Winter carp fishing on the reservoir pt 1

I had been meaning to transfer some entries from an old blog of mine across to this one a while back but reading Phil Smith's latest entry coupled with the fact that I'm stuck indoors feeling a bit miserable with the dreaded man flu has inspired me to get on with it so here goes.

Wednesday the 10th of January 2010

I pulled into the reservoir carpark at about 2.30pm, there was an icy northerley blowing straight at the van but the sky was fairly clear and bright, a friend, Rob, pulled up just as I was loading the barrow and I mentioned how the sky looked a bit iffy in the distance and that he was mad to bother coming for a walk when he could be nice and warm at work. We'd just got around to where i'd decided to fish when a few flakes of snow started to float down, shortly followed by a considerable amount more! The Airframe bivvy got thrown up pronto and the essentials to be kept dry went underneath quickly followed by Rob, I then realised that my camera was at home in my river rucksack, oh dear. Rob being the gullible, I mean good, lad that he is agreed to stay put and off I scooted at breakneck speed, no angler could risk missing the opportunity of a snow trophy shot could they.

I was back within half an hour and Rob went off joyfully to his lovely warm place of work, skipping his way around the pond. Rods all sorted, each with a two bait stringer, and I risked pulting out ten baits around one while the others sat in splendid isolation. No one else was fishing but rather oddly in the couple of hours between setting up and dusk I had seen three people sticking bait in, that doesn't tend to happen on this water and seeing as there had only been four fish out since the start of the year it seemed unusual, personally I had been dribbling a bit in for a fortnight!





This is what i'd generally call an excellent winter water, I never do a great deal of time on it but I expect to catch more often than not so long as i've got it right. But what makes it so good is the fact that it gets fished regularly and always gets a little bit of bait going through all over the place, with it being frozen for a good fortnight my memory goes back to some seriously dire winters I spent after similar cold spells years ago when we used to get winters like this regularly, no bait for a while really is not good news when it comes to keeping the carp moving.

Considering how flaming icy it now felt there were actually a few small fish topping here and there, it's always nice to see a bit of activity no matter what it may be I reckon. The brisk wind gradually died down but the snow kept coming in fits and bursts and I was starting to get a bit excited about my chances of that special picture. Around dusk I started to notice odd "wispy" bits out on the now flat calm lake, I kept walking up and down the bank looking at them from different angles but no matter how I tried to persuade myself otherwise it was becoming pretty clear that it was ice, the lake was going to freeze on me wasn't it. I had two options, stay put and risk being frozen in or move, the bivvy was covered in snow which had subsequently frozen and was also frozen up inside, it wasn't going to be nice but he who dares Rodney...

So at 6pm down it all came and I set up camp a hundred or so yards up the bank where a very slight breeze was catching the water and giving me some hope of seeing the night out with a chance. Just before re-casting my left hand rod to its new spot I saw a possible fish show just where I intended to cast to anyway, could have been a bream but it was a reasonable ripple. The temperature was about minus two by 7pm so I was told by someone daft enough to come and visit in jeans and trainers, he didn't stay for long!

8.20pm - Its really bloody cold now, ice is starting to form in the margins up here now though I can't actually see much where I moved from, great eh.

8.25pm - Got fed up with Planet Rock so i've stuck a bit of Gold AM on, first track was Hot Chocolate's "Everyone's a Winner"! The ironic song game's one of my favourite bankside pass times!



8.35pm - Decided that the Super Bluet stove is really not made for this weather, can't even get a brew on let alone knock up a curry, packet of crisps it is then

8.50pm - Wahay! Good old Gold Am, bit of Beetles now, wait for it..... "Help"! Bloody brilliant!

9pm - Right i've conceded, door down and in the bag for me.

9.05pm - Why does it happen? Just warming the bag and several bleeps to the middle rod had me up like a shot, didn't waste time looking what the bobbin was doing I just struck it but nothing there.

7am - Nice to see that the snow inside the bivvy has melted overnight, it's almost tropical. Nothing happened over night and its now time for the delightful job of packing up a frozen bivvy, I got away just after 8am and headed home for a shower before work.