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!
