Coston Lakes is one of the best day-ticket carp fisheries Norfolk You can only get to it through a padlocked gate during daylight hours, and you must not enter or leave the site once night falls.
All the paths and banks are well-maintained, and there are excellent facilities—including a lovely wooden lodge with a microwave, fridge, shower and toilet. Each swim is properly built so that bivvying up on flat dry surfaces will never pose an issue at any time of year. Also, the use of a barrow would be handy to get around to some of the further swims.
You must book tickets in advance, and at this point, you’ll be provided with both the postcode for the venue and its combination gate. There’s a strict limit on how many anglers are permitted—simply turning up to fish is not allowed.
The venue is a figure-eight shape, with two smaller lakes connected by a narrow channel. There are 14 swims spread across its 8 acres and all offer access to areas Of non-fishing banks, snags or open water. Due to the healthy stocking, you should find that you will be in with a chance of a fish or two in every swim.
The water tends to be fairly clear and depths vary from 4ft down to around 10ft at its deepest. The lake bed is firm all over, so most rigs will be effective. If you are fishing between the two lakes, you can cast to the non-fishing bank and walk around to bait up by hand over the top.
Historically, this lake has produced the best catches with large amounts of bait in them. However, in more recent years fish have become wary of that and casting at showing fish or using smaller patches is now considered most effective.
It’s been shown that PVA bags of pellet or crushed boilie positioned along the treeline or snaggy areas are most productive. Through trial and error, my friend landed a 20-pound mirror on a zig rig with plain old black foam. My other fishing buddies recommend yellow single pop-ups fished on chod rigs cast around the swim or at showing fish as worked well for them too.
The vast majority of carp are common, but there are still plenty of mirrors. Some real beauties and dark fish too. Plus a few ghosties; including some big ones pushing over 30lb! There are a few large mirrors here at Coston Lakes which hang around in the 30s all year round, but I was lucky enough to spot one cracking mirror that looked like it belonged in the mid-30. The mirror was dark and deep, so no doubt I think this lake holds some unknown fish
There is also a large head of carp present, along with some stunning Roach that goes up to 3 lbs. There are some rules in place including a ban on peanuts and a minimum line-breaking strain of 12lb (or .30 mm diameter) no leaders or braided mainline
The minimum length of a ticket is 24 hours, and you can also book the lake at a cost of £280 for 24hrs
On the left-hand side of the site is the Bungalow Lake, which is an exclusive syndicate venue packed with the 20s and topped by a stunning 40lb common. You must not walk around Bungalow Lake unless you are a member of the lease-holding syndicate, or else you will be asked to leave and subsequently banned from ever coming back. Check out this video from Wetlines on YouTube, they have an excellent channel, so check them out
Why don’t you give Coston Lakes a try and see why it’s one of the best carp fishing lakes in Norfolk.
Lake Size: Around 8 acres
Lake Record: 40lbs
Stock: Majority Large Carp, some larger roach
Contact: Alan Thomson:- 01603 759770 or 01603 759624 Mobile – 07711689186
Address: Church Ln, Woodlands, Norfolk, NR9 4DT, United Kingdom
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