good head of bigger fish and you never blank at frensham, you can always find a place to get a cast away unhampered as well as places that require a good deal of skill to get a decent cast away. therefore rather than being "not suitable" for beginners i would describe it as a place for beginners and more experienced anglers alike. as for the 2 little puddles these too are great for the less experienced angler where they can catch a fish and get truly hooked before moving on to the more, less commercial fisheries. do you agree? jon mcmillan.

Fortunately, at 08:00 yesterday there were a total of 4 of us on all the lakes.
If there had been 6 or 8, then a beginner turns up, they'd struggle to find anywhere with a clear back-cast. I suppose this is where the small pools come in handy.
I was casting to fish I could see, so inevitably I chose to dodgy spots to cast.

Don't get me wrong - I really liked it. Mainly because at 12:00 on a reasonably warm, sunny day the odd fish was still rising to dry flies.

I just think the place could do with a slight trim to make it more fishable with higher numbers, so that certain areas of bank don't have 6 anglers a few yards apart.

The only other minor quibble is that I hooked a 4oz brown in kingfisher lake on a barbed size 12 dry fly. Even after a -10 second "fight" & de-hooking in the water, the poor little ****** went belly-up 15 minutes later.
There seemed to be a lot of baby browns, as well as lots of coarse fish in the main lake, all shunting-around my dry fly & sometimes keeping much larger trout at bay!