A Year on the Copse
By Cobey North
I didn’t go looking for the Yateley Copse Lake. I came across it in the spring of 2024 through a photograph that stopped me mid-scroll. Shoulders at 41lb, thick across the back, unmistakable. Then I saw the Orange at 36lb, all deep colours and full of history. Those two images were enough to plant the idea.
But the real pull came from my dad. He’d fished the Copse years ago, back when the banks were quieter and the anglers had etiquette. He talked about it like a place that had been long forgotten.
When I finally walked it myself, it was clear things had changed. It was busy, pressured, and full of young lads who moved fast, fished fast, and thought nothing of dropping a rig within metres of you. Swims like Stilts were impossible to target. It was one in, one out. Swims were sewn up by the constant pressure from anglers, but the history and the feel of the Copse was on another level.
The last lake on the East Complex, and the furthest away from the car park. At times a quiet lake, with charm and character, apart from the blue dye!
It wasn’t the Yateley Copse Lake of my old man’s stories. But it still had something, enough for me to want to spend my time there.
First Steps
My first few laps around the lake gave me a good idea of what was ahead. The weed was thick, hidden under the surface by barely 12 inches of water. I could tell straight away that if you weren’t careful, you’d be in it before you knew it.
I got a feel for the place over those first few trips. I realised almost every swim was taken. Everyone looked like they were waiting for someone else to blink, rods pinned on tight lines to the central gully that runs across the lake from the Dugout.
Two weeks later, I lapped the lake and dropped into Boards. After a lead about, I found a clearing at 40 yards and committed both rods to it.
Within an hour, one rod was away.
A small fully. My first Copse fish came as a relief more than anything. Early success can trick you into thinking you’ve cracked it.
Two more nights produced nothing. The Copse had made its point.
Dugout
The following week I got into Dugout, and things finally started to line up.
Across three nights I had:
- 27lb mirror at 7:25am
- 25lb common shortly after
- 14lb stocky on the final morning
All came from a clean silty strip among the weed, fished with wafters over Cell. Not a haul, but enough to feel like I’d found a thread worth pulling.
Autumn Crowds & the Quiet Bay
September slipped by without a session. It was too busy; my time is more important than bank-tramping in a pony swim. I hoped autumn would thin the crowds. It didn’t.
Desperate for a session, I ended up on the lake next door. I lost two fish, and I was listening to carp showing in a quiet bay that most people overlooked. At first light, I watched them head-and-shouldering in there. True to the Copse Lake, just as I went to pack up, someone dropped a bucket in the swim seconds before I was about to move in.
That moment stuck with me. The lake was busy, and the carp were in that bay in numbers.
The next week I was back in Dugout, and on the first night I had a 25lb dumpy common at 2am.
The fish were still showing in that quiet bay. At dawn, I crept round and found them feeding under a snag in the far corner, but I didn’t want to crash about and ruin it. I left them to it and decided to watch, wait, and see how best to fish it.
I baited the bay, then came back that evening and stuck it out in Dugout. I returned at first light, lowered a rig in, and had a 24lb dark old mirror from two rod-lengths out.
That was the moment the year changed direction. This little bay didn’t see anglers, it didn’t see bait, and it didn’t see much foot traffic either. You walk past this swim without a second’s thought. It doesn’t matter where you think the carp would be, if you see them, and more importantly you see them feeding, then it’s worth a shot.
Making the Bay Mine
I pre-baited again and returned the following week. Within half an hour I had a bite, then lost three in a row. Something’s wrong when you’re losing three fish on the bounce, and sometimes a simple change of hook link is all it takes. I moved away from a stiff fluorocarbon to a coated braid. A few more small changes and I was back on form.
The results came quickly:
- 20lb mirror at first light
- A week later, an upper-double common, and a 19lb linear
I came back a week later and woke to a bite at midnight. Getting out of the bag, I had a migraine splitting my head in two. The hook pulled and I lost the fish. With my head raging, I contemplated going home. I couldn’t leave when the fish were there, so I lay in the bag. I got the rods back out at noon and, at 6pm, the rod went again.
My first 30 from the lake. 30lb 8oz mirror.
The next morning brought a 28lb mirror.
It was late October. The water cooled. The bay slowed. I had one more blank session, and then I stepped away.
Winter
November gave me a mid-20 mirror and a few stockies.
December was lost to work. January was lost to the lake. There was no sign of life. I ground out a few sessions, but nothing.
I’d heard the Copse had winter form, but it felt empty, not dead, just absent. I moved constantly trying to find signs of life, but the lake gave me nothing.
Not until mid-February.
Even with the February sunshine, most anglers were still at home. I moved into Stilts and had a 29lb 8oz mirror, a recapture I’d had earlier from Dugout.
The next night I had a 20lb half-lin on a single, naked chod.
But the real clue came from sound, not sight: fish showing again in that quiet bay.
A warm day helped. I baited the old spot under the willow with a handful of bait and returned the following week.
That night I had another recapture, the same 30lb mirror.
The bay was waking up.
March
Early March gave me a 15lb mid-double from under the willow. Not a big fish, but a confirmation. They were getting in there and I was ready for them.
I knew I was close.
In autumn I’d seen shapes in that bay I couldn’t quite identify: the numbers, the behaviour, the way they fed. I was sure the bigger ones were getting in there, and it all pointed towards Shoulders.
The water was warming. We’d had a nice little spell at the end of February. I put half a kilo in the day before, and that morning at the tackle shop someone mentioned they’d seen fish feeding in the bay.
I drove straight to the lake.
When I arrived, they were still there, feeding on my spot. I waited until they drifted off before lowering in a yellow 13mm Cell dumbbell wafter with Cell and sweetcorn scattered over the top.
Hours passed. I dozed. Woke at 2pm. Put the kettle on.
Then the rod pulled up tight, leaning left, half out of the alarm head.
The fight was chaos, a fish that refused to be predicted. Twice it tried to get round the islands. Four times it came up for the net. This old beast had seen a net before ! As soon as I even looked at the net, it bolted.
When it finally rolled over, head breaking the surface, it was definite surrender.
Looking into the net, it was hard not to let out a cheer. You know that feeling when you’ve got the one you want: the wait is over, and the buzz is so intense everything goes into hyper mode.
Shoulders was mine. The fish that had started the whole thing.
A Copse Lake Reflection
“It’s so busy,” I kept saying afterwards. “I’d have loved to stay on for the Orange, but it’s just too much.”
The truth is simpler: I got what I came for.
A year on the Yateley Copse taught me that pressured lakes don’t reward aggression. They reward attention. The willingness to step sideways into the places everyone else walks past. The discipline to keep a good thing quiet. The patience to let a pattern build rather than force one.
Catching your target fish in March feels so sweet. I could move on, and by April I was on to a new lake, a new challenge, and a fresh start.