Angling features and news

Temple offers hard fighting, stunning fish, with a good head of fish over 30lb, and in my opinion this lake gives you one of the best chances of landing an English thirty, with over 16 different thirties depending on the time of year. Although the fishing can be very difficult, but at times it can just kick off!

Temple boasts 15 large, comfortable swims, and there is a limit to 12 anglers on at any one time, this is to ensure everyone has plenty of room. The fishing can vary a lot from swim to swim, to demonstrate this I will describe a few swims..

The margins of temple might not look much from the surface as the reed beds are pretty uniform and the lily beds are too, But these are the first places I would try if you haven’t seen much sign of fish, especially towards the deeper end, but try and hide any baiting up from the ducks. It pays to be different on temple, there are a few anglers that fish temple that dare to be different and they often bag up, and most are very willing to share with you how they fish it. I wouldn’t over complicate things though as the fish aren’t really too riggy as of yet.

Bait is probably one of the most important things on temple I feel which totally contrasts from the main lake. Obviously everyone has their own bait that they are confident in but temple has opened my eyes to the variety of good quality baits that work. I have had fish on perfection ground baits meat and worm, perfection greenbelts spicy squid, pineapple pop-ups, sweet corn, maggot, Richworth KG1 and BCUK grub boilies. As you can see that is a variety of different flavours so the fish don’t really take a liking to one bait. Saying that though I have found that they will take a particular liking to a certain bait for say 1-2 months and then they seem to go off it. So a tip would be to keep switching between baits and never be afraid to try something new.

I have had fish on large beds of bait, usually hemp and crushed boilies, but I have also had fish on small stringers cast to showing fish. I have found if you see a fish, get a bait straight on to it and then you can feel confident that it may produce a bite. If you do get a take from that cast, then start introducing a little more bait as you want to keep them in the area, as the fish in temple seem to get focussed on certain spots, for me one of these hot spots was a spot off peg 15, where it produced 3 fish in a morning including a common of 27lb 4oz and The ghost, definitely one of those days where everything fell in place. The love small baits on temple especially when they are having it big time, because they have to work hard and feel around for the bait and it really gets them going, which gives you the perfect opportunity to catch them off guard. I like to use a small yellow or white pop-up over the hemp and sweet corn as this is easily seen by the carp and they seem to love them.

Temple has a lot of good quality fish on offer, here is a vague list of the named fish and their rough size..

 Italian 1 - 30lb +

Italian 2 - 30lb+

Italian 3 - 30lb +

The Ghost - 30lb + , last out at 35lb.

The Scar Common - 30lb +, hasn’t been out in a while a year plus??

The Leather - This fish has only been out once at 28lb, apparently an insane looking fish possibly 30lb +

The Big Common - 34lb + biggest weight I think is 35lb and ounces..

Two Tone Linear - 33lb + last out at 33lb and a very fat fish indeed.

The Parrot - a fish that is very ugly but still prized by many 20lb + (how does this fish feed!!!)

And roughly 6 or 7 more thirties, of which I think most are stunning linears and a few commons.

Anglers have to be confident in what they are doing otherwise the chances are it won’t happen, if you have had results with what you are doing, obviously keep doing it! If you are struggling or it’s the first time you have fished the lake it pays to do a bit of research and ask other anglers what’s the score, I would say pretty much all of them would be happy to help.

The first tip is one of the most important I think, especially now the fishing has become harder at this time of year. It is where you put your bivvy. The purpose built swims are made out of gravel and the fish can sense the vibrations sent through the water every time you step on them. A good bet is to bivvy up off the peg its self as far back as possible, but if you do bivvy up on the grass please try not to use a ground sheet if you are staying for a long session as it ruins the grass. Also walking from your peg to the next, try not to walk on the gravel, walk on the grass; it’s unbelievable how much small changes like this can make! AND DON’T smash your bivvy pegs into hard ground with a mallet, just put your bivvy up on soft ground, I know its easier to smash them in but you decrease your chances of a fish if you do.

Pin everything down on to the lake bed where possible. I favour the korda safety leaders, they are expensive but well worth the money in my opinion because they are almost clear and the tungsten putty allows you to be very confident with you presentation. I use them in conjunction with a Gardner flying backlead to be 100% sure that it is pinned to the deck. A very good trick that I learnt while fishing temple is to use a bit of tungsten putt spaced 1 ½ inches apart on your hooklink, this pins down the hooklink and doesn’t affect the hooking ability of the rig, like in the picture:

 I might be a bit controversial now in saying bait boats are an advantage even on such a small water. This is because the fish are so warey and casting a big p.v.a bag out can often spook the fish off, but they don’t seem to be spooked by a boat, maybe due to the amount of bird life on the lake. I wouldn’t though start playing around with fish finders etc when you are actually fishing because that can be the kiss of death on a lake so small and it is easy for the fish to get spooked and leave your swim.

Always, always cast to showing fish! I pretty much had 95% of my fish from area’s where I have seen fish show, this is a must!

Slack lines is another method I have learnt from fishing temple, Alan Stagg first showed me how to do this effectively and it looked strange. Its without doubt one of the main reasons why I have caught fish from the lake. After you have cast out, sink you line, and release some line from your reel with the tip down in the water, keep releasing until the line is very slack and put the rod on the banksticks. Put your line through your hanger, and set up your rod how you want it, and release some more line so that you bobbins are literally lying on the ground and the line is curling through the eye’s of your rod. Some people rave about this method and others can’t stand the idea of it, but I have found it very effective and I have even registered drop backs from using this method, which seems impossible. You do have to be wary when using this method near snags, but I would be very confident in doing this on any area of Temple Lake.

 Don’t always feel you must use 3 rods because everyone else is.. Is everyone else catching??? If not be different, I know of people who have gone down to even one rod, because they are so confident on a spot and they don’t want to over pressure the swim. 2 rods is more than enough in most of the swims, and it usually keeps you more focused and vigilant on the water because your not casting 3 rods at different times. But fishing is something you need to be confident in, and if you only feel confident with three rods, then stick with that.

Small baits, I have never used anything bigger than 16mm on temple, I have never seen the need for it. They seem to favour small baits, my favourite being 14mm perfection ground baits meat and worm.

Fishing Temple can be hard but the rewards are there, with a little bit of effort and common sense it can be cracked and you could see yourself holding a stunning English thirty.

Good Luck

And see you on the bank!

Ed Mason