Where To Fish: How End Fisheries
If you want some red-hot silver fish sport this winter, How End Fisheries in Bedfordshire might be the perfect venue for you!
On a cold day, getting bites is all we really want as match anglers and finding venues that provide them in abundance is always tricky! With the introduction of species like Ide and F1s in a lot of venues, we now have winter fishing that is better than ever up and down the country.
We joined MAP’s Michael Buchwalder on the bank at the amazing, but very cold, How End Fisheries in Bedfordshire to find out why this three-lake fishery is a regular haunt of his during the winter months.
The Venue
How End Fishery is a fantastic little venue that I love to fish during the winter, there’s three lakes on the venue, Dani’s, Tigs and the lake we’re going to be fishing today, Yasi’s. All the lakes are absolutely solid not only with carp during the summer but hordes of silver fish which provide unbelievable sport during the colder months. 
With regular open matches, and a popular winter league running at the venue, you’re guaranteed some bites no matter how cold it gets which is always a bonus!
The main species you’ll find when it comes to silvers are roach, skimmers, tench, chub and the fish that really boost your weight here, Ide. This mix of species makes this venue quite unique, and like anywhere else, sorting out those better-quality fish is the key to being successful in the matches.
With a fully stocked tackle shop on site that offers everything you could need in terms of tackle and fresh bait, How End is a one-stop-shop for a great day out. I just couldn’t wait to get the gear out for a few hours fishing, after collecting a couple of pints of maggots and pinkies, from the shop.
Tactics
With the conditions quite cold, I expect the fish to be in the deeper water today which is found down the far slope and on a short pole line. What is important though on venues that hold plenty of Ide, is to try and catch those first.
Being what can only be described as a ‘gorge feeder’ they’ll appear on your feed pretty quickly but being quite greedy in nature they’ll get full on bait after a short while and sometimes disappear, so it’s important to make the most of your opportunity to put some weight in the net.
The Ide at How End can grow quite big and a 3lber isn’t uncommon, with an average of 8-12oz. When you can catch these quickly, a big weight is possible and usually the winners net has plenty of Ide included!
I’ve plumbed up at 13m on two lines at an angle, so I can feed two lines and alternate them, these are just into the deeper water along the far shelf, if it was a bit warmer I’d definitely have a short line primed with chopped worm for some bonus fish too, but with it being quite cold I feel it’s going to be a day to catch some ide, roach and maybe a few skimmers.
Bait
I’m keeping things so simple today, I’ve got with me some maggots and pinkies which will be the main baits I use today, I’ve also bought some worms which with it being so cold, probably won’t feature in my approach today, however, if quality fish do feed I’ll look to try and catch some bigger fish on them on one of my lines.
I’ve mixed up a small amount of black silver fish groundbait too, only a pint to feed a tiny nugget on each line to begin with to draw a few fish in. With Ide being a main target species at How End, I don’t want to feed too much groundbait as it can have a negative impact and potting in or loose feeding some maggots and pinkies is a much better way of catching a good weight of Ide.
Later in the day if I’m catching a few skimmers, Tench or roach, and the Ide have moved out of the peg, I’ll consider topping up with groundbait but to start with I’m always very cautious.
The Set Up
As is the beauty of commercial venues, and if like me you enjoy setting up as little tackle as possible, the depth is often similar in other areas of your peg, so I’ve just set up one rig for today’s short session.
The float is a new F1 Carbon pattern from MAP in a 0.3g size, this is shotted up with a bulk and three droppers, quite a standard approach for silver fish work, but the three droppers allow me to have a natural fall in the last part of the rig which is important to catch those, Ide.
This is set up on a 0.13mm Optimum Power main line to an 0.11mm hook length, if the fishing is harder, I’ll drop down to a 0.09mm line but to start with I expect the fishing to be quite good and get harder as the day progresses.
A size 18 hook completes the rig and when it comes to elastic you want something light, my choice is a TKS Solid Core Hybrid in a 4-6 size, this covers me for all the sizes of fish I expect to catch here, but importantly, Ide can tend to wallow a bit on the surface, and if your elastic is too heavy you may lose quite a few, so elastic is something you need to consider.
The Session
With such a cold morning, I was always going to take things easy to start with, generally speaking, when you’re fishing these smaller commercial waters for silvers, one of the very worst things you can do is feed too much bait.
This is mainly because the fish naturally won’t be far from you as it is, and I’ve always found the smaller fisheries to be a bit trickier, the other reason is that there are loads of carp, and if they want to feed putting too much bait in will just make the situation worse, unless they count in your match of course!
To start with I fed a tiny nugget of groundbait with a few pinkies included on my left-hand line and just a pinch of maggots and pinkies on my right-hand line.
Like I’ve said, I’m loathed to feed too much as the ide are important and they are quite greedy and get full quickly, so I need to keep my feeding minimal to ensure I make the most of them while they are in my peg.
Baiting up with a double pinkie hook bait and shipping out, I had to wait five minutes or so for my first indication, which was surprising as small roach usually come onto that groundbait immediately before the ide move in.
A few small roach got me off to a start, but it wasn’t long before I was feeding a few maggots and pinkies through the flexi pot and into my first ide of the day, a nice fish of around a pound and hopefully the first of many.
I was concentrating on the left-hand swim to begin with, but I needed to keep a tiny amount of bait going in on the other line too, so I’d simply just add a few more maggots to the pot and drop them in on the way back out, to hopefully build it up.
In an ideal scenario you end up with two lines that are very active, catching a fish or two from each and rotating, if you can get this going you can keep the bites coming and allow the lines to rest and the fish regather a bit quicker too, so that’s always my aim.
A nice run of ide from the left-hand line was more than welcome but the bites soon dried up, which was not surprising on a cold day. Changing to my other line, I was pleasantly surprised to catch a few skimmers, perhaps keeping that small amount of bait going in and letting it settle for a while was responsible.
No skimmers followed after that short burst, but I was then into some roach and the occasional Ide to keep ticking over, swapping between my lines to get me through to the end of our three and a half hour session, with the rain due to come in and a lovely net of fish in the keepnet, it had been another brilliant day.
If you want plenty of bites this winter, I cannot recommend How End Fisheries enough, all of the lakes are full of fish and whether you want to fish for carp or silvers, a good days fishing is assured!
