Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to wish my readers a Happy New Year and I hope you all had a good Christmas. After getting Christmas out of the way, I had a free Saturday to get out on the bank for a few hours and make the most of the lakes surrounding me that are fishing well. I got out on a local park lake on a morning where the weather wasn’t so bad, but it was bitterly cold none the less. After making a quick pit stop at the tackle shop to stock up on some supplies to allow me to fish if I happened to lose tackle, I took a quick wonder round Stanborough Lakes in Hertfordshire.

I had a quick walk round and saw a big section of the lake was free. Although the section I would have preferred was taken, I was still happy to put a couple of rods out in this area. I was fishing an area about 60 yards just past a buoy which is used for the sailing that takes place on the lake of a weekend. I used two rigs, the same ones as mentioned in my last blog; a snowman and a single bottom bait, followed by a healthy helping of Amber Strawberry around the area. Before casting them out, I gave the rigs a healthy glugging in the matching amber strawberry dip.  I hoped that my hook baits would draw some automatic temptation to any fish, hopefully enticing a feeding response.

Firstly, I cast to the area I wanted to fish and clipped up one of the rods and then did a second cast to the clip to mark up with a horizon marker which was a telegraph pole. I then did the nifty trick of wrapping round the sticks and clipped up the other rod to the same mark. Both rods were flicked out onto the spot and then tightened on the rests with some bait offered over the top. I had a serious issue with some pesky gulls so I had to do a little and often feeding pattern so that I knew I had some bait reaching the bottom at least.

An hour or so had past and out of the blue the left rod let out a flurry of beeps. I soon connected with a healthy resistance; the fish had managed to kite on a tight line into the reeds down the left hand margin. I finally managed to coax the fish along the margin and after one last surge she was laying in the folds of the landing net. After one quick peak, I knew it was a nice mid double mirror. After the pics were taken, I released the fish and set about getting the rod out on the spot for another hour or so.

The rain then began. As I was fishing light, I didn’t take an umbrella with me which was a bit of a rooky mistake. However, no matter how cold and wet it was, catching such a pristine fish made it all the more worthwhile. It just shows, there’s no need to go with complicated rigs in the winter as the fish are only going for a few mouthfuls rather than feeding on an expanse of bait.

Hopefully my next session will pay off with the first carp of 2015. We shall see how I get on in my next blog.

Thanks for reading, Ross.