Airfield Lakes

Nestled close to the Waveney Valley in beautiful South-Norfolk countryside Airfield Lakes has been created to provide action packed specimen carp fishing.

Two Lakes make up this tranquil carp fishery and both are stocked with a selection of the best looking thoroughbred carp in the UK, which are unique to East Anglia. The current venue record, which was caught in this year s fishing trials stands at 48lb 4oz.

We are a relaxed, friendly, family run fishery, managed by Richard Wilby. Our objective is to offer the best day-ticket carp fishing in the area and to become recognised as one of the leading carp fisheries in the country.

Mustang Lake
Created in 2008 Mustang lake is a specially designed five acre carp lake set on secure private farmland. A huge amount of research and effort has been made in the construction of this venue to ensure day or session anglers of all levels of experience stand excellent chance of catching lots of quality carp.

Mustang Lake has been stocked with over 200 hand-picked carp that have been obtained from a mixture of leading UK fish farmers. In the pre-opening fishing trials that took place in autumn 2010 five anglers banked 42 carp in seven days, which had an average weight of 14lb 4oz. One in ten fish was over 20lb and the biggest banked was 26lb 10oz.
We ve deliberately stocked Mustang Lake with a variety of different carp strains to ensure you never know what type of fish is on the end of your rod. Our carp strains include: Pure Redmire Leney s, Horseshoe x Orchid mirrors, Dinton Pastures offspring, Lea Valley commons, Sutton s and Dinks to name a few. This mixture of fish, which are unique to East Anglia, are a selection of the most beautiful UK pure-bred carp around and ensure many linears, heavily plated mirrors, leathers and rare blue coloured carp have been stocked into the lake. They are also very fast growing, the fish caught in the trials showed an average weight gain of 4lb 10oz, so we are sure that in the next year we will have an even bigger head of 20lb plus fish and our first Mustang thirty.

There are 14 well-drained comfortable swims on the lake with excellent access. Four of the swims are for short range fishing only, the rest allow you to cover good chunks of the lake which suits easy medium range tactics. Because these fish are young and fast growing they do like bait and it showed in the trials that baiting up regularly kept the action coming. Pellets, boilies and corn proved most effective.

The average depth of the lake is 7ft, the deepest part of Mustang is 13ft. There are a number of clay bars and humps on the bottom to make the fishing more interesting. The margins have been planted with over 15 varieties of reed and sedge along with some lily pads to create excellent margin sport and stalking opportunities.

Spitfire Pool
Over 50 years old this former cattle drinking pond has been transformed over the last two decades into a spectacular 1.5 acre pool which is now home to very special carp. If you want to catch big, classic looking pure English carp from the margins or stalking this magical little pool is definitely for you.

Spitfire Pool remained completely private and un-fished for 15 years. It is only in the last six years that a very limited amount of angling has been allowed during the night only in the spring and autumn months. In these trials some truly magnificent carp have been caught and spotted. But during the spring of 2010 Spitfire Pool hit the national headlines when it produced a stunning, previously unknown 48lb 4oz common.

Many other twenty and thirty pound carp have been banked in the limited fishing trials and we are convinced that at least two other 40lb carp are present. But we will not know for sure until the venue opens properly for the first time in March 2011.

In the trials the Pool has proved challenging at times, but has produced multiple catches of 30lb plus carp on more than one occasion. Depths range from 3ft – 7ft and the bottom is mainly made up from clay, silt and silkweed. Because of the size of the carp present in this small pool, we do insist that anglers who fish the venue are well experienced and capable of handling / looking after large carp on the bank.

To ensure the carp in Spitfire Pool continue to thrive and enjoy an unpressured environment, the Pool will only be open for 10 weeks a year. Five of these weeks will be in spring and five in autumn on a week on week off basis. Only a maximum group of three anglers will be allowed on at the same time.

The carp in the lake are old fish that are not particularly hard to catch if you keep rigs strong and simple plus keep angling disturbance to a minimum. In the trials top quality fishmeal proved most effective, but the carp have also been seen feeding hard on pellet and maize in the non-fishing months.

Most of the Pool s margins drop away quickly into 4ft of water and the carp can often be found feeding just a yard from the bank. In sunny conditions the fish like to cruise along the main bar down the centre of the pool and you will often see them with their tails out of the water feeding on the snails and other natural food items in the silkweed. In this situation a chod rig or PVA bag flicked into their patrol routes will be the best tactic.