Norton Disney Pettitt's Lake Essential Tips

Lakes Beginner

Korda Koach Rob Burgess, has been fishing the Norton complex since it first opened and has built up a wealth of knowledge on the complex. He specialises in helping others get the most from the sessions and here, we asked him his top tips for Pettitt's Lake.

Pettitt's is the specimen lake of the complex, and at 16 acres, it holds 250 carp including a big head of 30lb’ers, so many so, we can’t put an exact number on it. As it stands whilst writing this in the autumn of 2022, one in four fish is a 30lber, which for a day ticket fishery is an incredible stat. Behind the 30’s, there is a great back up of 20lb’ers to go at.

Pettitt's Depth Map

Pettitt's Swim Map

Pegs 5,6,7 and 8 are the deeper pegs, that fish very well through the later months and into winter, with peg 7 in particular fishing very well throughout. Up to around 100 yards, the depth here is fairly uniform, with firm silt covering most of the bottom.

Pegs 1-4 are your spring and summer areas. They offer plenty of features, with an almost egg box bottom. Shallow bars, plateaus and deeper channels occupy these swims, making for some really interesting fishing. Depths can vary in these swims from 4ft to 15ft, so a marker float becomes a really useful tool.

Bait wise, you are restricted to boilie, pellet and corn in the summer months. Pure corn can be a highly effective method, with double fake corn a real winner. Crumb and chops is also another option, and of course pellet, which they absolutely love through the summer.

In the heigh of summer, it can get weedy in places, such as the shallow bars and plateaus, so leading around and fishing to the clean patches will work to your advantage, as will fishing low lying pop ups on spinner rigs with Heli Safes, ensuring you are presented.

As a rule, you are often spot fishing, so the marker float is a great tool, fishing tightly to areas you find, be that shallow humps or gravel bars.

Yellow, pink and match the hatch hookbaits have all worked really well for me and each has its day.

My biggest piece of advice with Pettitts, is getting on a new wind. If you can see a change of wind, getting into a swim before the wind change and having rods ready for when the wind swings in, is huge edge! The carp always seem to get on a new wind, where they are often very catchable. Once the wind has been blowing for a few days, they’ll often back off it, but those first few hours or days of a new wind is the stuff of dreams on Pettitt's!