With the March 1st bringing to the end my ticket for the Woolpack, it closed a really enjoyable winter campaign.
Fishing on lake 8, a 10 acre pit with plenty of dense weed and reedy/ snaggy margins, it made for some interesting fishing. Being a well-stocked lake, I knew there’d be a good chance of some winter action, and with the lake’s a-teamer being a deep grey looking mirror, approaching 50lb, I had a real buzz for the place.
Being just a few miles down the road, I was able to regularly get to the lake, keeping the bait trickling in, monitoring zones and getting trips in around work/family commitments.
To begin, the boilie approach scored well, keeping mobile and fishing for bites, with pouchfuls of bait over spinner rigs getting the bites. I came close to catching her, seeing her get caught just as I pulled into the lake, from a zone I’d been working. One of those things, but I kept going with the boilie, to just before Christmas, when we had our first cold spell and things slowed up. It was then I switched to boilie crumb, chops, corn and maggot, still fishing the spinners but with my favoured Pineapple Goo boosted 12mm pop ups alongside size 4 Kranks.
Even on the coldest of nights, I’d be getting amongst fish, at times catching 5 or more in a night. I picked off a few of the better ones, bagging a few of the old 30lb commons. It felt game on for the big-gun, so I kept plugging away.
I done a bit of filming with Danny, and managed a repeat of one of the old 30s, as well as plenty of the small stockys. Again, the maggot, crumb and corn combo was working well with the dull yellow hook baits over the top.
I kept the intensity up right the way through, in the end, I managed * bites through that winter, a really enjoyable spell but that biggun simply eluded me. In hindsight, I have a nasty feeling I may have lost her on my final morning, with a slow bite starting a strange, heavy fight, with the carp kiting beyond control into some marginal snaggery to my left. It was sickening to end it like that and I cant help but think what might have been. Still, near 100 bites through the winter, I really can’t complain.
Article reposted from Korda Mindset