Winter fishing is so hard, do you bother ?

[RUDD]

All this talk of cold though? what cold? Not had to put my thermal one piece on once this year yet! And that includes some night time Zedding!

 

I know what you mean - I have not once had to put on my low alpine thermals or even my sundridge heavy weight jacket.

 

Yesterday I sat with the wind in my face at ladywood and still did not need to put on the heavyweight - just a fleece.

[Anderoo]

I bought a new sleeping bag on Saturday from the army surplus store (toasty warm to -12!) for my zander trip this weekend, check the weather this morning and it's supposed to be 10 degrees C! Looks like I'll be taking shorts too...!

[chelmerpaul]

Had a couple of days off this week - half-term and promised to take my boy fishing. Raining persistently on Monday - the main river about to burst it's banks, bombing through and the colour of chocolate. We decided to fish a small canalised section off of the main flow. Got a thorough soaking, but reasonable sport with some decent roach deciding to make an appearance in the coloured and overcast conditions. No perch though, until the late afternoon when my son caught his PB - a lovely 2lb fish - he was well chuffed.

The next day (Tues.) the river was right over it's banks and flooding, but once again, the canal was fishable. No rain and a lot brighter (warmer!). Funnily enough, the sport was not as good with only a few smaller roach interested. However, mid-afternoon I was fishing around 3 feet from the bank and my pole float shot under. The way my elastic was stretched to the limit, I knew it was no roach. After carefully playing the fish and putting just enough pressure to keep it out of some dangerous tree branches at my feet, we slid the net under a lovely tench of around 4lb - in February! I had no idea that the tench would still be active, and when I looked in his mouth I noticed that his mouth and throat were full of maggots and hemp - he (it was a male) had obviously been feeding avidly. Bonus! It proves if you persevere in the worst of conditions, you can often be pleasantly suprised.

[snotty]

I got onto a local stillwater recently, fished relatively lightly with a small waggler rod size 18 hook and maggot, tried both sides of the lake, after 4 hours blank ! not a twitch...

 

Then another angler told me I was fishing way too far out. I ended up fishing an area two rod lengths out about a metre square. I put on a pole rig and had three tench (!) a roach and a bucket of perch inside an hour.

 

Sometimes winter fishing can be frustrating most-times you can learn a lot, when it clicks its wonderful.