This month’s blog is a venue report on a local day-ticket park lake known as The Ressers. It is only a small water at approximately four acres. It has two small islands and depths from two to nine feet. The maximum cast is around 50 yards, so no matter where you fish it isn’t a big cast. Day tickets are only £4, which makes it an affordable place to fish, or season tickets are available through club membership.

A fresh stock of 150 carp ranging from 4lb to 15lb was put in two years ago. This was to complement the stock of 100 fish. Some of the originals had been in there for more than 40 years and had grown up to 25lb.

Most of the pegs are concrete and easily accessible, which makes it a good venue for any angler.

Tactics-wise, the venue is ideally suited to stalking along one margin and the four corners. The fish tend to be really active in summer and can be easily seen feeding on the bloodworm beds, and the margins tend to produce a lot of fish.

In the colder months, brightly coloured pop-ups tend to work well. In the middle of January I managed to catch a small 6lb mirror on a Hydra Baits TNT pop-up with a small solid bag of pellets. Another good tactic is quickly casting to fizzing fish, which quite often produces a quick take.

Due to it being an open-access park water, located just off a busy main road, it does tend to have a lot of snags, which includes anything from large branches, scooters, bikes and the usual shopping trolleys! This can make things more difficult when playing fish, just like any snaggy water. It can mean that the ratio of fish landed to takes is 50/50.

Unfortunately, the rules mean that there is no night fishing, so it is day sessions only. This means that in the winter months the days are only short sessions. However, in summer, with it being only a five-minute drive from my house, it is perfect for an evening zig-rig fishing because surface fishing is banned due to the bird life.

The Ressers doesn’t have any facilities, but being local and growing up with regular visits to the park 50 yards away, while my dad and grandad were fishing, meant that I knew there were facilities on the park, which does make each fishing trip slightly easier, as long as you are fishing with someone else who can look after the gear!

Another benefit of The Ressers is that there is a tackle shop just around the corner, within walking distance, which means it is ideal for those bits that we all forget when we are on the bank.

I know that waters like this tend not to be for everyone, but when it’s limited time and a good chance of a bend in the rod, sometimes we have take what we can get. Conversely, there are always a few locals who fish the water consistently and have had some really good results in short spaces of time.