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 !