Messingham Sands Fishery, Butterwick Road, Messingham, North Lincolnshire DN17 3PN

07900 265 981 – info@messinghamsands.co.uk

A Windy overnighter, 7am to 5pm next day, only 1 bivvy survived! May 2026

Messingham Sands South Lake was a bit of a milestone for me because this was my first proper overnighter, and I went into it with exactly the sort of expectations you would have for a venue like this. South and North Lakes are the two waters available for night fishing, with the venue being well known for carp to around 30lb and catfish to 50lb. Bookings run from 7am to 7am, and if nobody has booked the peg for the following day, you can apparently pay for a day ticket and carry on fishing.

I was joined by my brother for this one, and both of us were determined to push our personal bests and hopefully put a proper carp on the bank. The two night fishing pegs on South Lake are doubles, with enough room for between two and four anglers, so there is plenty of space if you are fishing with a mate. The slightly awkward part is that the opposite bank is still used by day ticket anglers, meaning you can have people fishing directly opposite you during the day. It is not necessarily a problem, but it does take away a little from the feeling of having the lake to yourself.

As it turned out, the fishing was a bit of a mixed bag, although I certainly cannot complain about my own results. My brother managed one smaller carp during the session, while I came away with two, a 15lb fish and a 19lb fish which was my new personal best at the time. For a first overnighter, I was absolutely delighted. There were also two anglers fishing at the other end of the lake who did not manage a fish, so between the four of us there were only three carp landed during the session. That gives you a fairly good idea of what I mean when I say this is not a venue where I would expect you to be pulling fish out all day and night.

And thankfully, there were no catfish either. I know they are a big attraction for some anglers, but personally, catching a 50lb catfish was not high on my agenda for my first overnight carp session!

The biggest problem we encountered was something I certainly did not expect from a night fishing peg: the surface was sand. Trying to secure a bivvy properly into sand is not particularly easy, and my little one man bivvy only survived because I went overboard with the extra pegs. My brother wasn’t so fortunate. One decent gust of wind sent his two man bivvy flying completely, leaving him sitting on the floor making rigs while presumably wondering where his shelter had disappeared to.

It got even better when we looked behind us and realised there was a raised grass bank with a street style sign displaying the name of the lake. His bivvy had managed to wrap itself around the sign, and the sharp metal promptly tore a hole straight through the side. That was pretty much him awake for the night.

Looking back, the sensible option would have been to leave the bivvies on the grass and use chairs on the lower sandy bank, but we hadn’t brought chairs for this trip and the lower bank was a good five foot drop. Climbing up and down that repeatedly in the dark would have been an injury waiting to happen, so we made do with what we had.

Away from our little bivvy disaster, the venue itself made a very good impression. There is a tackle shop on site where you pay on arrival, and there was a decent selection of fishing tackle available. There is also an on site café which looked extremely popular with the locals, which is usually a pretty good sign in itself. A full breakfast on arrival was exactly what we needed before getting settled in for the day, and there are also plenty of local food options if you don’t fancy cooking.

In fact, we took the easy option on the night and ordered a takeaway rather than dragging all the cooking equipment out. Sometimes fishing is about making life easier for yourself!

The venue was clean and generally well presented. We didn’t do our usual full walk around this time because we were settled into our own session, but the lakes are big and there is plenty of room. Some of the banks on the lake nearer the entrance appeared to be more basic grass verges, so I would expect the experience to vary depending on which lake and peg you end up on.

For me, Messingham Sands South Lake is definitely somewhere I would fish again. It has the fish to make it interesting, the facilities to make an overnight stay comfortable and enough space that you don’t feel like you are fishing on top of the next person. Just don’t make the mistake we did and assume that because it is a night fishing peg, your bivvy is going to stay where you put it!

I wouldn’t necessarily choose this as my first recommendation for taking the kids. This feels more like a venue for the angler who wants to put the hours in, target some better fish and accept that you might be staring at motionless bobbins for quite a while before something happens. There are decent carp in there and the possibility of a much bigger fish, but I wouldn’t arrive expecting constant action.

For a first overnighter, though, it was a brilliant introduction. Two carp on the bank, a new PB of 19lb and a brother whose bivvy nearly ended up in the next county. I’ll take that.