HOOKED ON QUALITY

Lemington Lakes near Moreton-in-Marsh is a premium coarse fishery with holiday accommodation, consisting of chalets, bed & breakfast as well as a caravan park. Situated on 60 acres of beautiful rolling terrain consisting of woodland, recreational grass and 20 acres of coarse fishing lakes and stock ponds, Lemington Lakes is surely one of the most beautiful fisheries in the area. The business has a sister-company - Cotswold Lake Supplies, that breeds and supplies an entire range of native coarse fish - including Carp, Roach, Rudd, Tench and Bream to name but a few, supplying other fishery businesses in the UK.

Owners Andy and Debbie Machin run the fishery and manage the upkeep of the grounds, year-round. Commented Andy, “I have one assistant, Jack, who helps my wife and I with the regular maintenance programme, keeping everything in top condition for our visitors. We run two John Deere X749 ride-on mowers with sixty-two inch (62”) cut mid-mounts, to keep on top of the grass and we mulch everything, so there’s nothing to collect. That means we can get through the twenty acres in around eight man hours. We use the smaller mowers, because we have a lot of tight access areas, narrow pathways and extreme undulating ground.  Although we need capacity, we also need to avoid anything too big. With the sixty-two inch decks we can deal with all the ground conditions without scalping and can also get across it reasonably quickly.”

The John Deere X749 is a four-wheel-drive and four-wheel steer mower with a 24hp Yanmar diesel engine and is capable of manoeuvring in even the most difficult of conditions. In addition to the ride-on mowers, Andy uses a John Deere 3036E Compact tractor with front-end loader and Ifor Williams trailer for dealing with movement of soil and materials while enhancing and improving the facilities at the fishery. “We used to have a diesel John Deer Gator,” commented Andy, “but decided to change it for an electric version, so it doesn’t disturb the anglers. That’s turned out to be a really good decision because our customers have commented on how quiet we are - even when we are working - that’s a comment that’s always nice to hear!  I get all my John Deere equipment from TAG at Hinton, because they have always provided us with excellent after-sales service. If we need them, they are with us at the drop of a hat.”

Andy and Debbie Machin purchased Lemington Lakes in 2003 and have made significant improvements to the facilities to provide an enjoyable recreational resource for their customers. “We’ve been John Deere ever-since we moved here,” added Andy, “it’s simply because they are such rugged and reliable machines that we rarely have any breakdown issues. It’s just a matter of normal servicing and blade sharpening.  We used the X748 for ten years prior to replacing them with the X749 and when we came to trade them in, found that we got an excellent residual value, far better than we would have got for other brands. Couple this with the service and support we get from Richard Ainslie and his team of very friendly staff at TAG, there is absolutely no reason for us to consider going anywhere else.”