On arrival to the lake there was already somebody fishing, after walking around the lake and talking to the gentleman who was just packing up, he told us that himself and another man had fished that night but due to the sub zero temperatures neither or them had seen a fish let alone had a bite. At that point we knew we had our work cut out for us. We left the bloke packing up and continued to walk around the lake we eventually came to the decision of fishing the low bank with the wind behind us and casting over to the far margin.
After that we walked back to the car, grabbed our gear and tossed a coin to choose the pegs. Lee won the toss and decided to fish the closer peg to us which was fine with me because that left me with the other peg which I had fished before. I chose to fish 3 rods the 1st would be a simple chod rig just chucked out down my right hand margin 2 or 3 rod lengths out. The 2nd would go out to the far margin to an over hanging tree using a stiff hinged rig popped up about 3inch off the bottom with a bright home-made pop-up. The 3rd would be cast to a baited spot which both me and lee would be able to fish to from our chosen pegs. On the baited area we would be using a nut based spod mix from Sour Tackle (I have had a number of fish off this through out the year so had great confidence in it). I would be fishing over this with a small combi rig with 2 bits of corn just sat above the bottom.
Before we put the rigs out onto the baited area we had a discussion of how we should actually apply the bait to the spot. Rather then going round and placing the bait on 1 large area (which we do in summer) we decided to spread a line of the nut particle along the margin over about a 30 yard space. Lee put a good few handfuls of his krill boilies over the top as he would be fishing a krill boilie on the hook. The idea behind this is if one of us got a bite the other could switch to the bait that had produced the bite.
After getting all that sorted we knew it was going to get dark and cold soon, we scrapped around and found any dry wood/leafage to get a good fire going in the pit. After 20 ish minutes we had the fire going and we were sat round having a cup of tea whilst Lee cooked us some sausage sandwiches discussing what would hopefully take place during the night. At about half six the wind picked up from the south east and the rain started to move in, so we both climbed into the bivvies to get settled down for the night.
I went through my usual routine for about half an hour of tying rigs and getting them ready for the eventuality of a bite, as tying new rigs with wet cold hands is never easy! According to the weather forecast the pressure would be at its lowest between 3am and 5am so I wasn’t expecting a bite until around that time. After lying there for about an hour listening to the wind and rain getting stronger and stronger by the minute I must of dozed off.
The next thing I knew I was awoken by a back drop on the left hand rod (the baited rod) after climbing out the sleeping bag I rushed out the door to pick up the rod and felt nothing. Started to reel back quickly as it was freezing and I was stood in tracky bottoms and a t-shirt, all of a sudden I felt a tug on the rod, the fish had obviously picked up the bait and moved straight towards me hence why I couldn’t feel it straight away. After giving lee a shout to tell him I was into a fish, he replied instantly with a shout of 'yes lad get in!' a few moments later he arrived beside me on the bank. I didn’t realise how cold it actually was until lee picked up the landing net which was frozen solid. He put the net in the water to defrost it and a few moments later the fish was in the net. A stunning mirror. The fight didn’t last long but as always in winter the fish tend to come in that little bit easier. We left the fish in the net for a moment whilst I went to get some warm clothes on, with the weather being so cold we didn’t want to mess about with the fish so we got it out placed it on the mat, un-hooked it straight away put some carp care on its mouth just to help with the healing and took a few quick pictures then slipped it straight back with as little stress to the fish as possible. The colours of the fish were exceptional as they generally are at this time of year.
Although cold both me and lee were over the moon, I got the rod back onto the spot while Lee made us a cup of tea. Whilst drinking the tea and scanning the horizon we saw the most amazing night sky so Lee took a couple of pics.
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