carp location

[Anthony78]

Took a ride down to my local carp lake this morning hoping to spot a fish or two. When I arrived half the lake was being battered by the wind and the other half was covered in cat ice.

I didn't see any fish moving so my question is:-where would the fish be? In the wind or under the ice?

Ant

[carping_mad]

I think it depends on how long the Lake has been frozen for and where the deaper parts are

 

Somewhere around the deeper part definatly tho i reccon.

[CARPBUTT]

how big is your lake and how many fish does it hold also carp don't tend to throw themselves out of the water at this time of year so are very hard to spot the ones thst i have seen at my local lake tend to just head and shoulder and it makes them hard to spot

[rabster]

I've got to agree with the comments above re it's difficult to locate fish at this time of year.

 

I spent about 6 hours on the bank today, on my own so no distractions, other than a wren scrabbling about in the bankside flora the whole time I was there.

 

The wind was a quite strong, cold north easterly & there was a permanent ripple on the lake, other than in one or two sheltered areas.

 

Although I spent the whole time looking, I did not see any indication of where in the lake the fish were.

 

However I was lucky enough to land one fish, but very much felt it was a bonus, as it found me rather than it being down to watercraft.

 

I'm interested to know what anyone else does to locate fish in cold windy conditions like today, or is it just a case of finding a couple of carpy looking features & fishing to them, ringing the changes bait wise & hoping to get a result?

[Anthony78]

it is about an acre in size, averaging about 3 feet deep. The cat ice was over the deepest part of the lake. but the wind and sun was on the shallower part. thanks for your help.

[jeepster]

whats cat ice?

[Anthony78]

The very thin ice you get on the surface. If you break thick ice and it is still freezing you get that really thin ice that keeps sticking to your line. Dont really no why they call it cat ice though. Perhaps its because the little pattern it creates looks like cats wiskers. could be wrong though.

[carping_mad]

well i would wait a while till the ice has gone and then go down for a day and as has been said watch the water, but take a marker if nothing has been sited for a few hours go have a chuck around and find some nice features to bait up with particles, and keep them toped up with say 1/2 a k to 2k a week, works a treat on my water at the mo, and mine is roughly the same sorta size as yours,

 

What is the fish stock like?

[Anthony78]

fairly low, It is a day ticket lake with bream being the main species. There are a couple of decent carp in there up to 20lb. Take some finding though. They dont show themselves very often except in the summer, if you get there really early you can see them working the shallow areas sending up plumes of silt. Can get very buisy so dont think prebaiting would be a very good idea. There are some sunken trees in the deepest part of the lake so will probably concentrate on these untill they make themselves noticed again.

thanks for the advice.

Ant

[carping_mad]

i would go for strong lines around these trees and strong rigs maybe fish a stick mix of liquidised bread, and see if anything likes it?

 

All the best mate