Furnace Lakes:
Telephone: 01403 791163
Fax: 01403 791804
‘Furnace Lakes, are a brilliant venue for pleasure anglers and big Carp fishing alike.
The lakes consist of two, 300 hundred year old, well established lakes set in scenic Sussex woodland.
Fishing Lodge, full use of microwave, sink with hot and cold water, free tea and coffee provided (serve yourself), toilet and washing facilities.’
The brochure makes some rather valid points, stressing as you would expect the rare facilities to be found, what it doesn’t say and perhaps should is that the ‘scenic Sussex woodland’ is some of the noisiest and inhospitable you could find. Either the wildlife in these parts is of a slightly unusual nature or the locals have been kicked of all the other self-respecting fisheries going. It’s more like your average motorway truck stop than a peaceful setting for a bit of fishing.
O.k, O.k now it could be that we at CarpSlags hit upon the lakes a rather bad time, but unfortunately due to work commitments we have to do the majority of our fishing at the weekends. Not dissimilar to those fishing habits of most of our readers. This might not sound fair but you would have to be there to believe it. We arrived on the lakes on the Saturday afternoon of the bank holiday weekend just after Easter, the intention being to give two nights to the cause and leave early afternoon on the Monday. Just to be fair I should say that during our visit to the lakes the previous weekend there did appear to be rather fewer anglers but the owner did assure me that he was expecting there to around thirty anglers staying to do the night. There are currently three lakes open, the two originals, one of six acres feeding the smaller lake of two and a half acres via a steep water chute giving a difference in height of around twenty feet between the banks of the large lake and those of the smaller one. The latest addition being a smaller lake of around one acre, which had at least seven people camped out in bivvies! Eh?, Exactly.
There is to be a fourth lake which is being completed currently which will be a much larger lake, although the owner seemed very vague as to whether it would be larger than the one acre lake or larger than his large lake, I’m not sure I think we were boring him by this stage. Anyway back to the fishing, which seemed reasonably priced in an area which seems to charge twice the price compared to everywhere else ( please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong( very rare )). We managed to find ourselves a spot down at the far end of the larger original lake, our reasoning behind choosing this larger of the two was mainly due to its stock, it is reputed to have quite a number of reasonable sized fish with a few twenties and at least one thirty. You could quite easily be mistaken into thinking we are only out to catch monsters, this isn’t true, if it was the case then there are literally dozens of waters around our area (Surrey) which we could sit on in the pursuit of those elusive lumps.
O.k, the lake chosen, the swim picked mainly due to the lack of choice, we didn’t want to fish opposite the huge row of other carp anglers simply because the lakes only about seventy yards wide at its widest. We are of course well aware of our margins before anyone emails me and states the obvious. But when they’re lobbing leads in every five minutes around your ear holes it begins to take the piss. You could be forced into thinking that we didn’t see any fish come out during our stay, simply by what I’ve written so far but we did catch and we did see many other anglers catch to, so we’re not moaning about the fishing as such. Even though the fish were generally of the five to eight pound region. One chap to our left by some hundred or so yards did catch one that went twelve and a quarter pounds, which we got to hear about continually for the next hour or so at around one hundred or so decibels. This is where we began to realise that we may have made a mistake, opposite is a charming array of lads between about twelve and fourteen, definitely no older. They are doing the traditional style fishing of this age group by wandering about aimlessly, occasionally stopping to put a hook in the water or shout to their mate about the huge carp that just snapped them up. In fact all around our end of the lake are youngish kids and some older teenagers of the old enough to drive variety. We are basking in the knowledge that these kids will have to be gone by dark because of there age, guess again. They are still shouting and screaming and laughing at one in the morning, at this point we have already decided to do only the one night, quitters you say? No during the course of the evening our end of the lake must have had fifty visitors! Whether they were just on their way to make free tea or coffee we couldn’t be sure but the fact they all had beer cans in their hands rather suggests against it.
All in all it was an unbelievable venue, with over fifteen years of fishing under my belt over ten of which have been in the pursuit of Carp I’ve not seen anything that came close, most people you meet on the bank really enjoy the serenity and peaceful surroundings whether it’s just from being away from work or the other half. We’re all up for a bit of a laugh and a social when we go fishing in a group, we wouldn’t dream of expecting everyone to be dead quite as soon as it gets dark but this place was unreal, maybe we’ll go back and give it another chance but that’s going to be a long while from now.
Now winging aside there were a lot of fish coming out, so this isn’t a moan about the quality of the fishing, we enjoyed that aspect very much, the waters look very appealing and the surrounding woodlands and banks are obviously well cared for, but the idiots camping (surely not fishing) around the site spoiled its potential. We spoke to people who’ve fished it in the past before we went and the place had their blessing. Who knows when you go it may be a completely different place to the one we upped and left!
So next time you stop for petrol in one of those major travel stops on the M1 take a minute to absorb the scene, if you like what you see then check out FURNARSE LAKES!!!
Jut & Andy (CarpSlags)
P.S. check out the pictures, they are outstanding!!!!