Herts and Essex Angling

This page will focus on BS&DAS (of which I am a member of), a very welcoming and friendly  club with a great host of venues located in and around Bishop's Stortford. 

Their main/local lake (the Malcolm Barker Lake) is a mature lake with some very large carp in it. However it is notorious for its vast numbers of tench which I have caught on all sorts of bait from bread to luncheon meat. It is very hard to fish in the winter, but very easy to fish in the summer (especially if you aim for the roach and rudd who will readily take bread and sweet corn).

Beggar's Hall is a large lake in Great Hallingbury and is stocked with most coarse species. Apart from the weed in this lake, Beggar's Hall is a brilliant fishery and it is not uncommon to catch a large bag of big roach and rudd, medium-sized skimmers and tench and the odd carp using simple tactics and fishing no more than two rod-lengths out. I have caught my PB roach and perch here (1lb 12oz and 2lb 1oz respectively). Recently (2012), a 4lb 8oz perch has been caught here which rather dwarves my PB!

Hall Farm lakes (small and large) are, however, my favourite of the club venues by far. They are both stocked with roach, rudd, crucian carp, F1 carp and more carp than you could ever imagine - and ALL of them are in pristine condition. The large lake also has some barbel and gudgeon which are beginning to show in numbers now. The record weight for the large lake in a match is 101lbs. My record weight is 69lbs and that was made up of mostly carp which were milling around near the surface and taking my bait within seconds of it entering the water - the only reason why I didn't catch more was because they fight so hard and take a long time to bring into the net!

BS&DAS own the River Stort (which is open to the public for day tickets) and I have a page on that venue here on my website.

For information about becoming a member of BS&DAS visit their website:

          http://www.bsdas.org.uk/member_subs.html