09/01/11 - Fishponds

Weight – 101lb 13oz
Catch – 14 Carp
Weather – Frosty start. Sunny all day, cold breeze

My clubs Christmas match at Ivy House was postponed again, until next Sunday. To be honest I wasn’t too disappointed particularly after seeing the state of the lakes on Thursday.

Apparently our club water had been fishing OK and with no where else to go decided to give it a try. It had obviously been a bit wet overnight, before freezing, because the country roads leading to the lake were very slippery. 2mins from the lake I met a tractor complete with a fully laden shovel coming the other way. Although I was only doing 25/30mph I had no traction, despite the ABS and decided the grass verge was a better place to be than the front of the tractor. Fortunately no damage, except for a few bits of grass hanging from the undercarriage of the car, but I don’t mind saying it was a change of underpants moment.

There was still ice over ¼ of the lake, although it looked to be reasonably thin. Decided to fish peg 22 which was 1 of the pegs furthest away from the ice and provided plenty of open water. My intention was to chuck out the lead (which was already made up), whilst setting up the pole.

After 2 hours the pole was still in the bag, because I had bagged 9 carp already, mainly on double corn, but I also had fish on (meat) punched bread and quadruple maggot. Initially hadn’t fed anything, but as I had to wait longer for bites, switching to the pellet cone produced a couple of quick fish before the bites dried up.

Co-incidentally the breeze had changed from SW to a NW and it certainly felt colder as a large sheet of ice drifted my peg, which fortunately melted away after 30mins.

Another 1hr on the tip only produced a few liners, but it provided me with time to set a pole rig to fish pellet or corn. Action on the pole was slow, but I started to see more activity by pinging 4-6 4mm pellets every 5mins.

Biggest fish on the day was 12-2 on bread, plus 3 more doubles certainly helped push the weight up, proving a better day than expected.