WINTER - December January, February

DECEMBER Early December brought a stir to the Fishery with a venue record common ..........  Steve Line's own account:- Just a few lines to tell you about my weekends fishing. Thursday evening I arrived home, to be surprised by my wife (Ange as you know), with an anniversary card for the following day, with a cheque and a booked 48 hour session on Kingfisher, as my present!! with slap up curry and spaghetti bolognaise cooked and frozen to take with me all ready and everything packed!! (What a woman!!) So after work on Friday I arrived in the pouring rain and after a chat with the two "Ians" (Darke and Cox), things didn't look too hopeful, but the rain did ease up enough to get my bivvy up in the dry. With the light fading, I cast my two pop up boillies to hard spots, about 20 and 30 yards out, and settled in for the night. I awoke to a drizzly cold Saturday morning and at 7.50am a single bleep had me rushing to my rods, where the right hand bobbin slowly rose to the rod butt, and I struck into a good fish. After a short but spirited fight, the fish was in the net, but it wasn't until I tried to lift it up,that I realised the sheer size of it!! and the lake was awoken by loud expletives!! Ian confirmed that the fish was the "Upfront Common" and with the scales on the tripod zeroed, it was weighed to reveal 49 lbs exactly, of fin perfect fish. With the fish photographed and released safely, the rest of the session continued uneventful, but with a huge grin on my face as you can imagine. What a fish of a lifetime, and an anniversary present I will never forget, thank you Ange, and all at Wintons. Stuart and Dean (our Bailiffs) decided to make use of the quiet nights the week before Christmas and the Ice Reds once again did the trick for them.  Stuart landed a 46lb 10oz common and Dean a 37lb mirror. Much to the annoyance of the anglers booked in to fish from Boxing Day onwards the weather scuppered all their plans! The lakes froze the week-end after Christmas and as there was no sign of a quick overnight thaw, they all called it a day, packed up and went home to the turkey and mince pie leftovers! Since then the ice has been, at one point between four ad six inches thick and has taken an age to thaw out.  Anyway despite an unexpected frost earlier this week which froze the lakes again just as all the ice had virtually disappeared, the lakes are now all clear and we are expecting our first 2009 and anglers this week-end (16th-17th). With no sign of a thaw all three lakes remained frozen for just over three weeks, so as you can imagine the Fishery was deserted! JANUARY After a fairly long absence Robin West made a welcome return to the Fishery towards the end of January, his story is best told in his own words:- I thought that you might be interested in the details of my recent catfish catches from Mallard. I realise that these would probably be unremarkable in Summer, but bearing in mind the fact that we are in the depths of winter and that the water is very cold I thought that this might make it newsworthy? I had found a catfish winter hotspot during the Winter of 2006 and caught a few fish from it that year and one or two the following year too. The 22nd January this year was my first winter day session of 2008/009, the ice having finally thawed the previous week. I decided to try the hotspot for a catfish using my usual pair of Harrison 11ft, 2lb 8oz TC, Baby Ballistas teamed up with small Van Staal reels. Having run out of 15lb Big Game I loaded up with 12lb mainline. The end tackle consisted of simple running rigs involving 2oz leads and short 25lb Kryston Merlin hooklinks tied to extra strong size six hooks. Bait was Mainline Maple 8 boilies fished as single hookbaits with no freebies. Within minutes I was into the first cat and from this point the action was almost continuous throughout the day. I barely had time for a sandwich and wasn't even able to keep two rods out for much of the time. I ended up with very sore muscles and catfish of 14lb, 21lb, 24lb, 34lb, 36lb and 38lb 4oz. I also lost quite a few and spent most of the short winters day playing fish! A few days later I returned and was fortunate to be able to fish the same area. This time I landed two bigger catfish of 45lb and 47lb and also lost what I think was a very big fish. This time the action was very much slower and I think that the intense feeding spree was pretty much over. I decided to try out different rods for this second trip and used a pair Harrison four piece 11ft Avons, 1lb 8oz TC. The rest of the tackle was the same as the previous week. Just shows what light rods are capable of!