Linear suffered a major flooding about 3 years ago and the sport on those lakes absolutely nosedived, in fact they just weren't fishing. Johnny Jones (deceased) and I fished it the same year and we couldn't even buy a bite on the float, not even the small fish were having it and according to some of the carp boys I spoke to they had zilch as well, not even a liner.
I wonder if it has picked up since but looking at that report the average size of fish seems to have dropped considerably and not a tench or roach to be seen.