On the way back from my Wye trip I called on an old friend in Moreton-in-Marsh, and after an excellent lunch went to try Lemington Lakes, a commercial fishery only a mile away. If nothing else it would be an interesting contrast to the Wye! I had seen a feature on the roach fishing there in an angling mag, though I think a lot of the roach have since been transferred from Westminster Lake to Priory Lake and Abbey Lake. After parking the car the first lake I came to was Abbey, and a carp angler told me he kept catching roach 'this big' on his soft mini pellets. I took his indication of length to mean about 12 oz. Sounded good. I then got confused and started fishing the tench lake till a lady came to check my ticket and advised me that I wasn't where I thought I was, but would bag up on big roach averaging a pound in no time in Priory Lake, which is really the crucian lake. Maybe I'm not the only one who is confused?!

Priory Lake is a small but extremely attractive lake, and it is from there that the lakes' best crucian came - from memory 3lb 5 oz. Well! Crucians, hefty roach and also some nice rudd - it sounded too good to be true. After putting in some roach specialty groundbait I started on float fished maggot, and my bait had scarcely hit the water before a fine 12oz roach was in the net. My disbelief evaporated - this is Shangri-la!

Alas, the next fish was a small perch, and it soon became clear that fishing maggot would not be feasible as small perch and tiny roach dominated the scene. I tried corn and bread. The first fish on bread was a nice 11oz roach-rudd hybrid (I think), but then some small tench up to 2lbs invaded the swim followed by...grrr!.. a horde of small commons of about 12 oz. I tried depth changes and bait changes to shake off these pests, but nothing availed and after 2 hours I decided to give up on Priory. I have no doubt there are good roach, rudd and crucians in there, but how on earth to target them? And why, why, why? These lakes are managed by people who know ten times more about fishing than me, but why stock a mass of small commons into a crucian lake?

On to Abbey. I had 40 minutes left. I decided to try maggot feeder as I was fishing into quite a strong wind. It was all action, with a bite about every 2 minutes, but I had great difficulty hooking them. I landed a couple of roach of about 8oz, plus one common of about 4lbs. These were wily roach who could get a maggot off a micro-barbed hook without giving any indication. It's interesting they came in on carp tackle. Certainly there were plenty of roach there.

Despite the frustrations with Priory Lake I found this an interesting set-up. The lady assured me there were 2lb roach in both lakes. Many commercials have good roach, of course. As to how Lemington compares I don't think my afternoon visit was enough to say.