Most of you reading this must think I'm half baked dreaming of winter in July, in fact just dreaming of winter full stop! I expect many of you have spent all winter dreaming of summer and I really can't blame you for that. Winter can be a long dismal depressing time and motivating yourself to get out on the bank can be near impossible especially if its cold and wet. Having said that I've just seen a post from another Angler on social media saying that they can't wait for winter too...maybe I'm not alone after all..
A nice double figure Common from September last year, not winter but cooling off for Autumn, an early start for me.
Summer offers many benefits over winter for the Carp angler and I'm not saying I won't fish for them while it's warm but prolonged periods of hot weather like we're currently experiencing really doesn't float my boat. Carp are definitely easier to locate in the summer but I wouldn't say they are always easier to catch... Granted at certain times like after spawning they can be ridiculously easy as they get their heads down to try and regain some condition but to me catching them when they are hungry and out of condition has never sat comfortably... Sitting around in the heat trying to find a bit of cool shade whilst the Carp simply bask in the Sunshine and refuse to feed... Sure I could chase them around on the surface with floaters, and once upon a time this is exactly what I would do but having been there and done that and been quite proficient at it, these days I prefer not to exhaust myself. As I've got older I prefer to have more relaxed fishing sessions, but also most Carp lakes are so busy these days, actually fishing effectively on the surface is near impossible. Most of the time your efforts are scuppered by other discourteous anglers or there just simply isn't the room. I remember having been lucky enough to get a day session on the famous Stoneacres in Oxfordshire many years ago and through a lot of effort had got several fish going on the top until another angler decided to pitch up next to me, go out in his boat to bait and plumb the area and spook every single fish I that had spent the last few hours finding and gaining in confidence! I'm pretty sure that was probably the last time I floater fished in earnest...
For many years now I have avoided fishing for Carp between the months of May and August, normally only tentatively treading the banks in mid to late September depending on the temperatures. This self imposed close season allows me to recharge my Carp batteries as it were, and pursue other forms of Angling that I enjoy, revolving around Salt water which I pursue at night when it's cooler!
October and everything is turning yellow and Brown, with much more favourable temps for catching Carp.
Winter Carp fishing isn't easy, the fish are harder to locate, their nutritional requirements are less, they can spend long periods in no man's land in the water column nowhere near the bottom and more often than not the weather can make things very uncomfortable, be it cold or wet or both! Drops in temperature are the kiss of doom in winter, even a drop of half a degree in the water temperature is enough to switch them off most of the time. Cold North or Easterly winds also are a negative.
So why bother then? As I mentioned Carp are in their best condition of the year at this time, and this is the main reason for my preference of fishing for them at this time of year. Quieter banks are a bonus, especially when it comes to trying to locate them. If it's cold I can put on extra layers, if it's wet I can use a shelter or put on waterproofs, if it's cold and wet I can do both! It's harder to keep cool in the summer than to get warm in the winter.. Rain doesn't bother me as long as I have a good shelter and waterproofs. Rain in the winter often marks a milder spell which means the Carp will be more catchable and therefore I need to be out on the bank when this happens if I'm going to stand any chance of catching some.
Winter fishing can be more 'Technical' than Summer fishing, using bits and pieces in your bait mix, finding the right flavours and additives that will work in cold water, refining your rigs and scaling down to get bites are all part of the fun and something that I really enjoy. I've become something of a light line specialist in the last few years and being forced to use heavy gear such as at weedy water like the Yateley lakes is something I am not comfortable with. Skull dragging fish through weed isn't really very sporting but I understand it is a necessity on many waters these days. Having said that, in winter the weed is often less which means you are able to fish lighter and more refined and if the water is weed and snag free I am not afraid to scale right down to 8lb mainlines and Rods of 2lb test or less. My favourite rods I own are my 10ft Free Spirit Bank Creepers. If I could use these 100% of the time I would. It's very rewarding using balanced light tackle and you actually get to fight the fish rather than 'walk' them in. Most of my local waters offer the chance to fish pretty light but If I need to step up for bigger waters on trips away then I will.
End of December and water and Air temps of less than 5 degrees.
I really enjoy the Technical aspect of the winter fishing and it plays to my strengths as an Angler. PVA bags have always served me well wherever I have been and when I look back over the years I have probably had more success on solid bags than any other method, especially on unknown or new to me waters, Sometimes catching me fish quite quickly without knowing very much at all about the venues. I love tinkering with the mix for bags, bit's of this and that, different liquids and powders, it gives me great confidence, especially when the odds are stacked against me. I take great pleasure in refining the rigs and hook baits for the job too. Years ago, ( here I go again! ) I used to visit Broadlands lake in Romsey as it is just over the water from me ( really must have a go there again.. ), at the time it was known as a PVA bag water and that was pretty much exclusively what the fish were caught on. If you weren't on bags it seemed you struggled. I think the fish were just conditioned to finding little patches of food or even single hookbaits once the Roach and Bream had eaten the pellets. The point is my friends and I learn't how to make up and tie PVA bags well and this stood us in good stead for taking the method to other waters and of course we adopted it as our favoured winter method. PVA bags seem to have fallen out of vogue now , especially solid one's and everyone wants to Spod or Spomb out big beds of bait or use stocking bags which are much easier but don't achieve the same level of presentation.
My friend and I used to fish some of the CEMEX waters before they were sold off, including Kingsmead 1 and Papercourt, both of which were weedy and both of which we fished on the winter ticket available at the time. I found success from both these waters and others using bags and little parcels of food of a technical nature. Finding the thinner patches of weed and dropping a well packed solid bag full of goodies worked well.
It was Snowing with a bitter North Easterly wind when I caught this one in the first week of January this year!
So there are my reasons for my preference of fishing for Carp more in the winter than summer and hence why I start dreaming of the winter in July! I think the pictures speak for themselves.
Our campaign on our chosen venue continues and so far we have only missed one weekend since September last year due to me having the Flu.
Sometimes it's been good and others not so. But we tallied up yesterday that between my friend and I we have had 70-80 fish out of this water including 7 Twenties.
We have built up a very good picture of the habits of the lakes inhabitants and their daily habits, the puzzle is by no means complete but we can usually put our baits in front of some fish on any given day, whether they will feed is of course down to them but I would say 8 out of 10 sessions result in fish on the bank. Bait placement here is crucial and they seem reluctant to pick a hookbait up that isn't within a few inches of the target zone, which considering they aren't pressured fish is interesting.
Yesterday was one of the strangest days we have fished this winter, the day started off looking promising but took a turn for the worse as the day progressed and conditions became almost intolerable, however we still managed to put some fish on the bank. The previous week has been mild with temperatures reaching scraper double figures on most days. We knew this would raise the water temperature at least a couple of degrees meaning it was almost a guarantee that the fish would be feeding despite the air temperature being just on freezing. On arrival we were able to confirm this with a reading of 5.2 degrees, the highest we had noted since winter proper set in, well up on the previous weeks reading of 2.7degrees and prior to that the week before when we had the beast from the East a reading of 0.8 degrees!
Any rise will stir fish into action, it doesn't have to be significant as long as it's trending upwards, and so we set out our stalls feeling fairly confident. With Snow forecast and air temperatures plummeting over the weekend we weren't too worried as it would take at least a day for the water temp to drop again. And so it proved to be, as I swiftly banked two nice doubles within the first couple of hours.
Apologies for the Mat shots, it was just too cold to hold the fish for the camera!
Just after the second fish it started snowing, and with the driving Easterly wind it was blowing it in horizontally with the snow increasing until it was practically blizzard conditions. Fortunately the ground was still too warm and damp for it to lay other wise we would have probably abandoned ship as the lake is in the middle of no where and getting out would have been tricky!
Around two thirty in the afternoon I had another take resulting in a lovely mid double Common. During the fight however I was in agony with my hands ( forgot to take any gloves! ), with the biting Easterly wind showing a wind chill factor of -7 degrees! My friend had to keep clearing the ice that was instantly forming in the tip ring of the rod as I wound in and the droplets of water on the line froze in the tip ring!
By this time everything was freezing solid due to the wind chill, the Cradle, the Sling and the Net were all freezing solid almost straight away! A little while later I glanced away from the rods and a second or two later looked back to see the bobbin on the left hand rod up tight and the tip of the rod bent round, I had got a take and the alarm hadn't sounded which I later discovered was due to the roller being frozen up! Anyway this turned out to be a small single figure fully scaled Mirror which is a bit anomalous for the lake but it still took the tally of fish for me for the day to four which is a good result given the conditions. My friend also managed a very nice looking double figure Mirror from further up the lake. So a tally of five fish between us for the day. By the time we decided to call it a day the water temperature had dropped 1.2 degrees and looked like continuing to do so with the biting wind chill. There is no doubt our timing was spot on with the deteriorating conditions, all the fish were taken in no more than a couple of feet of water, but as the temperature dropped no doubt they would go off the feed. Perhaps if we'd fished today the result would have been different with the overnight drop sending them into a more torpid state in deeper water.
Today the ground is covered in a good layer of snow which to be honest was a bit of a shock! Obviously the ground temperature had dropped enough over night to allow it to lay so most likely the lakes water has dropped by another degree or two which I have no doubt will have switched them off. Hopefully this mini beast from the East will have passed by next weekend and things will be back on an upward trend!
The change over from summer to winter Carping can be a daunting time for many Carp anglers. The fish become harder to catch due to falling water temperatures slowing their metabolism down causing them to feed less, location becomes more difficult, and the weather becomes less conducive to being out on the bank making it harder to motivate yourself to get out there. Those are the negative points, the positive side is that once the temperatures have settled things can get a bit easier, the fish are in their best condition of the year and there are less anglers about meaning that actually there is more chance of catching them once you have located them.
I consider myself a bit of a winter specialist, preferring to do most of my Carp fishing at this time of year. Mainly because the banks are quieter but also as mentioned above because the fish look superb in their winter colours.
So how do I go about catching Carp in winter? Well the first thing I do is to look at the lake I am fishing, which way does the lake lie, i.e East / West, North / South ? where does the Sun rise and which bank will get the most sunshine and warmth? which direction does the prevailing wind blow in and which bank will be the most sheltered? Depth is also a major consideration in winter, deep lakes generally are much harder winter prospects than shallower lakes. If a deep lake has some shallow shelves or reedy areas that get the sun then these are the places I will target. Shallow waters warm up much faster than deep ones and will respond faster to the rise triggering the fish to feed in response.
The lake I am currently fishing I would say falls under the deep category and has been proving a tricky prospect since the temperatures started to drop and winter proper has set in. It is a very steep sided reservoir with virtually no shallow areas apart from the very top of the slopes right up against the bank where the water is only a foot or two deep but is not what you would call a shelf, just simply the top of the steep sloped sides. This has made it a tricky venue even when it was warmer and we found that baits placed as tight to the bank on top of the slope got us the most bites with only one fish so far coming from the bottom of the slope in 12ft of water. You would probably expect this behaviour during the warmer months but what of the winter? Where would you expect the fish to be? Well on days that are cloudy and over cast I would expect the fish to be sitting mid water in a layer of slightly warmer water they feel comfortable in, but on bright cold sunny winter days I would expect them to seek out the little warmth the Sun has to offer by being right up on the tops of the slopes, especially if there is over hanging tree cover or reeds for them to sit in.
For many winters now this has proven to be a winning formula, searching out areas of whichever lake I am fishing that offer one or more of the factors that would offer the fish a comfortable position. My most recent session on my current lake proved once again that Carp are creatures of habit and will react the same on any water and that there is always somewhere that offers you a chance of catching them.
The lake I am fishing lies in a roughly North West / South East position according to the compass, meaning that at this time of year the sun rises at the Eastern end of the South bank and swings along on a low trajectory until it sets at the Western end, so naturally the North bank gets all of this light on clear days.
Yesterday after sitting for the vast majority of the day biteless, despite the fish being evident in and around the areas we were fishing at the top of the slopes the Sun finally broke through as forecast at about 2.30pm. It was as if the fish were anticipating this happening already being resident but they were just waiting for the sun to warm these slight margins enough for them to have a feed. And this, it seems is exactly what they were waiting for as in the last couple of hours of light my friend and I had several pick ups and I managed to land a couple of fish. Considering the water surface temperature was reading 5.3 degrees by this time the fish fought like absolute animals, which was surprising considering how cold the water was and indeed when holding them for pictures it was like holding blocks of Ice, I was losing feeling in my fingers while holding them they were that cold!
It's a great feeling to land a winter Carp and this was no exception even though the fish aren't that big, the winter colours are lovely, the reward was in sitting it out in very cold conditions and keeping the faith that they would behave exactly as expected once the conditions became conducive to them feeding, The tiny rise in temperature of the marginal water once the sun came out being just enough for them to want to feed.
The challenge now is to try and catch them when they aren't visiting these areas on overcast and dull days. A little bait application should help in this respect in persuading them to pick the bait up from the deeper water at the bottom of the slopes, we may have to adapt out rigs and baits to fish on the sides of the slopes which really are quite steep, or use Zig rigs.
As I said deep waters are much more of a challenge in the winter and a virtually featureless reservoir presents its own challenges in locating where the fish want to be on any given day depending on conditions, but the rewards are worth the effort.
