Brian and I were out on the bank again yesterday, as we went to the stunning Border Fisheries in Crewe. Border is another venue on our Bay Malton membership card, with seven waters available to fish on the complex. The pool we chose to fish yesterday was The Specimen Lake. I’ll give you some info about the lake before we get into the day’s fishing.
The Specimen Pool at Border Fisheries
The Specimen Lake or “Speci” as it is known, is a fairly large lake on the Border Fisheries complex with 29 pegs. There is a decent-sized natural island running down the length of the lake. On the side closest to the car park, you can reach the island with a pole from some pegs. On the opposite bank, getting close to the island will require a long chuck on a feeder. The depth varies around the lake, with deep holes up to around eight metres (so we’ve been told) to be found. Margins can be quite shallow in places but are generally around 2 feet. The lake then slopes away to about five feet down the middle before shallowing up again towards the island.
The lake holds a good mixed bag of fish, with the main species being carp, skimmers, roach, hybrids, and perch. The Bay Malton website mentions chub, barbel, tench and bream, but I haven’t seen any of them caught yet. Carp can go up to 20lb plus and there are some big perch of 3lb+.
This is another all-rounder lake on the Bay Malton card, where you can fish most methods and still have success. In the depths of winter, you can have a good day fishing for silvers or perch. You can still catch carp in the colder weather, but they are rarer than in the summer. When the weather warms up, you can have a busy day on the feeder, pellet waggler, or pole.
How The Day Went
We arrived at 8 am after the 40-minute drive and a quick stop at McDonalds for a breakfast wrap. We intended to fish the Specimen Lake with the target being carp and the big perch. The weather forecast for the day was windy, but also one of the warmest days of the year so far at around 17 degrees.
We decided to fish pegs four and five. I was on peg four, which had a 20-yard cast towards the island and two nice margins that were already showing signs of fish. Brian was fishing to my left and had a similar cast to the island. To the left of him was a spare peg that was also looking very fishy.
Brian has had success fishing for perch on the Speci recently using a waggler and prawns on the hook. He also opted for a cage feeder using groundbait over to the island for carp/skimmers. I used a hybrid feeder for my island chuck with micros, groundbait, and the new Teddy Fisher Gunge. On the hook, I had a selection of wafters in several sizes. For my margins, I planned to use my pole with my main hook bait being corn.
The groundbait mix consisted of Teddy Fisher Special Red and Lake which will attract anything that swims. Brian also added some additional attractors such as Excite Pure and Roasted Hemp.

Things didn’t start well for me when I was setting up. As I was clipping up, I hit an overhanging branch with my feeder leaving it hanging above the water. Luckily, I got it back, but it meant I couldn’t fish where I planned to. I then set about plumbing up my margins only to find they were both full of snags. I eventually found a clear area down my left side two feet from the bank. Down my right, I lost a plummet that got completely stuck on a snag. It was exactly where I wanted to fish. I struggled to find any nice spots until I got 3 feet from the bank. Unfortunately, all the activity I’d seen from the carp in both areas was much closer to the boards running around the edge of the lake than I could get to.
With a few days of warmer weather recently, we hoped the carp would be starting to wake up a bit. Things looked promising when my tip pulled around on my second cast with the feeder being in for less than 10 minutes. After a decent scrap, I netted a nice common carp that weighed in at 6lb 10oz. The next two casts resulted in two skimmers. I then had a spell where I missed a couple of bites that looked like they came from small skimmers messing around with the hookbait.
After missing a few bites I added a couple of metres on my clip to get closer to the island and upped my wafter from 6mm to 8mm to try and deter the smaller fish. The first cast resulted in a small mirror weighing around 3lb.
Brian wasn’t getting any bites by this point and decided to change from using a cage feeder and switched to a method. He consistently hit the same small area close to the island about 10-15 feet from where I was fishing, but they didn’t seem to be in that area for him yet.


Things quieted down for a while between 10:15 am and 11 am with the bites drying up for me on the feeder, and Brian still wasn’t getting much activity in his swim. This coincided with the wind picking up. Despite being warm early on, the wind chill had dropped the air temperature by a few degrees.
With casting accurately becoming more difficult in the strong gusts, I decided to drop my method feeder down the margin on my right. After a few minutes, I had my next bite as the tip thumped around and I thought my rod was going to get pulled off the rest. Another great battle followed with the fish hugging the lake bed and refusing to come up, I thought I’d hit a double. After a few minutes, I had a nice mirror carp in the net that weighed a surprisingly small 6lb 4oz.
A couple of skimmers followed on my next two casts, and then Brian got in on the act. With his feeder line not showing much activity, he switched to a waggler with a prawn on the hook. He missed a couple of quick bites, and then he landed his first fish. A tiny roach that was almost the same size as the prawn it took.
With the margins showing good signs, I swapped to the pole to try the edge to my left. I fished a big piece of corn on the hook with some corn and 2mm pellets in a cad pot. I could see the signs of carp in the swim, but the wind made it hard to keep everything still. After around 30 minutes of trying to tempt a bite, I got my first take. As soon as the float went under the elastic came shooting out of my top kit. During the first run, the fish sped off across the lake towards the island. After a few minutes of adding and removing sections, I managed to get it under control and had a 7lb mirror on the bank.


Soon after, Brian had his first carp of the day. A welcome fish using his waggler down the margin to his left. It only weighed around 2.5lb, but it was a decent scrap using relatively light tackle. I then caught another mirror weighing around 7lb in the margin about 30 minutes later.
With the gusts of wind getting stronger and more frequent, holding a pole became more difficult. According to the weather app, the wind speed approached 30mph at some points. Even when it wasn’t that high, the gusts still averaged over 20mph. After being showered in small branches falling from the trees above us, I put the pole away and picked up the waggler rod.
The first cast resulted in a small roach, and then I had a couple of hybrids. Brian commented something along the lines of “it’s everywhere you go” but with a few more expletives thrown in. I could understand his frustration. He’d been spot-on with his casting to the island every chuck and had barely had a touch. The waggler wasn’t bringing him much joy either. That’s fishing for you. We fish next to each other on most days, and it’s strange how you can fish with similar methods and the same baits but one of you has a good day and the other is sat twiddling their thumbs.
A couple of quiet hours followed with not much happening at all. We both had a couple of missed bites, but we were waiting for a long time for any touches. At a quarter to six, I put the waggler away and tried casting a feeder towards the island again. The first cast back over there brought my final fish of the day. A hard-fighting and beautifully scaled common weighing around 4lb.
By this point, I was crossing my fingers for Brian to get a decent bite before we packed up. My day hadn’t been prolific, but I had caught enough fish to go home feeling OK about the session. Brian was still trying different approaches but wasn’t having any joy.
Fortunately, as the light began to fade, the wind eased off and there were signs of fish close in around him. He dropped in his method feeder almost under his rod tip and got a bite. He played the fish for a few minutes and finally got it within netting range. I went over to help him land it and… it spat the hook just as I got there. To add insult to injury, it sat there looking at us just below the surface before swimming off. It was a decent fish. Bigger than anything I’d caught.
After a few more expletives, Brian looked like he’d had enough, but he baited up again and put the feeder back in the water. With his head in his fishing towel, I was praying to the fishing gods that he got another take.
There were swirls all around where he was fishing and he was getting liner after liner without a proper bite. As I began to put some bits of tackle away, I was watching his tip hoping to see it pull around. Thankfully, it did. I’ve never seen him play a fish so carefully, backwinding and letting it take as much line as it wanted. After a few minutes, it was in the net. An immaculate common carp that put a smile back on Brian’s face. It wasn’t the biggest of the day, but it was the best fish of the day.
