Happy New Year to everyone.
From Dec 18th 09 we have had all the lakes frozen over till the first fishing peg to de-frost on Friday 22nd Jan 2010, Wow was this a long spell for the lakes to be frozen and zero income! We have had no opens in this time and the first will be Wednesday 27th Jan then next Sunday 31st Jan.
With the partial de frost we are pleased that all fish caught are in excellent condition, this is with the benefit of 6 ft deep lakes, biomass being under risk levels, and controls over which baits are allowed to be fed (only Angels feed pellets, maggot, caster and worm). All these measures have meant no build up of gasses on the bottom of the lakes and allowed oxygen levels to remain high enough during the 6 weeks of being frozen and low water temperatures of .7 whilst frozen have ensured our fish are still healthy.
The ice was measured at its thickest at 12 inches thick, however nature is a magical thing and the ducks, moorhens, coots, etc all keep a patch of water ice free to ensure they have drinking and swimming patches of water, which also helped all the other birds to have drinking water available, as well as lots of other animals used the thickness of ice to walk across and drink from the holes.
When walking around the lakes in snow one can find great tracks from a huge range of wildlife, and it is amazing what wildlife is in abundance around the lakes.
We still have more than half of each lake frozen however at least some fishing can proceed, with silvers –Rudd, Roach, Bream, Skimmers, Ide, orfe and carp all being caught on maggot, with lighter tackle being the order of the day and smaller hooks, fishing dead depth and over depth working best, or up in the water on pole at about 11 metres out. Not a lot of fish being caught in these water temperatures, dusk being the best time for catches.
Water temperatures are 1 deg to 1.4 deg through the thermals at present. Although it is now de-frosting well and we anticipate ice-free lakes by mid-week and water temperature to rise a bit this week..
Sunday 24th Jan Big Waters match Lookout
Ambient temperature 2 deg, Mostly cloudy, humidity 93%, wind Calm, barometer 1021mb, moon phase waxing gibbous, water temperature 1 deg through to 1.4 deg, (with half lake still full of ice), ph 7.65, DO 5.65 ppm, mv 9.
Only had 18 pegs free out of 44 more than half of the lake was still frozen so anglers had to go on pegs next to each.
1st Steve Knowles 3lb 3oz peg 26
2nd peg 22 2lb 7oz
3rd peg 21 2lb 4oz
4th John Mitchell 9oz peg 8
5th peg 27 1oz
Only fish caught were on white maggot.
