Hi Simon,
I fished the Venue with suspectstew 2 weeks ago and just thought i would give you some feedback.
We were the first to fish the lake since the winter close and this was probably one of the toughest weeks to fish it as we were trying to turn the fish from their winter pellets to our bait.
I got a 63.8lb cat on the second night (new pb) and this was caught on a 20mm yellow peril on a bolt rig with long hook link due to the silty bottom. I also had a 35.10lb mirror carp on the same bait and same type of rig.
The rest were, 40lb mirror, 30lb mirror, 45.6 mirror, 18lb cat and a 35.4 mirror, all of these on an old dumbell shaped boilie with a vanilla/cream smell.
Also, 18lb common, 29lb mirror on yellow peril.
And, 26lb mirror on a pineapple pop up.
All swims produced fish. Most of the carp came out around mid day kinda time and the cats from dusk-midnight.
We had halibut pellet which we baited up from the boat which really had no effect to be honest as all the fish were pretty much caught on a single bait with blitz mix sticks.
We also used the boat to find the gravel/hard patches but in the end it was just fishing into open water that produced the fish.
The lake didn't really start producing fish until the 4th day, probably due to the winter bait that they had been fed on.
Some crayfish in the lake but not a problem.
Jon and Heather that run the lake were absolutey brilliant all week and couldn't have done a better job. The food was ace and nothing was a problem for them. They have also just stocked the lake with around 40 new carp between 15-20lb apparently.
I would NOT reccomend using the TFG bait that was provided by them as the quality really wasn't that good.
I'm pretty sure that we will be booking up there again next year.
I hope this is of some help to you mate. Hope you have a really good time!
