ardingly resavoir?

[geffski]

in my search for a more challenging venue i have found
Adingly resavoir on the ordanance survey map 5 miles north of
haywards heath! (sussex) through my searches i know that its fishable
and has a good head of carp! but i would have no idea were to start
on this truly massive bit of water, also as i live down in worthing and a shift
worker doing a baiting campain is out of the question!
has anyone out ther fished this lump of a water?
know some good spots?
tactics?

[fullcreel]

I fished there years ago, when it first allowed coarse fishing, when the fly fishing season ended. There were some massive shaols of bream, very big perch. Did'nt see any carp, but I fished in the autumn and was not equipped for them. There used to be agood Tackle shop in Crawley, i think it was called Jack Frost Tackle. When I mooved out west, I heard he was retiring, but a good business like his would be bought up, so I'd check to see what shops are going in the catchment area. There used to be a very clued up carp man in the Whickhams in East Grinstead, he would know what the score was there, I guess.

Good luck
Matt

[geffski]

cheers fellah!

[peakoverload]

Ahh a fellow Worthinger!

I've fished Ardingly once many years ago and like you I was utterly baffled where to even start. Things I noticed/found out:

1) There is thick, deep and strong (IIRC) weed in most swims. I kept finding that my hook just disappeared into the weed and was never seen by any fish (at least that's what I told myself ;) )

2) Thanks to the weed Ardingly is Pike heaven and there are plenty of very nice Perch too. As I was setting up I kept hearing loads of splashing and turned around to see a small Perch chasing a shoal of fry into the shallows. I was just thinking to myself "well if the small Perch are that aggressive what are the big ones like" when I very sizable Perch appeared from nowhere and grabbed a mouthful of fry.

3) The Pike are seriously aggressive. Walking back to the car I saw one angler reeling in a feeder only for his rod to suddenly bend to 90 degrees thanks to a rather large Pike. I then passed another who was just reeling in a reasonable Roach which then disappeared into the mouth of a quality Pike. Then finally I passed another angler who was actually fishing for Pike and was having a decent fight with one of the resevoir's many predators! Not bad for a 10 minute walk!

4) Didn't see or even hear of any Carp in there but there does seem to be loads of just about every other fish you'd expect to find in a lake and to decent sizes too.

5) During spring/summer some of the swims are really clogged with reeds

6) I don't know if this is the same across the reservoir but IIRC where I fished it didn't seem to get that deep until you were a long way out. I mean it didn't even seem to slope, just stayed flat for several meters but I assume it must have shelved at some point.

I keep wanting to go back there but not knowing how best to really tackle it keeps putting doubt in my mind. You can certainly catch there and catch big but you do need to know how it seems.

[geffski]

very informative mate!
sounds great for the winter piking atleast!