Reading lakes

[Corneybury]

Has anyone fished or got info. on two lakes in Reading which I used to live close to? Woodley lake and Earley lake...both looked as they would be good carp and tench waters. I used to see people fishing there, but never knew what they caught, and as it was in my non-fishing period (work got in the way), I didnt fish it myself.

[Olly]

Woodley South Lake - £160 per season. Carp to about 40lb.

Earley Council lake - £40 for non-Earley residents

[Santiago]

I use to fish Early lake during the early 90's. Then it was full of small carp average of abot 4lb. It was also full of gudgeon. I think I preferred feeding the carp in the then closed season, where you could virtually hand feed them bread.

The carp were much bigger in Woodley lake but I never fished there.

Another lake close by is Sonning Eye which is RDAA water. It has a good head of double figure carp to 50+lb along with double figure tench and bream, big eels, big pike and perch! I only fished it once and blanked.

[Old Tinca]

Dont mean ti highjack the thread but another Reading lake .......

Does anyone have a news on Englefield Lagoon ? this was an RDAA water for a while, but dropped as it was too hard for match fishing.

I used to fish during the 80s and 90s - there are some amazing Tench, Bream and Pike

Lots of Canadian pond weed, so we would rake out the swims from May onwards.

Hard but rewarding if you put in the effort

[Flickem]

Englefield is still on the RDAA book. It doesnt get as much attention as Flint or Pingewood. I was an RDAA Exec comittee member till I moved back to Pompey last year.

[Old Tinca]

Hi, thanks for the reply, I used to live really close to all three of those lakes.

I spent countless hours as a child, swimming, boating and fishing on all three - it's amazing that the other two get the most publicity, because Englefield all though harder holds the better fish.

It mat be that it's not so much a "Carp lake" - that holds back the publicity a bit?

Are there any news of recent catches ?

[Stathamender]

When I was working at Reading University in 1975-76 I used to fish the lake there, quiet, scenic and good for tench and rudd. Not sure how you can access it these days.

[Santiago]

When I fished the university lake during the 90's the rule was to fish it one had to be a member of staff and obtain a special permit from the social committee near the bowling green. It was good for tench mainly and some nice wildy carp. I suspect the rules are the same.

[Stathamender]

When I fished the university lake during the 90's the rule was to fish it one had to be a member of staff and obtain a special permit from the social committee near the bowling green. It was good for tench mainly and some nice wildy carp. I suspect the rules are the same.

Back in '75 I was a temporary lecturer in sociology there (corruption of young minds my specialist subject). I was living in Warsaw at the time and I got less than two weeks warning that they wanted me to start there on May 1st, communications to E Europe being pretty bad in those days. Travel was no better, I couldn't afford a 'plane ticket back so I had to do what nearly everyone did and take the overnight train from Warsaw (where I was a graduate student at the Planning and Statistics University - a certain general who wore dark glasses was a regular feature of the Staff Coffee Room which I was allowed to use) to the Hook (sharing a sleeper carriage with a bunch of Polish grannies on their way to England to attend family weddings), passport and papers checked four or five times during the night by the Grenzepolizei when going through E Germany, everyone much happier when we crossed the border into the FGR, then the ferry to Harwich.

Because of the short notice the only accommodation I could find initially was in the Sibly student hall down in Earley (now demolished), quite close to the Earley lake (its proper name is Maiden Erlegh Lake and it's been a nature reserve since - I think - the mid 90s) - though I didn't know this. This was the first really long hot summer of the 70s and, after an overnight temperature close to freezing on the last day of May, by mid-June the pollen count was off the scale in the Thames Valley and I got my first attacks of hayfever. When I couldn't sleep because of it I'd get up at 3 or 4, go into the university at Whiteknights, collect my tackle from where I had it stashed in my office and head on down to the lake. Evening sessions after the end of the day's teaching as well. I got a few weird looks walking through the department in my wellies and Army surplus gear with my rod bag and Efgeeco seatbox. Lots of coots and moorhens but very few other anglers, quiet and serene (apart from when tripping or speeding students showed up). I was I think one of very few academic staff who joined the club. Happy days. The staff fishing club is still there and I think they started stocking the lake with carp in the 80s and 90s, I don't remember seeing any back in my day.

[Santiago]

When I fished the big lake a few evenings after work until dark, I must have had it to myself most of the time. It was very rare to see any other angler. Anyways, they stocked it with just the right amount of carp since one still mostly caught tench and bream, yet I don't remember catching any rudd. The bigger lake also had a fair number of good pike in. I remember one early summers day walking around the lake during lunch and finding myself watching a big shoal of bream spawning right next to the bank, and a big pike attacking them but missing and almost banging into the bank, all right beneath my feet. Happy days and happy lunch times. I worked there for 9 years but I think I only fished there for a few years before discovering the Thames.