Trip #113 – Sutton Bingham Reservoir – Carp Chaos on the Last Day (of my coarse fishing season)!

Pike season was looming, and this year I planned on taking it half seriously so this looked to be my last coarse fishing session of the year, I would be taking the eldest, so I needed a venue which was ideally local and would produce. The venue of choice was Sutton Bingham Reservoir – a local water that, if I’m honest, was something of an unknown quantity to us (at the time). We had no idea what to expect, apart from a handful of reports, but sometimes that’s half the fun.

We set up on Peg 7, (which is a medium walk away from the Bailiff cabin) rigged up the method feeders, and settled in.

The Setup:

• Rod 1: Shimano Technium Multi Range 11ft paired with a Shimano Exage 4000 — method feeder
• Rod 2: TF Gear Heavy Feeder paired with an Abu Cardinal (3000 size) — method feeder

And offer it did. What followed was one of those sessions where the rods barely had time to settle before something was pulling back. Carp after carp after carp – they just kept coming. Not that I’m complaining, but it wasn’t quite what we’d had in mind! Peppered in between the carp were some absolutely immaculate silver fish, the quality of which was genuinely impressive. Bright, pristine, and fighting well above their weight. The kind of fish that remind you what fishing is all about. “Proper fishing.” And hopefully, a core memory for the eldest.

We fished well into the afternoon, and by the time we eventually packed up, both of us were wearing the kind of grins that are hard to wipe off. A superbly enjoyable day all round.

The one thought that stayed with me on the drive home was whether pike are present in the reservoir at all. I found myself scanning the margins and watching the silvers scatter on the surface at one point — classic predator behaviour. That said, if pike are in there, they’re likely so sparse that targeting them would probably be a fool’s errand (I also asked, and you wouldn’t be allowed).

A brilliant send-off to the coarse season. I don’t feel like I could properly rate this venue, but needless to say, I managed to walk to the peg with an 8-year-old, who happily sat for a few hours, hauling in fish for a few hours. I need to return on my own to properly rate it. Next stop would be a tentative step into a more focused Pike season. Something I have wanted to do for a while, but have never really committed to.