Carpy Catch December 16

So, December hey, it has pretty much carried on where November left off to be honest, but hey ho here we go.

The first weekend was taken up with a practice session for a match at Witherington Farm, you can see the full blog hanging in the AAF Fur and feather blog that I posted last month. Needless to say I had a bad time of it.

Normality was soon restored when I was back on the Club lake the following weekend, I had been away for a couple of weeks and in this time most of the leaves were now on the lake bed so my hookbaits were changed from wafters to pop ups to try and overcome this.  It must have worked as at around 10 o’clock at night I was slipping the net under a low double common, I took this fish from a spot on which I had seen a fish show and then I found a good bottom to present a bait on in the area.  This time it was gravel.  I may have been done in the morning as well but I had been struggling with hook points loosing fights with the bottom of the lake so that may have been why the fish got away with it.  Lessons were learnt though.

The next week I was back down on the lake but the weather looked awful with high pressure and fog forecast, it didn’t disappoint.  On getting to the lake I did a walk around on the north bank hoping to see something, I did, loads of fish cruising in the shallow end but as someone was already on them I went back to the swim from the week before.  There were a few fish showing on the far bank so I cast across towards them. Unfortunately come about half ten at night it felt all wrong so I decided to move across to the far bank on a known winter swim.  The night passed without any other incident but come the morning liners started on both rods, I moved one closer to try and convert a bite but to no avail, it wasn’t until I was leaving that they gave themselves away in the surface layers so a zig would have been the way this time.  I also did a bit of a recce as I was leaving and saw loads of fish moving in certain areas so that was logged away for the next week.

So I decided to work on the info I had from the previous week on my next visit, and at the start of the session it seemed as though I had got it right as there were a few fish moving in the areas that I was fishing.  It was short lived however and even though I may have got done I did not get a proper bite in just over 24 hours.  I again moved in the evening to get onto showing fish but they just did the off laughing all the way.  I also fed a small bed of maggot to try and get a bite off anything, it didn’t work.  It was Christmas eve as I was finishing so I had an early off to get home and see the better half.

My next trip out was along the River Avon in Salisbury as the conditions were dead against me getting anywhere near a carp, I had a nice day fishing a liquidised bread feeder chasing the elusive roach that live in the stretch and finished the day with a chub, a dace, two trout and about a dozen Roach.  In all it was a nice break from staring at motionless bobbins.

The weather looked like it might have been improving for my next trip, I was wrong but I turned up at the lake to -4 degrees and a half frozen lake but as I was there I set up on the north bank in a sun trap.  I didn’t see a single sign all day and decided to move in the early evening down towards the deeper end of the lake, again 1 rod went under a snag and the other into open water, I may have seen something in the morning but it was not enough to make me return a day later.

New Year’s Day (not strictly December I know!)  I went back down the lakes and decided to set up on a small pre baited spot, the rods went straight out onto the spots, I waited, got bored, went for a walk, put the rods back out and blanked. Again.

So that was the end of 2016, total tally for the lake was 13 fish hooked 11 landed to 25lb so not too bad at all.

I wish you all a happy new year and may your bobbins twitch all year.