small lake

during half term next week, my fishing buddy and I (plus families) head off down to sunny old devon for a nice relaxing week at a hotel. the best bit about the holiday (excluding my 17th and my first driving lesson) is the hotel has small lake stocked with roach, rudd, small tench and some carp mostly around 4lbs but with 7 or so around the 9,10,11 lb mark. last year we picked off roach, ruddand a couple of small carp on the tackle borrowed from the hotel. This year were going back to try and catch a few of the larger carp which don't come out too often. the lake is small about 50m by 30 it is a sphere shape with a small bay on the far side. You can't fish the far side and on one side there is a pier and a weed bed. it has a margin depth of 4ft dropping to 6ft in the middle. (it is hardly fished except by fathers a sons on borrowed tackle fishing a 2ft waggler and thats why the bigguns don't come out too often.) There is a one rod limit and i don't particualary want to use straight bolt rigs i was thinking either small method feeders, running leads or 'the lift method' and bait wise i was thinking sweet corn, lunchon meat or half side hooked boilies. with groundbait to attract the fish in. because we'll propbably be the only people fishing it. i guess we'll experiment, but you guys always seem to have good ideas and they almost always work.

Well, first thought is to fish the bigger baits to avoid "nuisance fish". Although how anyone can call a pristine rudd a nuisnace is beyond me.

Had a similar situation at Croyd in Devon this year, so me and the brother in law raked two swims every evening for a couple of days and fed cans of sweetcorn and not fishing (this after just catching the smaller stuff - although our target was tench). Worked a treat.

Or else just do regular feeding (by which I mean few and often match style) whilst fishing waggler. If you get the small fish feeding confidently then a big old bully is sure to get interested......but you have to be prepared to stick at it this way and KEEP FEEDING small and regular (ie a few grains every few minutes).

Only an opinion though!! Good luck.

PS - personally I wouldn't go anymore complicated than fishing a waggler. Bolt or method doesn't sound right to me.

agree stuart, method or bolt rigs wont single out bigger fish. just keep feeding, the bigger fish will muscle in eventually. if it was earlier in the year, try floating baits and look for the bigger fish. can still work in winter......

pristine rudd stu? surely you mean rudd/roach hybrid. dont want the rudd police after you!

.....couldn't tell the difference roach, rudd and hybrids to me are the prettiest fish around.