Harthill Reservoir, Sheffield

Sweetcorn is a massive edge at Harthill, for some reason it really turns them on, but a good mixture of different particle and a small amount of boilies works well too.

Rig Tips

My best sessions have all come on short d rigs of around 5 inches long and heavy leads of up to 5 oz.

D rigs using size 4 nash fang and 16lb fluorocarbon to a weed safety lead clip and a brown coated 5oz lead only set to drop off in weed would be my starting point rig wise.

I use this set up in conjunction with tight lines and a heavy stow bobbin to detect bites quick and also to get liners to indicate when fish are in the area.

Best Swims

The dam wall is always a favoured area as its deep and all manner of tactics can be used to catch the fish from heavy regular baiting on the bottom to zig rigs and surface fishing,

The other areas of the lake are too shallow for zigs so if they are up in the layers its harder to get them competitively feeding.

Harthill Reservoir Tips

When I have had big hits of fish – up to 50 fish in 24hrs – I have used corn and boilies mixed at a ratio of 80% corn and 10% 18mm rg baits prime and 10% 12mm rg baits prime.

The boilies give them good food source whilst the visual attraction of the corn gets the fish competitively feeding without filling them up, fished little but often almost makes it unfair on the fish!

Also pink squid 18mm wafters are the best hookbait by a long way.

Anglers turn up and don’t marker their swim incase they scare the fish this mistake costs people a lot of fish.

The fish in Harthill love noise and hard spots. I’ve found if you find a pee gravel spot and fish the close edge of that spot starting off with 10 spombs of bait and topping up at 15min intervals you can’t go far wrong.

Be careful of using ground bait on its own, it can be dangerous as bream are present in big numbers.

Walk round and try and find a large amount of fish in one area then marker up to find a hard spot (harder the better at this venue).

I would pre prepare a spod mix of corn and boilie on arrival at first light walk round and try and locate showing fish preferably a large shoal of carp as they can show all over the lake.

After you have chosen your swim marker up at a comfortable distance for you to spod and try and find a harder spot as mentioned previously.

The venue can be weedy in summer so marking up is imperative.

Once you have found that sweet spot wrap it up and apply 10 to 15 spods dependent on fish activity leave this for half an hour and prepare your rods.

Use the rigs mentioned previously with 3 different coloured hookbaits and wrap up to the spot.

Deploy the rods as tight as possible and top up the swim with 2 spods being as accurate as possible.

Keep the spot topped up with 1 spomb every 15mins and for the first 2 hours and when you start catching start topping up the swim accordingly to the amount of fish you catch.

In winter I’ve found fishing in the deeper water in the middle of the lake effective with similar tactics to the summer but far less bait starting with only a couple of spombs of bait and topping up with 1 spomb every 45mins.

If fish activity is low method feeders or solid bags can be an edge cast at showing fish or even next to the buoys.

Match style tactics, little and often feeding, zigs and surface fishing all produce fish. Jus start with what you feel confident with, give them some bait and keep it going in when you catch and the action can be prolific.