John Wilson visited us and this is what he had to say in his Column in THE EXPRESS

"Once the centre of the iron industry, Ashdown Forest in mid-Sussex is now the most important lowland heath in the Southeast, affording spectacular views throughout its 6,000 acres.

Hidden among a profusion of colour and ancient trees is a 400-year-old lake that is one of the prettiest day-ticket trout fisheries I have visited.

Boringwheel Trout Fishery, a few miles south of Nutley, extends to more than six acres, with depths between three to nine feet.  It takes its name from a mill which provided power for boring out the gun barrel for warships.

Today the strong woodland springs which feed the lake are responsible for producing exciting sport on the fly for rainbow trout in an enchanting parkland setting.

With dense beds of yellow iris along the marginal shelf, where wooden stagings have been provided as casting platforms, and a carpet of buttercup yellow flowered dwarf pond lily offering surface shade, I just needed the trout to be co-operative.  And indeed they were.

From a mid-morning start in cloudy conditions I set up a floating line and long leader combination with a size-10 long-shank, goldhead, hares-ear nymph.  This produced consistent action from where the main lake narrows and bends around a promontory to form an attractive heavily wooded bay.

Most of the hits came to a slow figure-of-eight retrieve with the nymph just a couple of feet below the surface.

With the stocking policy at Boringwheel on the generous side, I landed several nice rainbows averaging between 2-2 1/2 lb but missed out on a whopper by being too eager.  The best fish I saw caught weighed about 8lb, though I understand there is always a chance of a double here.  These superbly shaped stock fish are supplied from Dorset trout farms owned by The Who rock legend Roger Daltrey, who is passionate about the quality of the rainbows he breeds.  Everything I caught had large, perfectly shaped tails and were extremely pretty, silver-sided trout which fought incredibly hard.  

After lunch I went out in one of the punts available to all visitors at no extra cost.  The sky had cleared and the sun had sent the trout down close to the bottom in a flat calm, so a change of tactics was called for.  I swapped the floating line for a sink tip and on the end of the long leader put up a black, leaded fritz nymph.  Those rainbow were certainly holding station close to the bottom in the cooler water and they were interested only in a slow retrieve.

So I waited 30 seconds for the sink tip to take the long cast and nymph down before commencing a painfully slow figure-of-eight, punctuated by an occasional erratic pull or long pause.  Takes were extremely bold and in most cases the nymph was way back inside the mouth.

The best trout of the day weighed somewhere between 3 1/2 - 4 lb and it fought twice as hard as many larger fish I've caught from clear-water fisheries."