Magic Lakes
Bottom Lake
I didn’t rush to Magic Lakes to film a review, even though it’s my local venue, I was saving it. I have been here many times and it is the venue that introduced me to the world of commercial fishing. I did not get on with this place when I first came, it didn’t let me fish how I was used to fishing back then. It is an easy place to return to though as it’s so close and the frequent visits meant I was able to learn how others fished it so I adapted to it.
Now with a pole, a box and the rest I have the gear this venue was designed for. This is not to say you can’t fish it with a rod and line, many still do, on my early visits I used a method feeder and caught a few fish but what this venue is all about is pole fishing. Almost every swim is 13m from the opposite bank so no mega-long pole fishing here.
For this session, I chose to fish on the small lake in the furthest corner of the car park. I chose a swim with a nice cleared mudline. This plumbed up to 18”. This turned out to be a pretty small shelf so getting in the right spot was critical or you were fishing off the edge of the shelf. I started on a 6mm Robin Red over a medium cad pot of 2mm soaked pellets. At times there were so many fish it was hard to get the float to settle but once in place, fish fell pretty quickly. The only issue on the day was the wind and holding the pole at 13m on the right spot, this became hard work. After an hour or so I moved to the middle on the top 5.
Address
Magic Lake
Pick Hill
Waltham Abbey
Essex, EN9 3LE
Depth on the top 5 was around 54” and this time I fished a 6mm Pro hookable expander direct on the hook. This produced a lot of fast bites which I missed most of but the ones I did hook were mostly Tench between 3oz and 1lb mixed in with the odd F1.
Fish were now showing on the surface every time I dropped in the micro pellets so I swapped onto a jigger on the top 5 hand feeding 4mm pellets. This produced a regular F1. I also tried a slapping rig but this didn’t increase the catch rate. I moved out to the back with both the slapping and jigger rigs and caught a few but the wind made it difficult.
Edge fishing at Magic Lakes, as it gets into the afternoon has always been a great way of catching a good number of fish, as it is on most commercials. I put on my edge rig with a hookable expander over 2mm pellets. This instantly brought the fish up onto the surface and the first fish I caught was fail-hooked lifting out the rig. I didn’t bother with the bottom rig after that and went straight back to the jigger in the edge fishing a normal 6mm pellet. What followed was fish after fish, all F1s for about the next hour putting over 40lb of fish onto the clicker. Finishing on an F1 approaching 5lb I decided I would pack away, happy with the day’s catch. I do not doubt that I would have continued catching in that edge on the jigger into the early evening.
Conclusion
If there is one lake I would say is the blueprint of what a snake lake made for the pole should be, Magic lake is it. Full of F1’s, some Carp, a few ornamentals and silvers it can produce 150 lb plus match weighs in the summer and some nice bags during the winter too. Rarely do the same pegs produce the winning catch, it’s a very level pegged venue for match fishing. In my experience, the bigger lake produces the bigger Carp, but that’s to be expected and the bottom lake will produce big catches of F1s so this evens things out.
Although I have had bigger catches and bigger fish in recent weeks Magic Lakes are as much fun to fish as anywhere. It is high on my recommended list .
Call into Magic Lake, tell Mick fishingviews.co.uk sent you along and have a great day fishing.
Clicker Score - 90
Mobile
07593 601135
Matches
Open Matches Every Thursday
Cost
£10
Lakes
Top Lake
Bottom Lake (Car Park)
Pole Rollers
Only Room for one on most swims
Main Methods
Pole, bottom, jigger, slapping, paste
Baits
Pellets, corn, meat, expanders, paste
Site Facilities
Toilets