Happy Christmas

My first session in a while! It started off warm and dry!

Hi all and extended wishes for Crimbo! It's been rather quiet of late for me hence the lack of posts on here regarding anything relative to my fishing exploits! I've not fished in over four weeks since the trip to Springs and my final attempt at a 2014 barbel, which went awry....

Christmas was a quiet affair in our house and in the fortnight run up to the festive period both myself and my youngest Natasha had a very nasty vigilant strain of virus, which has yet to totally disappear even now!

To top this off, my beloved Audi decided to blow an actuator on it's turbo and runs like a bag of shite....it refuses to go over 3000 rpm and requires a whole new turbo unit to be fitted at the earliest of Jan 3rd! Not great!

My account was opened...8lb 8oz of winter common

Anyway, enough whinging.....time for the good stuff eh? Well, despite two failed attempts to get together with a client that I have made friends with over the past few weeks.

We finally managed to get it sorted for a meet up on Sunday and a 48 hr session on one of Wills local pools. I met up with Will, Pete and Kev at 7.30 am and we drove onto a crispy ice covered grass at the lake.

We spent a little while all choosing swims and after much debate I opted to fish against a nice little island at about 35 yards. The lake is a shallow pool of 4-5 feet with silty, clay covered bottom.

I couldn't find too many underwater features in front of me so I went for the obvious shelf of the island with 2 rods, 1 right up tight in 18 inches of water and the other at the bottom of the shelf with around 4 feet of depth. The 3rd rod was given a wide birth and presented at 40 yards into open water. This rod was given a maggot madussa rig, the middle rod, a single bottom bait and the island margin had a small 14mm bright pink Acid gum pop up on it.

A real corker of a winter common...immaculate in every way and at 18lb 1oz not a bad fish for the conditions!

It wasn't long before I had my first piece of action and a fish picked up the pink pop up and rattled off under the nearby willow tree....A few steady pulls saw him edge ever closer to the net and before he knew where he was, he was in the net. At 8lb 8oz it was never going to break any records but at least it broke my current duck!

What it's all about for me....brutally cold but so dam beautiful!

About 2 hours passed by and after loosing another fish on the same rod to a cut off of some sort, the same rod was yet again away with a much better fish this time. The slower plod of this fish told me that it was of a better stamp than that of the turbo charged common I'd banked earlier! I wasn't wrong as a few minutes later a stunning winter gold common of 18lb 1ozs sat having its picture taken! Another result for the pink pop up! I managed a 4lb'ish bream a bit later on on the mag rig before things went decidedly quieter for the evening....

Just a small one and my god was it cold out there!

The temperature fell away drastically down to about minus 5 or 6C. It felt very cold out there and I wasn't sure if the lake would freeze over or not? I settled down early on and awoke around 11pm. I decided to take a few late night long exposure snaps with my camera. These turned out pretty well.

I managed to nod back off around 2am to be rudely awoken again some half hour later bu a small 7lb common on the middle rod. I had fun getting this guy in as the net was frozen, the rod and reel were frozen and even the fox bobbin was frozen to the line! I took a mat photo to prove it's capture and slipped it back quickly.

12lb 4oz gold bullion from under the ice!

My next recollection was at around 11am!!! My left hand rod suddenly let out a one tone blast! I ripped open the sleeping bag and grabbed one of my Skeetex boots and missed the other one completely! I fell forward out the bivvy into the icy grass with one boot on and the other in my right hand!

I wobbled around in a very sleep stoned manner for a few seconds before then falling arse over tit onto the ice covered grass....all this much to the hilarity of my fellow angling buddies who were watching in amusement from further down the bank. 

After another spirited battle, a nice common of 12lb 4oz found the spreader block and made it 4 for the session. Not bad considering that my swim and pretty much the rest of the lake was now totally covered in a layer of thick ice. I decided that with overnight temps likely to hit minus 8 yet again that it was a futile attempt to stay on and try and fish another night. I left the lads in a quandary and headed home happy in the thoughts that I had managed a few nice winter carp in very tough conditions!

The icy conditions defeated me unfortunately....until next time!

At this point I'd like to say a big thanks to William Walker for the invite, his lovely cooked brekkie and of course his most excellent company! Kevin Childs for his brilliant taxiing on very tough surfaces!

Without which I would have had a very long walk!!! And finally to our most excellent Chef Peter Adams who put together the tastiest bank side curry with nans! Top work to all!
Thanks fellas and I look forward to our next installment together at some point.

Regards and happy new year to all of you
Keith x