A Dream Week!
2008 DreamLakes 3, 4 & 5
Brian Atkins

I’ve been going to DreamLakes for many years now and I think I can say this was one of the best weeks me and my 3 friends have had!

It didn’t start too well with Paul’s van blowing up on the day before we were leaving and him not being able to come on the trip. So 3 of us set out on the Friday morning in Danny’s van getting a midday ferry from Dover. We had booked a hotel near the lakes for the Friday night so we could start out fresh on the Saturday morning for the lakes.

When we arrived we had a chat and a cup of tea with Matt the Head Bailiff and then had a walk around the lakes. We decided we would fish the lakes 3, 4 & 5, I decided that I fancied DL3 swim 8, there were 3 other anglers fishing this lake in swims 14 and 16 and the Bailiff Paul in the Bailiffs swim 11. Danny decided to fish DL5 swim 3 and Lee went for DL4 swim 3.

After spending some time setting up a car pulled up behind me, it was Paul who had driven through the night, his wife had felt sorry for him and let him use her car for the week, he set up in swim 3 on DL3.

Well, what a week…. I had the first fish about 4 o’clock on the Saturday afternoon, a 36lb common taken using a 12mm snowman rig with a pva bag of broken boilies cast to an area straight out in front about 60 yards where I had seen a few fish showing. I didn’t change tactics much during the week, not using too much bait - just enough, and taking 14 fish in the week: 4 x 40’s, 5 x 30’s, 3 x 20’s and 2 doubles, a couple of fish came from the left hand margin.

The best fish for me was a 45lb.8oz Personal Best common.

Paul had 8 fish with 3 x 40’s, 3 x 30’s and 2 doubles.

Lee on DL5 had 14 fish with 4 x 40’s, 4 x 30’s, 4 x 20’s and 2 doubles.

But it was Danny on DL4 that had the best of it with 58 fish 1 x 50, 8 x 40’s, loads of 30’s, 20’s and doubles with a couple of cats.

An excellent week for all of us with new PB’s - and we’ll all be back next year!
Since the boilie only rule at the DreamLakes catches have definitely improved with the fish getting bigger and bigger, only the week before we arrived Paul Beeston had caught the complex record from DreamLake 3 - a fantastic 67lb 5oz Common – awesome!

Cheers
Brian Atkins
2008 DreamLakes 3, 4 & 5