Alex Dockerty – How To Fish Beeches Lake at Lindholme Lakes

In this brand new series, match star Alex Dockerty takes us through each lake at Lindholme Lakes Country Park and explains the tactics and baits you can use to enjoy a bumper day’s sport. In part 2 of the series, Alex takes us through Beeches Lake…

Alex says…

The next lake up in my grand tour of Lindholme is the Beeches Lake.

This is the oldest lake on site and one of my favourites for an evening session or a day targeting the large angry carp that live in here.

Now this is a bit of a strange shaped lake with a couple of arms and an island at one end with a large bowl in the centre of the lake. This means there are numerous methods that can come into play.

Firstly – I’ll touch on the techniques to catch the “other” fish in the lake to the carp and F1s. In Beeches, there is a large head of ide and tench. Although these alone won’t win you the match they are important to help top your weight up should the carp not be playing ball in the early parts of the match.

For me there are two ways to target these fish with the first being maggots short on the bottom at 5m whilst loose feeding maggots out of the hand. I’d be looking to do this in the early numbers (pegs 1-5) or anywhere from 37-42.

These areas don’t seem to hold an abundance of F1s so by fishing on the bottom you will catch the occasional bonus tench of around 1lb.

There are lots of tench in Beeches that are worth targeting if the carp aren’t playing ball.

The alternative to this is fishing casters shallow at around 11m. This is a fantastic way to catch numbers of ide quickly but also give you a chance of the bonus F1’s in this lake. These run to over 3lb so are well worth catching.

The F1s in Beeches are brilliant and go well over 3lb.

However, if I was going to fish like this I’d want to be in the main body of the lake from pegs 6-19 and also pegs 33-35.

One thing to bear in mind with these methods is that they’re only worth spending time on if the lake is fishing difficult or during a difficult part of the match. If there are carp being caught don’t waste time targeting these smaller fish.

Now onto the pegs that scare folk! The lions den numbers which are pegs 1 and also the early 20’s where the island is opposite you.

Personally I don’t see any point in avoiding fishing towards the rushes and brambles as these are what hold the fish. It is a case of stacking the odds in your favour so if I’m faced with them I’d be looking to fish 4mm or 6mm pellets shallow towards the cover with nice strong but balanced tackle to give me the best chance of landing them.

However if I really have to I will fish on the bottom if bites are hard to come by. One nice little tip is to contrast your hookbait colours and sizes to the feed bait. Be it a Robin Red pellet on the hook or even going down the route of opting for a bigger pellet. Just make sure to step your gear up accordingly for the deck rigs as they do pull hard in here!

Robin Red pellets are a great change bait.

Now onto the methods for the main body of the lake – pegs 7-17. This is an area of open water so a number of approaches work here.

Be it long pole pinging hard pellets or method and bomb work over an area of loose fed 6mm or 8mm pellets. As always, I’d set both up and work around what the fish want me to do. For me, if I was to pick a peg in this area it would be peg 7 as it is smack in the centre of the lake and the prevailing wind tends to hit this bank. This is often where the lake’s larger residents reside! That way the ide and tench tactics can stay in the bag and I can concentrate on catching carp!

: 8mm pellets…

: and 6mm pellets work for all species…

Last up is the edge work. Any angler that comes to Lindholme will know that in Beeches what you catch in the edge is massive.

Often on this lake I’ve been down the edge after an hour! Especially on pegs such as 17 under the famous willow tree… I’ve not drawn it but I’ve heard the stories from those that have! I’m not that lucky…

This for me is one of the best edge pegs on the lake as it offers contrasting depths with a nice deep right hand margin. Perfect for loose feeding 6mm pellets and fishing hard pellets over the top. Whereas to the left is a shallower margin with a nice inviting overhanging willow tree. Providing the perfect area to pot ground bait and fish either corn, maggots or worms over the top.

As for groundbait choice, personally I opt for the old faithful Betaine Green Swim Stim and Marine Halibut combo but as long as the mix takes plenty of water and can be mixed heavy any of the Swim Stim or Big fish range would be suitable.

A mix that’s stood the test of time!

Remember to gear up on this lake! As they’re turbo powered lunatics. I’ve never experienced carp that pull like these! I’ll always fish a minimum of 0.18 hook lengths often to elastics in the 17-19 range just to really help me apply the brakes if needed to with these fish.

Gear-up accordingly as the carp go big in Beeches!

Now if I had to name some of the favoured pegs on this lake I’d always opt for pegs 7, 17 and 35 as they’re in the main body of the lake and hold fish all throughout the summer and winter months. But just to throw a curveball in the mix especially now were in the height of summer feeding time.

A peg that has form of late is peg 30. This is behind the island next to a stunning overhanging willow…a proper Mr Crabtree peg. Hard pellets across to the island with a good finish in the edge late on with some of the lake’s larger carp would be for me, a perfect day spent on Beeches.

Although there is a large variety of methods to try on this lake due to the diverse nature of the pegs, by treating each area slightly differently and taking a well thought out approach to your peg will help you get the most out of it in any pleasure of match session!

Tight lines and I’ll be back next month to give you my overview of another Lindholme water…

Alex