Fisheries don’t come any bigger than Warwickshire’s Makins Fishery! We join MAP’s James Peet for an early springtime bagging session…
With 600 pegs spread across three different phases, Makins Fishery is a beast when compared to other fisheries around the UK!
Having been one of the first commercial complexes ever created, it has staged some big events over the years and has always provided incredible fishing.
With varied fishing across the phases, you can expect anything from distance method feeder fishing to islands, margin fishing and even snake style lakes on phase three.
The fishery also boasts an excellent café, a very impressive tackle shop stocking everything you’d ever need and there are plenty of luxurious lodges next to the lakes, making the venue an increasingly popular holiday destination.
Makins isn’t a venue I fish very often, but I’ve had some amazing matches here in the past and is a venue I always look forward to returning to, so when the chance come up to do a Venue Detective, I had to bring the cameras here!
After a long winter, and some very tough fishing everywhere the light is at the end of the tunnel and following a few warmer days the fish have started to feed so I was hopeful of a good day catching some carp.
I have opted to sit on Lake 3 on Phase One today, Phase One is home to the largest lakes on the complex and they’re all solid with carp, silvers and after speaking to fishery management, there are even some new f1s finding their way into the lakes to stir up some of the older residents.
With plenty of pleasure anglers around the fishery and many of them landing fish, the signs were good so we decided to pick a peg on the far bank of Lake 3 where the wind would be a little kinder for us while still being at the windward end.
Tackle Choices
With the water still being cold, it’s important to keep reminding yourself to keep everything steady and you probably won’t be able to catch all day from one line so I’ve given myself a few options.
To start with I’m going to fish a bomb, loose feeding a few 6mm pellets with a 6mm on the band. On this line I’ve selected a 10ft MAP Extremis feeder rod which are perfect for commercials, this is teamed with a 3500x Parabolix reel and rig wise I’ve got a 10g olivette running on the main line, down to a snap swivel.
I have then added a piece of 0.21mm Optimum Power with a twizzled loop so it kicks away from the olivette and a simple 6-inch hook length looped onto the end of this stiffer boom with a size 14 and a hair rigged band.
Pole wise, I’m going to fish with 13 metres of the new TKS G-Series G60 in 7 feet of water, pinging some pellets to build it and potting a few when I’m fishing the line itself to tighten things up.
My rig on this is a .5g MAP Deck One float, which has a hi-viz tip which is ideal for heavy ripple conditions this is on 0.19 to 0.13mm Optimum Power with a tapered bulk, size 16 hook and a hair rigged band again. My elastic is a soft 6-10 TKS Twin Core hollow, ideal for catching mixed sizes of fish.
With those f1s going in and some fish coming out in the edge on other venues since the water temperature rose, I’m also going to set up a rig for fishing in 4ft as a throw-away where I can feed casters or maggots – this is a 4x14 float on the same 0.19 to 0.13mm and a tapered bulk, and a size 16 hook. Elastic this time will be a 6-8 TKS Solid Core Hybrid.
Make Some Noise!
One of the main key points about fishing in the spring is bait and how you feed it rather than feeding large amounts – the water is still quite cold, so piling in loads of bait can really go against you.
The fish are starting to move around and actively look for some bait now, so the best way I find is to feed with a catapult and if you look at all the kit, I’ve set up today, I can loose feed on every line with tiny amounts but make plenty of noise to attract fish into my peg.
On the bait tray today, I’ve quite literally got some fishery pellets in 2mm and 6mm plus some casters and maggots which I may not even use, the sound pellets and casters make on the surface can be a huge edge at this time of year.
To kick things off today I’m going to chuck the bomb around half way, and feed 3-4 pellets every 2-3 minutes, to keep things accurate I always like to feed the pellets then cast the bomb into the rings made by the loose feed.
What I do find works well is to cast past the bait to begin with, moving on to the baited area when the fish start to feed more aggressively. By starting past, I can pick off a few wary fish that sit just off the feed rather than waiting longer for them to pick up my hook bait in the fed area.
It wasn’t long before I was getting a few signs, and when the tip pulled round on the third cast, I had my first Makins f1 on its way to the net and several more followed too! With the signs I’d had it was time to start pinging that long pole line, as if there were plenty of f1s around I’d be able to catch them quicker on the pole.
After catching a few f1s and a carp on the bomb, I wanted to get on that long pole line to see if the noise had attracted numbers of fish into the peg, baiting up with a 6mm pellet I shipped out and lowered the rig in, a few pellets potted in over the rig and I waited for a response.
After only a couple of minutes or so, I had my first bite and the first in a run of f1s was pulling my yellow elastic from the pole tip. It was great fishing, and I soon caught my first carp of the day of around 5lb once bites from the f1s dried up.
What was interesting was that the temperature had warmed up and each time I fed some bait I was getting signs on the float, I had a decision to make here…
I either got off my box and set up another rig to fish shallow, which I thought was quite risky given how cold the water still was and risk ruining the peg, or I could find some shallower water and try that.
With a rig already set up for fishing in 4ft with maggots and casters, I upped my loose feed on this line which was just a top kit plus one section to my right, and planned on a move onto this in the next twenty minutes or so.
The Jackpot!
It was time to have a look in the shallower water and after putting another f1 in the net on the long line, I picked up the short rig! Baiting up with double red maggot and loose feeding casters I was really interested to see what might happen here, and it didn’t take very long to find out.
Almost instantly I was into a proper fish, which tested the 6-8 hybrid elastic to its limits but was soon under control with the use of a puller kit. Soon, a big common popped up on the surface and scooped in to the waiting landing net, was it a fluke?
On the very next drop in, I had another immediate bite and yet another carp made a bid for freedom, this time a 7lb mirror which fought just as hard. Over the next hour, I enjoyed an amazing spell, feeding casters quite heavily and catching a big carp every single put in with fish to double figures landed.
I think what we can take from this is that you have to be so on the ball with reading any signs the fish give you. Getting liners when I fed in 7ft on the long pole meant the fish didn’t want to be in water that deep, so by fishing in less depth I found that magic number in the end and at this time of year, it can make fishing incredibly easy.
Couple depth with making some noise with your feed, even with small amounts of bait you can maximise your results and work your peg more effectively without over feeding too. In spring when the conditions can be so changeable, feeling your way into the match is always the best policy.
At the end of the session, I’d managed to catch 30 carp plus some f1s for a weight which would have been somewhere in the region of 160lb! A real red-letter day for this time of year and by far the most enjoyable day I’ve had on the bank so far this year, hopefully a sign of a great spring and summer ahead.
Makins Fishery had proved itself as an amazing venue once again, and with loads of fish caught around the lake and on other lakes while we were there too so whether you fancy a practise or fishing one of the many opens, qualifiers or festivals held at the venue you can be assured of an excellent day’s fishing.
