Well what a dire Christmas break we're having weather wise ! Things started off looking good at the start of the holidays and I had planned a specimen Roach campaign over the festive period, but it's all gone a bit wrong !
The lake I was going to target has suffered badly from flooding, and whilst the water level itself isn't so much of a problem, it's the colour of the water that is. The lake has turned a very muddy brown compared to it's usual clarity at this time of year and realistically this will ruin the Roach fishing. So I have been scratching around a bit trying to find something to do and have ended up reverting back to a bit of Carp fishing on a more heavily stocked 'hungry' club water on which I had a very good session using a new method to me, zig fishing. I had always planned on getting to grips with this method of fishing with this time of year in mind as the Carp can usually be sat off the bottom for long periods of time in the slightly relatively warmer layers of water that can form, known as thermoclines. Being a reasonably deep and featureless water that I was fishing I decided to give it a go. The day was bright, and a rare break in the stormy weather of late. I had to search around a bit in order to locate some fish but once I got the first bite, sport was quite hectic, especially for the time of year. I fished two different colours of foam on the hook and though I did catch on both colours, one stood out head and shoulders above the other. The baits were fished at about half depth and within the same area as each other so the comparison was quite a fair one. Though the fish in this lake would be classed as 'hungry' they are no push over and the zigs certainly caught them off guard, and interestingly to prove this a fair proportion of the fish were in double figures which is not something that happens when bottom fishing here. Usually in a multiple catch you may get an odd better fish, but normally the only other way to get through to them is with pre baiting. Zigs are certainly something I will be playing around with on other waters in the future, especially when the bottom bait fishing is slow.

I started off well with a number of Roach of this stamp during my first couple of sessions, then the lake flooded !

 

 



Zig caught 16lb'er part of a catch of a dozen fish on the method, not too shabby for 29th December !

 

 



To conclude this entry, This morning I decided to try another club water that may hold some better Roach, in an effort to continue my campaign for the species, but unusually for me I packed up after only a couple of hours having not had a single bite...the water is shallow and a lot of cold water has gone in lately and this can be the only reason why the fish were showing no interest whatsoever. Again this is what you would class as a 'hungry water' and does have a large head of silver fish, so to not even get a liner within a couple of hours is quite staggering...
Hopefully the Roach fishing will pick up again if this foul weather ever abates, and I will be able to get back to chasing specimens of these lovely silver fish, until then I guess I will be scratching around doing whatever suits the conditions. Hope to report back soon !

1st try...but with a bonus.

As realistically expected the first try at the special water was a blank. The weather didn't help with the tactics I decided to use. For the mobile stalking approach to work the fish have to be actively visiting the margins, which probably at some point when it was warmer earlier last week they were, but with overcast, wet, and cooler conditions yesterday they certainly were not. My two companions tried the static sit and wait tactics with bolt rigs, but neither of them fared any better, and there were no signs of activity from the fish throughout the day.
Nothing more than expected, but time spent by the water is never wasted, and there is always something to learn, especially when approaching a new venue. I like the look and feel of this lake, and it somehow seems 'familiar' to me already as it is much like some of the lakes here on the Island I have fished before. As a bonus to the three day sessions we are undertaking, my friends and I have managed to secure some winter fishing on this lake, so we have much to look forward to come the end of the season in the salt this year. I have not been really 'into' my Carp fishing for a long time now, but I feel that this lake and it's stock may well help me find some of the satisfaction and enjoyment I used to gain from Carp fishing. So that's for later in the year and something for me to prepare for later in the year. Two more day sessions coming up when hopefully the weather will be on our side, and then we plan to begin our 'assault'  on the Salt !

Not quite finished...

I'm nearing the end of the bulk of the freshwater fishing now for this part of the year and looking forward to a season in the brine, but recent events have provided me with a last flurry of activity with which to conclude my fishing in the freshwater. For the next three weekends I have access to a very special water, not something I ever thought would happen, and the opportunuity came as a bolt out of the blue. The fishery owner is making some changes to how this exclusive water is going to be run, after a somewhat chequered syndicate history. Access will be open to anyone, but very limited in the amount of people that will be allowed to fish at any one time. To this end, my friend who is a long time friend of the owner has secured us exclusive access for three weekend day sessions on this water, which contains Carp to a top weight of 50lb!! The back up stock is rumoured to be impressive with a number of fourties and thirties plus twenties and doubles. There is only a small overall stock of fish numbering around an estimated 40 fish, but the water is only relatively small. The fish have grown from modest proportions having been stocked many years ago, to what they are now, and have been for a lot of that time relatively unpressured, compared to some waters.  Being a small water, it lends itself well to a stalking approach, something which I love doing, and so this is how we intend to fish this lake.
Being a little rusty on this side of things I decided some practise was in order so I will know exactly what I am doing on this lake when the time comes, so today, as the sun was out, and it has been nice and mild the last few days I knew there would be a good chance of one of my other local club lakes being eminently stalkable for it's resident population of Carp, and would provide me with the necessary practise I needed. I needn't have worried, as with all my fishing I have ever done, it is just like riding a bike, you don't really forget. The only slightly different thing is that I am now using a centrepin reel for stalking instead of a fixed spool reel, so I am still getting used to that at the moment, but the fishing went well and I managed to bank 5 double figure fish from close in margin spots using a float on the lift method. I may try and have a couple more rehearsals this week before we fish the other water next weekend, just so that it all feels familiar and that I have honed my stalking senses as much as possible! Obviously I want to make the very best of the time we have been offered on the big fish water as we may not get such an opportunity again any time soon....

A nice mid double figure Common Carp falls to my stalking skills.

Up to my old tricks...!

Well that came around a bit sooner than I thought! I seem to be taking an involuntary break from the Saltwater fishing at the moment, not that I mind though. The children have been nagging me forever to take them fishing, and as I have mentioned on my other blog I had promised to take them during the summer holidays and do some coarse fishing with them as what I do in the Salt really isn't suitable for them at the moment.
So thats what I have been doing and we have had some great fun and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. In between the tutoring though I have been having a dabble of course, and bagging plenty of fish. I haven't been doing anything revolutionary or technical, just some simple float fishing tactics, with basic baits like pellet meat and corn. Knowing my local waters as I do makes things easy and plenty of Tench, Bream, Roach, Rudd and of course the occasional rogue Carp have all found their way into my net.

A nice mid double on the float

Different strokes

My summer and winter fishing could not be two more different things. Fishing in the Salt during the summer can be hard work compared to the much tamer nature of Coarse fishing. Saltwater lure fishing is at times physically demanding, often there is a long hike or, a long steady paddle in the Kayak to reach our mark. Once we reach our spot quite frequently from the shore we will be wading which can involve several hours of holding yourself steady against tide, current, swell or all of these. The same can be said when fishing from the Kayak. Lure fishing is also an aspect of our sport where you are constantly casting and retrieving, using all of your concentration in trying to work the lure in the right way and attempting to find out what it is the fish want on any given day or night. My friends and I often joke about us having a 'winter' weight and a 'summer' one, because of all the extra excersise we get whilst pursuing the Bass and other species in the warmer weather!

Winter fishing by comparison gives us a rest, I am not saying Coarse anglers in general are lazy, far from it in fact as some anglers will also walk miles along rivers or around large gravel pits, I know I've done it myself at times, but most of my local coarse fishing is quite easy as far as that goes, being generally very small and intimate venues with only short walks from the car to reach a swim, so during the winter I would say fitness levels drop, ( what little I have! ), and the fishing is generally more relaxed and less intensive, even on the odd excursion to the mainland once the hard work of getting there and setting up is done, apart from day trips on the rivers, it is time to sit back, put the kettle on and relax! Even then when on day trips to the river we will take a break and have some lunch and a cuppa to compare notes on how the day is going, all very laid back and civilised...
So why not make it easy on myself and just Coarse fish all year and leave the hard work of Saltwater fishing to those more inclined towards such things? Well the truth is Summer Coarse fishing, for me, is well....rubbish! Living where I do on an Island, the Coarse fishing is somewhat limited. There are a few small ponds and bits of very small not what you could even call a river,  along with maybe a handful of Carp syndicates, all of which I have done in previous years, and thats the problem here, I find once I have 'done it' I have to move on and find another challenge, otherwise I begin to lose interest..
I love the big open aspect of gravel pits, and the long meandering nature of the big, or even small rivers, in fact I love to have options, but we simply don't have that available here otherwise things might possibly be a bit different, and I may never have needed to bother with the Saltwater if indeed it had been readily accessible. I love the Coarse fishing, but there simply isn't enough to do here, and so we have to limit ourselves to Coarse fishing in the colder months when, sensibly, things are just not doable in the sea...
We may not be very fortunate on the freshwater front, but luckily the sea fishing can be something very special despite heavy netting and commercial fishermen hammering our waters year on year, particularly with the methods we are now using ( see other blog !), and as not fishing is simply not an option for an obsessive like me, it would be stupid not to!
However it seems now My fishing year is becoming naturally cyclic, and this has been developing over the last few years, and that is to fish the Salt when there is an abundance of opportunity in the summer and transpose to Freshwater during Autumn and Winter, when the Coarse species are in their best condition of the year, and also can be something of a challenge compared to post spawning condition and appetite. This suits me fine, variety is the spice of life, ( supposedly), after all, and so I welcome this change of the seasons, it suits me down to the ground, 6 months of full on nose to the grindstone fishing and six months of more relaxed pursuit!

So this will be my Chronicle of the Autumn and Winter Coarse fishing, for those who might be interested in that side of things, and will be kept seperate to my other fishing of the Spring and Summer, though I shall link the two just in case anyone fancies a peek at the other out of curiosity!

I will begin chronicling as soon as I engage in any meaningful angling, which may still be a little while yet, But rest assured as it happens it will appear right here.
I have already begun making plans so I have some direction ready for when the time comes, and I have set myself some targets alongside to give me focus.
On the agenda are Chub for which I shall have to 'escape from Alcatraz' and hopefully venture over to the Throop fishery in Dorset a few times to achieve. I'll be happy with a few other river species on those trips such as Roach and Dace etc. I have found a love of moving water since venturing over to the Itchen fishery in pursuit of Grayling on trotting gear a couple of years running and would love to practise this a little more often. There are a few possibilities locally for Roach and Perch as well, Carp will probably feature as they will be an inevitable by catch, though I am not so size obsessed as I once was with the species. There are a few other possibilities that may arise to throw in the mix so there will be plenty going on, all things being equal...

Hopefully I will be back to report soon.
Thanks for reading.