Back on the bank!

Due to girlfriend/family/work commitments and the arctic conditions over the Christmas and New Year period I haven't fished since the last round of the winter league at Whinwhistle on December 7th. To say I was itching to get back on the bank is a bit of an understatement. As I had two free days this weekend I decided I would head to Whinwhistle to practice for next weekends 6th round of the winter league. I'm currently in second place on 7 points,one point behind league leader Richard Allin,who I have also drawn in the semi-final of the knockout cup,so it was important to get a feel for the place again after 6 weeks away. I arrived at the fishery at around 8am and the first thing I noticed was the chocolate-like colour of the water. It was quite surreal as there was a hard ground frost,but we'd had a lot of rain during the week which had coloured the water. I headed straight to the cabin for a catch up with John the owner. It emerged that three of the four lakes had been fishing well all week,with plenty of silvers showing along with the odd carp. However the fourth lake, 'The Rail' hadn't had an angler on it for over 2 months,due to the fact that most people blanked in the last round of the winter league and it was won with mere ounces. The trouble with The Rail is that there are hardly any silvers in there,which means if the carp don't feed you're in trouble. Being the fool that I am I decided to give it a bash,and settled on Rail peg 3. (see pics below)

















I have always done well on The Rail by fishing tight across and feeding little or no bait,so was confident of a few fish. I set up to fish at 14.5m tight over to my left,13m tight across in front and 14.5m down the side of the point to my right. I had the same depth on all 3 lines,so set up a 4x12 chimp on 0.12-20 Gama Pellet shotted with a spread bulk and an 8 latex. I also set up a 4x10 chianti for half depth and a small drennan carp 4 set at 12 inches deep- both on 0,12 to 8 latex and 20 hooks. These two rigs were for searching all over the peg with bread punch,something that I have done well on at this time of year in the past. I also set up a bomb rod- 10ft Carbonactive,TDR reel,4lb line to .12 silk shock and a 20 drennan eyed barbless carp. I had some micro pellet,corn,maggot,4.5mm Ringers Coolwater hookers and two slices of bread for punching on the side tray. I began on the 12 inch rig with bread punch,slapping the rig and trying all along the far bank,but without a bite after 10 minutes I switched to the half depth rig and repeated the process. No bites materialised so I cupped around 30 micro pellets in front,10 maggots to the left and 3 grains of corn to the right. I flicked the bomb rig far over to my right and gave it 5 minutes. To cut a long story short over the next hour I couldn't buy a bite on any of the lines despite trying all of the usual tricks. As I hadn't fished for so long I decided that I wanted bites,so made the early decision to move over to Keepers Lake to fish for the Skimmers and roach,which is what I had planned to do from the start! It didn't take long to move and I was set-up in my new peg by 11. I used the same rig for the pellet line at 13m,and quickly knocked up a 6m roach rig consisting of a 4x10 KC Speed,0.12-0.10 silk shock and a 20 Black Gama. I cupped in a golf ball of micro pellet at 13m,and 3 small rock hard balls of groundbait at 6m as I planned on leaving this line for the first hour. I shipped out to 13m,lowered the rig down and the float kept on going but I missed the bite. A few more missed bites and it was evident that there were a few fish in front of me. I decided to change the spread bulk for a double bulk,with 4 no:10's a foot from the hook and another four 6 inches away from the hook. I shipped out and an instant positive bite saw a nice skimmer of around 6oz come to the net. Another 3 came in 3 put ins,as the bites were coming quickly. After a few more I had a couple of roach so put another nugget of micro's in and the skimmers were straight back. This set the pattern for the day,with 3 or 4 skimmers coming straight after a small amount of micro's went in before they would back off and I would repeat the process. It was clear they were responding to the feed but I was still cautious and fed just enough to keep the peg ticking over. I tried the 6m groundbait line and had a few roach but it was slower than the pellet line and the fish were smaller,so concentrated long. After a couple of hours I went to the cabin for a bacon sandwich and a chat with a few of the winter league lads who were in there. I went back to the peg after about an hour,put another golf ball of micro's long and caught instantly again. With half hour or so remaining I decided to try something different and put a full pot of micro's in (admittedly the smallest garbolino ext cupping kit pot) to see what would happen. Five roach in five casts convinced me this is something not worth trying next week,as although the skimmers wanted feed on the day it was a mistake to put too much in. It was actually quite simple to feed really,as soon as the roach showed I would put another small nugget of micro's in and fish it out-idiot proof! I packed up at 3 with around 12lb to show which isn't bad in freezing conditions when I only fished for 3 hours. Plenty of bites on a cold crisp day,what more could you want in winter?
I'm heading back down there tomorrow,come back and see how I get on!
Tight Lines