Where’s Martham Pits Fishery?
Martham Pits Fishery runs adjacent to Martham Ferry and the River Ant. It’s a good complex and consists of four lakes. A pit, mostly people fishing for the carp, not a pole fishing lake really. B pit is a more mixed course and the Lake of choice today. C Pit is a match lake full of carp between 2-3LB, a very good lake if you’re new to the sport, and finally D Lake. I fished this lake a lot last summer and had some nice bream up to about 5/6lb.
Address: Riverside, Martham, Great Yarmouth NR29 4RG
What To Expect To Catch?
I expect to catch plenty of carp, mostly between the 2-3lb range, and can potentially go into the doubles. I expect to catch tench, mostly around 1-2lb, but it’s not uncommon for them to be over 4lb. Bream is the third most likely, they’ll come in regularly from the 1-2lb range. I’ve fished this lake a few times a year and can be very productive with nothing really complicated to know. There is some roach here, don’t expect to be overwhelmed with roach though
What Tactics Will I Be Using?
I was prepared to flick between the pole and a method feeder depending on what pegs were available at the time. If I could get anywhere near an island, I’d likely stick to the pole all day. The island pegs can be lethal and to be honest, are pretty snaggy which is why people tend to avoid them in this lake. I do like to take a risky approach to fishing, and I’d happily stick my rig somewhere most people wouldn’t dream. I’ll either fish with either an 8-10 elastic or a 12-14 depending on location.
What bait
The Weather Conditions?
Luckily it wasn’t raining and to begin with, it wasn’t that windy either. It was expected to be a little gusty, but nothing to be concerned about. A pretty cloudy day with little to no sun. Temp topped out around 9 Degrees with 25kmp gusts on and off.
The Full Report For Martham Pits Fishery?
Date 07/04/2023 – As normal, I’m up at 5am. Tea and breakfast as normal and ready to go for 6am. I’m fishing with my friend Gaz again today.
Just to start, for anybody reading that hasn’t ever been to Martham Pits before. You cannot buy your ticket at the bank, this will have to be purchased from the local Co-op. The price is £8 and can be used on any of the lakes. Address of coop (2 The Grn, Martham, Great Yarmouth NR29 4PA)
I stupidly didn’t check the bank holiday openings for the coop. It’s normally 6am, but today it was 7am. We arrived at around 6:20 so a pretty long wait. We spent the time talking about what to expect and how we’d be fishing. Normally with these chats, it’s a lot of waffle and a lot of complex plans we never really go through with. (Sounds like all fishing chats right?) So, 7am comes we get the ticket and by 07:10, we’re at the lake car park. From here, you can easily look over into the complex and see who’s around. Straight away, the peg I wanted was free. (See the main picture for peg location) It’s the pitch just to the right when you get to B pit. It’s about 9 m from the island.
By 07:45 the fishing started. Another mistake was leaving my catapult at home. No matter what people say, you can’t throw out 2 mm pellets, you’ll end up with bait all over the place and ruins your peg. I would have to use my cupping kit and whatever bait I could get into the pole cup. I started off with a very small amount of 2mm, I’d say about 20 and marked up about a ft off the left-hand side of the island. It was about 5ft here and very snaggy underwater. (Just how I like it)
Martham Pits B pit Carp caught on a pellet in very windy conditions up against the island
I started off fishing 6mm Corn pellets on the hook and almost immediately had my first fish. A small bream. Over the next hour I proceeded to catch tench no bigger then 2lb and some carp, the biggest was 4lb 2oz. The day was going well until about 11:30 when the WIND picked up. It was blowing from left to right of my swim. It was impossible to keep my bait still. I decided to bait a small area peg side of the island and allow my rig to drift from my original area slowly down the side of the island. This worked a treat, it was like the fish was all sitting next to that island. My rig was virtually on the island. If you do fish like this, my god, hit and hold on because it’s 50/50 if you get that out or not. I didn’t really keep my bait out longer than about 15 mins. Each time half a small pole cup of micros
I did switch between all the different baits I had and was catching consistently on them all. As always, If I had to pick one bait, It was the 6 mm Krill Spotted Finn Pellets. This is because I just prefer fishing banded pellets to soft hookables, they come off easily and fishing close to islands, you want something durable.
I didn’t really have a Barron spell like you mostly do during the midday, so ended up with around 65lbs of fish. The lake ended up being full due to the bank holiday and was the most people I’ve seen there in a while.
Conclusion
A good day’s fishing at Martham Pits Fishery. The wind was horrific and a lot worse than we were expecting. The peg I was in as discussed earlier, It’s a risky peg and can cause you a headache. I only lost two hook links today! (YAY) Both were from a big carp caught in the island on 6mm Pellets. If you’re reading this and want to have a punt at that peg, be my guest and let me know how you get on
I’m probably going to come back here in a couple of months and fish D pit. I prefer that lake as an evening session, fishing from 15:00-20:00. It’s never let me down, and you can start and end in peak fish feeding time, A method is always a winner for me.
If you’re after a Proper mixed-course lake, check out Taswood Lakes.
