Sunday 12th December

After last weeks hard slog I was hoping that this week I'd manage to catch a fish! Despite some warmer weather we didn't manage to get rid of the ice though, with quite a sharp frost in the morning following a very pleasant day on Saturday- the weather really is against us at the moment!

With the typical low post Xmas match turnout (only 8 stayed) the ice was partially cleared quickly with the boat. Seven pegs on one bank in the late number pegs and peg 48 on the other bank- all pegs that weighed in last week. The one peg I didn't want was peg 48 as it's by far the shallowest peg and the sun barely touches the water on it. I suppose it's no real surprise then that it's the number I drew! Still, the one time the sun touched it was when I was taking the picture!


The ice was fairly well broken as the boat had been taken across to the other side from here so it took just two chucks of the ice breaker to clear the ice a touch to my left and let me fish in deeper water, and then my swim was pretty much ready. Two rigs were the order of the day, the first at 13m but towards the corner of the ice rather than the island. This was a 4x10 Preston Chianti in just over 3ft of water, on .12 line to a .10 hook-link and an 18 hook. Lakky was Preston 11h. The second rig was at 10m, again to my left on the edge of the ice. The water here was the deepest I could find at about 10cm deeper than the far line! Rig here was practically the same except on .12 direct and lakky was grey Hydro. The idea was corn here and maggot long. I was fishing pretty much just for a carp (but wouldn't complain at roach!) as a couple showed last week and the others also had holes cleared to allow them to fish long and I figured someone would catch one! Probably from the noted reed pegs as there were signs of carp there.


On the whistle I fed just two casters and the same of corn on the shorter line before trying long on an 8mm piece of punch without feeding there (yes, punch is now allowed again, hooray!) The punch gave no response so I switched to single maggot and set about dripping the odd maggot in long. To cut a long story short I grafted every bit as hard as last week, changing the shoting, trying different baits, working the rig, fishing up and laying line on the bottom but I never had a bite! Nobody else had a bite either until fifteen minutes before the match finished when one of the reed pegs actually had a fish- a bitterling! They went on to be the only catcher out of everybody with a haul of three bitterling and a roach in those last few minutes. We didn't bother t weigh them but my guess is less than 2oz for the lot of them! The only improvement over last week is I know I had a fish in my swim this week, as while fishing corn on the shorter line I'm sure I felt a fish brush the line as I lifted the rig, and this was followed about ten seconds later by the venues notorious monster ghostie swimming lazily past my keep net without a care in the world!


I'm not sure now when the next blog update will be, as to be honest I've had enough of ice breaking then working hard for no reward, and with the weather not looking like offering us a respite until the New Year I may skip the still water matches for a bit. If I need a fishing fix (no doubt I will!) between now and then I shall put some number 4's and 5's in my pole and visit some old river haunts with a few slices of bread and some punch crumb (now the collages have finished so there aren't thousands of rowers, grrr!), and yes, I do know how to catch a few fish from a river! So if I don't update this between now and then I'll wish everyone a great Christmas and a Happy New Year, and hopefully I'll pick up again with a hopefully un-weather interrupted winter league!