08/01/09 - Bullock Farm - Rushcombe

Weight – 8lb 2oz
Catch – 54 Gold, Brown & White Goldfish, 1 Common Carp
Weather – Cold, mostly cloudy. Lake covered in thick ice.
Water Temp– 5.0c > 5.5c

You have to wonder why we do it? Instead of sitting at home in the warm, relaxing, I feel the need to go fishing in freezing conditions. The simple fact is I enjoy my fishing I want to go as often as possible.

So where to go? I considered going on the Avon at Lacock, but I wasn’t confident of catching in the current weather conditions. I also considered going to Horseshoe, but I was concerned that since the lake isn’t regularly fished the fish may have completely shut down. I settled on Rushcombe Lake at Bullocks, because it should provide regular bites.

When I arrived the ice was much thicker than expected, so much so that I could stand on it, although I didn’t stray to far the bank! I tried breaking the ice, but wasn’t getting very far. The aerator was on Match Lake, providing some ice free swims, but I decided to take the water temperature before setting up and it was only 2c. There was no way I was going to catch. All the aerator had done was circulate the cold water and proved what Tony & Des had said on Sunday at Viaduct. Checking the water temperature on Rushcombe revealed a water temperature of 5c, if only I could break the ice. At this point I spotted an overturned boat, next the shed, however it had a hole in the hull and didn’t look very sea worthy. Well I managed to break the ice to 4m, but I couldn’t push the boat beyond 4m because the boat was filling up with water and the ice was too thick.

Whilst I had a big hole to fish, I couldn’t fish any further than 4m and the swim was only 2ft deep. I only set up 1 rig, Jolly 4x10, .08 bottom and 22 silver fish hook. Initially I feed black lake slop, but felt I could overfeeding the swim, so soon switched to feeding red atomic cloud, plus a few pinkies every 2 or 3 fish. The water was clear and only being shallow I needed to patient.

After the 1st hour I had 8 fish, so I decided to target 60 fish for my 5 hour session. As the session progressed, I decided to set up a 2nd swim to the left of the 1st and I began to swap left & right to keep the fish coming.

1st hr = 8 fish, 2nd hr = 14, 3rd hr = 8, 4th hr = 12, 5th hr = 13

Best bait on the day was single red pinkie or maggot. The float had to dotted right down to see the bites and I lost a couple of fish, due to the fish being lightly hooked, but at least I caught.