LAKE INFO

Olivemead Lake was initially constructed in the late 1960s to extract blue clay mineral deposits for constructing the adjacent M4 motorway. The excavation process removed tens of thousands of tonnes of blue clay from the lake’s bed, resulting in a bowl-shaped lake with depths of up to 29 feet in some places. This depth greatly harmed the lake’s ecosystem, including fish and wildlife. The lack of oxygen in the lake led to a decline in the population of invertebrates, such as shrimp and snails, which were the primary natural food source for all the fish that called Olivemead home. This, in turn, significantly impacted the carp and other fish in the lake, reducing their growth rate and causing dangerously low levels of dissolved oxygen.

In 2008, a decision was made to close the lake for 18 months and embark on a massive engineering challenge to create a new and improved Carp Anglers Lake that would appeal to modern-day carp anglers. The goal was to create a healthy and interesting environment for the fish that would provide underwater features to fish and plenty of topographical features to attract carp. Specific areas were designed within the 3-acre lake to appeal to carp and provide a more hospitable environment for them to reside in. After months of hard work, the new Olivemead Lake, now known as The Mead, was born in the spring of 2009.

Along with 120 of the original carp, we stocked 71 carp from Lana Springs Fish Farm, which were a cross between Horseshoe and Orchid Lakes fish strains and weighed between 11-14lb. Additionally, 20 carp from Mark Simmonds, all weighing over 20lb at the time, were also stocked. Over the next five years, the lake was netted twice. In 2011, any carp under 12lb were removed, and in the second netting in 2013, everything under 18lb was removed. We also removed over 3000lb of silverfish in total, as well as any small Tench and Pike that we no longer wanted this made a drastic reduction in the lake’s biomass, which then created the healthy and balanced fish population that is still maintained to this day.

Through close management and a comprehensive feeding program of only boilies, the carp in The Mead have thrived and grown steadily and huge. The environment is superb, and the lake looks like it’s been there for over a century or more. The reed and lily-lined margins are extremely picturesque, as are both central Islands, with very mature trees all around the lake, including Oak trees that are in excess of 150 years old.

The Mead has become South West England’s number one specimen carp holiday venue, now holding around 160 carp with over 90 different 20lb+ carp, 50 different 30’s, and 6 different 40’s, up to 47lb 2oz. The Mead probably holds more different 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s per acre of water than most well-known day ticket waters in the country.

🚨New 2024 stocking for The Top Lake🚨

On Thursday 4th April 2024, we had another stocking of fish; however, this time, it was for our 0.5-acre top lake stock pond. We stocked 43 young carp, again from Lana Springs Fish Farm, that are all of Emperor Lakes strain, and the breakdown of these future crackers are as follows:

20x C3s weighing in at between 6lb-8lb
18x C6s & C7s weighing in at between 25lb-just under 29lb
5x C6s & C7s weighing in at between 20lb-24lb

As most of our anglers who follow our Facebook page will know, most of the carp originally stocked from Lana Spring Fish Farm back in the early days of us owning ‘The Mead’ are hitting the high 20lb, 30lb, and even 40lb mark and are absolutely awesome looking carp. So when we wanted to empty our top stock pond, we knew where we wanted to go straight away, and the team at Lana Springs smashed it out of the park again by hand-picking some out-of-this-world carp for us, with superior quality, looks, immense scale patterns and of course the potential to grow to monster weights, for which we are eternally grateful.

As in everything we do here at Olivemead, we never go with the flow; following the crowd is just not in our DNA, but we do go with what we know our anglers will love, what we trust, and what we know will work for us. Here, you will see a picture of Scott, his Nephew, Albie and a named fish from Lana Springs called ‘Joshua’s Cousin’, this carp is an extremely rare scaley specimen, which ordinarily the Lana Springs Team would keep back to breed from. So if you are a carp enthusiast like we are, these awesome 43 carp are going to blow you away in the near future, with something for everyone to enjoy catching. See more pictures of all our other C6s & C7s down below such as ‘The Chosen One’ and ‘The Italian’ and some of our C3s.

ALL our C6s & C7s stocked in our Top Lake alongside ‘Joshua’s Cousin’ in April 2024