At last, the joys of being a postman over the Christmas period are behind me and I can finally concentrate on some fishing.  The weather is extremely cold but I am a believer of angling when you can, not when the weather is at its best.

The lake I have decided to fish for the next 2 nights is about a 3 hours drive down to the south coast, its about 60 acres in size and holds some very large fish. This type of water wouldn’t be my normal winter choice due to its size and low stock, but after speaking to a few regulars during the year I have found out that hardly anyone really fishes it through the colder months but the ones that have in the past have managed to winkle a few out during their time on here.

On arrival I find the car park empty and not a bivvy in sight (nice) so I get wrapped up and have a lap of the lake.  I decide to fish an open water swim that is quite central on the lake, it has some nice close in spots but more importantly there is a deeper area at range and this is where most sightings of carp occur in the winter months. This area also holds a lot of weed in the warmer months and if there is anything left of it I am sure the carp will visit the area no matter what the weather.

After a few casts with the marker it is obvious that there are still a few strands of weed on the spots, not a lot but its good green stuff not dead black smelly stuff.  I have caught all my fish in this throughout the year and decide that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  So with the marker in place and the spod clipped up its time to get some bait out. I have opted to spod out smaller food items such as crushed boilies, pigeon conditioner with some hemp, maggots and a few grains of corn, this is because a lot of these smaller items will get caught in the weed and look more appealing from above instead of getting buried out of sight.  It will also take the 5 million birds that reside here longer to polish off!  I will normally use anything between 3 and 15 spods per rod depending on the stock of fish and the amount of birds etc, putting too much in when feeding is minimal can do more harm than good.  If you are lucky enough to live local to your chosen venue the little and often approach is defiantly the way forward.

The hook bait will be maggots and due to the gin clear water these will be fished on fluorocarbon combi links.  This is by far my favourite winter tactic but unfortunately the nuisance species love it as well, don’t let this put you off because although this method can be a pain when your banking bream at 3 in the morning it can also be one of the most deadly winter methods there is.

The rods are out just before dark and the kettle goes on to warm up my freezing fingers.  The light is going fast but never switch off, even in the pitch black the carp can still give themselves away as I found out about 2 hours in to darkness when a fish crashed near the spots and spooked the birds. I waited and listened for a while after, but heard nothing else so got in the sleeping bag happy knowing that I wasn’t far away from at least 1 fish.

I was woke just before first light by the birds, they were going mad like they had done the night before when the fish had crashed.  Within minutes of this I started getting liners, quite savage ones at that.  This went on well in to the morning and I was sure that the nuisance fish had found the spod mix and were filling their boots, when the left hand rod received a few bleeps and pulled the line from the clip. I picked up the rod, held the spool and bent in to what I was sure was going to be a bream or a large rudd but was surprised when the fish started pulling back and taking line off the spool.

The fish took about 15 yards of line but after the first initial run I got it under control and started pumping it back towards me, it didn’t fight too hard until it reached the margin where it had 2 more runs toward a close in snag.  Thankfully it stopped short of it both times and it wasn’t long before it was in the net.  The fish was a nice chunky mirror with a scattering of scales down both sides, it went 1oz over 30lb and had definitely been on the spod mix as there was about 50 maggots and seeds all over the unhooking mat.  The camera was placed on the tri pod and some self takes were done before slipping her back.  The rest of the session ended quietly but I am sure with the right approach and bait application this particular area will produce more fish before the weather starts to warm up.

All to often on the lakes I have fished I hear about how hard the lake gets in winter and how it shuts up shop, then later in the conversation I hear that no one really fishes it in the colder months because its too difficult.  All lakes will be difficult and nothing will get caught if there is nobody there giving it a go, the more people angling through the winter the more fish will grace the bank.  So get ’em out.