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.
