Sunday 20th December

Snow - it looks great in pictures and on cards, but is a nightmare for anything else! Predictably both lakes at Westside were frozen over but with a small turnout and the ice being a little thinner on lake 1 that's where the match was held. After the rigmarole of the ice breaking (and the death of my ice breaker, again!) pegs 11 to 18 were in the bag. I really wanted one of the lower numbers as that's where the roach tend to shoal up, a much more reliable target than carp I imagined. Typically I was as far away as it was possible to get on the day, with peg 18 in my hand. Normally a good draw but not when the carp probably wouldn't play ball.

As I started to plumb up it became apparent that the peg was freezing up again. At the time 14.5m was as far as I could reach but with no real depth difference than at 13m I fished there as it would be longer before the ice reached it! I also had a swim at 6m slightly to the right for later where it was a touch deeper. I have to be honest I wasn't really prepared for a bits match, the lightest elastic I had was a 10! With prospect of just catching 'wasp' perch I wasn't really fussed too much as you don't bump them! In the 5ft of water I had I used a 4x14 chianti on .12 mainline with a .10 hook link to an 18 B611, the lightest gear I had with me. I did put up a shorter rig in case I could get closer to the island later although I wasn't optimistic.

To cut a long story short I had 15 tiny perch, mostly from the 13m line although I did have a couple shorter. The longer I could leave the swim without clearing the ice the more bites I had, but the last two hours I was having to clear the lines every 20 minutes and so the bites went!

Predictably the first two pegs had roach, with 4lb 10oz winning and 2lb 7oz 2nd. My 'wasp nest' catch of 7oz was good enough for 3rd and took the fastest losers £7 from those that put there £1 in as the attendance wasn't large enough for the golden peg to go in.

I'll finish up by wishing those you you reading this a happy Christmas, especially to those among you I class as friends, and, just in case I don't fish next week a happy New Year too!