Stocking, not overstocking
We put around 400lb into Willow each autumn and leave Oak Mere well alone. A lake that's rammed gives you a busy morning and nothing worth photographing.
Our story
It started with a flooded gravel pit
In 1984 my grandfather bought eleven acres of worked-out gravel workings on the edge of Marbury, mostly because nobody else wanted it. The first lake, what we now call Willow, filled itself over one very wet winter, and he stocked it with two hundred commons bought out of the back of a van.
Forty years on there are three waters, a cafe, a tackle shop and a syndicate with a waiting list. What hasn't changed is who runs it. It's still the family on the gate at six in the morning, still us cutting the swims back in March, and still us you'll get on the phone.
We're not the biggest fishery in the county and we're not trying to be. We'd rather have three lakes that fish properly than eight that are stocked to breaking point.
The fishery in numbers
- Established1984
- Total water7.7 acres
- Lakes3
- Pegs & swims42
- Lake record34lb 8oz mirror
- Syndicate members30
- StockedEvery autumn
- Open365 days a year
How we look after it
The bits that actually make a fishery
Fish welfare comes first
Unhooking mats and landing nets are compulsory, barbless or micro-barb only, and we close swims the moment we see a problem. There's a fish care station by the cafe with antiseptic and weigh slings.
Swims you can actually fish
Every peg is levelled, gravelled and cut back twice a season. Six pegs on Willow and four on Alder are wheelchair accessible with a hard path from the car park.
Gallery
A few from this season
Stills and drone footage shot on site, then edited and sized so they load fast. Catch shots, aerials, the cafe, the car park: whatever your fishery needs. The Landing Net shoots these too.
Come and have a look
Turn up any morning from six. If we're on the gate we'll walk you round the lakes.
You've been looking at an example
Willow Bank isn't real. Your fishery is.
This whole site was built by The Landing Net to show what a proper fishery website looks like. Yours would be designed around your lakes, your prices and your photos, from £250 setup and £14.99 a month.