Part of a former 80-acre beef and sheep farm, Broad Acres Fishery has been developed since the early 1990s into a four pool match and pleasure venue with its own clubhouse cafe and ladies and gents toilets.

Much of the fishery is suitable for disabled anglers and there is ample car parking a short walk from the pools.

Broad Acres' new Lakeview Cafe (right and below left) is run by Mandy Morgan and provides a range of hot and cold food and drinks including All Day Breakfasts, a selection of burgers, hot dogs, hot and cold sandwiches, toasted snacks and confectionery.

Facilities were further improved for 2017 with the refurbishment of the ladies and gents toilets and the creation of an outside covered seating area at the cafe and the provision of a hard standing car park near Main Pool.

Main Lake, the original and largest of the Broad Acres waters, is well stocked with a range of carp and silver fish with the carp running to 30lbs and plenty of fish in the mid 20s now showing.

These are the venue's original stock fish.

Since the beginning of 2016 Main Lake is now kept purely for pleasure and carp anglers, although matches which have already been booked on the lake will be honoured.

Excavated in 1992 and opened to anglers the following year, Main Lake is a mixed pleasure and carp water where night fishing is allowed by prior arrangement.

Stock Pool, which was enlarged in the late 1990s, is home to carp to 30lbs and also has a large head of silver fish.

The other two waters - Charlie's Pool and Bill's Pool (below right) - were both created in 1999 with help from Billy Makin who developed the highly successful Makin's Fishery at Wolvey to the north of Coventry.

Stock in both these waters were supplemented during the 2016/2017 winter with the addition of 700lbs of F1 carp between two an eigh ounces in Bill's Pool and 500lbs of F1s of a similar size in Charlie's Pool.

These fish feed well in winter and will improve the year round fishing and help to improve the match fishing on both waters.

Charlie's and Bill's pools both have three islands running down their length with 11 metres of water between each island.

Stocked with smaller fish than the other two waters, these are ideal for club matches and pleasure pole fishing.

An indication of how well the match angling can be at Broad Acres can be judged by the fact that the venue match record, set from Stock Pool in 2015 with an all-carp catch which weighed in at 286lbs, was broken in August 2016 when Andy Checkits took a 304lb 12oz bag from the same water when fishing a Rocklands Angling Club match.

Andy fished pole down the edge in one foot of water on Stock Pool using 0.

16 line, Size 12 hook and a 0.

2 grm float.

Using bread flake on the hook he fed two kilos of mashed bread to keep the fish going to end the match with a net which consisted mainly of 1lb 8oz to 4lb carp but also included one fish of 17lb 14oz during a match in which several double figure carp were caught - the next biggest weighing in at 16lb 10oz.

Finishing second was Antony Carter with 187lb 14oz followed by Steve Reynolds with 138lb 2oz.

The record for Main Lake was set by Richard Chatwin at 186lbs from Peg 13.

This beat the previous record, set in late 2007 by Scott Smith with an all - carp catch which weighed in at 163lbs whilst fishing a Triplex AC match.

Scott is proving to be a very capable angler and is taking after his father Clive Smith who was an England International.

He fished a 16m pole on Peg 23 on Main Lake and fed his swim with Broad Acres pellets.

Other great Broad Acres match catches include the one by John Harris (pictured left) who had a mainly carp bag which weighed in at 126lbs.

On this occasion John fed with casters and fished meat on the hook from Peg 6 on Main Lake.

Currently anglers need more than 80lbs of fish to be in the prizes whilst those with 50lbs usually come nowhere!Over the past few years Broad Acres has held a series of pre-booked night fishing sessions on Main Lake which have proved very popular.

These will again be held in 2017 and anglers interested in taking part are asked to telephone 07866 721141 or contact Pete Rice on 07510 697224 after 5.

30pm.

Broad Acres has also relaxed its rules on permitted baits, allowing for the first time coarse fish feeder pellets and soft hooker pellets to be used.

Anglers can also purchase Broad Acres' own 'fish friendly' pellets from the on-site cafe.

As with many other fisheries, anglers are not allowed to use floating baits or keepnets whilst the list of permitted baits includes luncheon and flavoured meats, maggots, casters, sweetcorn, bread, cat meat, prawns and worms, as long as they are washed and do not contain peat.

The only other restrictions are that anglers should use no more than 2kg of groundbait at a session and there is a maximum hook size of Size 10.

Broad Acres Fishery is operated by Broad Acres Leisure Ltd.