Fur & Feather - Sunday 2nd December

What can you say - it's nearly Christmas, where's the year gone! The Arctic blast arrived, albeit not quite as bad as perhaps it looked last week. Still, I arrived with my nice "new" ice breaker (made over a year ago, but yet to be used after not fishing last winter!). At the draw I was told I wouldn't need it - there were only three or four pegs round the back of the island with ice. Guess where I found myself heading? Yup, you guessed it! Peg 53 on the old lake (the first time I've drawn on that lake in the Christmas match) - in the shade, and first peg in the ice!

Peg 53 actually won last weeks match on the lake - but it was pretty mild, and they were sat in a gap of ten empty pegs! No such luxury today with all the pegs in that area in. I put my box down and started to clear the ice where my nets would go, then the ice in my right hand margin to allow me to have a line there. I levelled my box, got up to get my silvers net and the ice holes were already freezing up again! Great.

The left hand side of my peg was ice free, and with a small lilly bed at 6m with about 4ft of water next to it (about the deepest the peg gets) I hoped I could nobble a few roach here. The gear was a compromise - the roach don't tend to be too fussy so a rig with a .09 hook-link and a size 20 hook was for here. The float was a 4x12 Preston Chianti, and the lakky was 9h. I'd put up a rig to fish at 11m slightly to my right at about 1 O'clock, but where I'd cleared the ice there (cut with the cupping kit and pushed under) was re-frozen too! I left it for when the ice (hopefully) cleared, and set up a rig for the island. I could fish slightly to my left on the island, on the edge of the ice, not where I wanted to get really, but pointless clearing as any holes I made re-froze! I wasn't going to feed the island anyway, just dob along it and hope against hope really! The last two rigs were finished on .12 hook-links and size 18 hooks, with the lakky being Preston 11h. Optimistic really.

I started the match flicking odd casters and maggots to the lillys, while going across on punch hoping to find one carp stupid enough to be in the shallowest, coldest part of the lake. There weren't any! Nor were there any roach too.

On some days you just feel there are no fish there, and yesterday was one of those! For the first three hours the peg carried on re-freezing any areas I tried to keep clear, the only thing that stopped it was on the occasions the breeze picked up, but that cut right through me instead. Eventually the sun found the water and it stopped freezing with ninety minutes to go (it never really got on to me with the tree's!), but I never had a bite. When the sun dropped off the water with twenty minutes to go I packed up, rather fed up! The peg to my left finished the same (not surprised given the amount of likky they fed, most of which floated up to the edge of the ice in my peg!). The peg to my right had two tiny roach fishing up to a bramble bush hanging in the water in the edge, while the others who were totally iced in blanked too - I think seven of us on that lake suffered the same fate!

To rub it in, when I wanted to get back to the barn to warm up I had the scales. I wasn't supposed to be weighing, but those that were meant to be weighing left the draw without taking them. I volunteered to take them up to the lake to those that had drawn them, but as soon as the one remaining person who was meant to have them weighed they cleared off, leaving me to do it!

I was practically the last back to the barn, and just managed to get a sausage roll and a mince pie before they were all scoffed. The cup of tea was most welcomed, as I'd had little else to do all day other than drink my flask! When I eventually got to the prize table I was sorely tempted to take some of the booze that was still there to drown my sorrows, but instead I took the box of Thorntons chocolates to give to the wife - that made her day, even if I'd had a crap one! I used to like winter fishing, but the last couple of weeks have been dire now, and I've not really had much enjoyment from it. Hopefully a change in luck at the draw bag is on the way!