Nnnn…ice fishing
Recently the weather has been up and down, one day very cold and another warm overcast and wet/drizzly…
During a period of cold weather it was with some trepidation I agreed to meet my good friend “Green Giant” at one off his special places, the sort of place that you don't want everyone knowing about…so I was honoured that he took me there, albeit a year or two ago for the first time. The lake holds some truly lovely scaled carp.
So I found myself driving carefully along the dual carriageway to meet up for the long day session. My car’s outside temperature gauge reading at minus two as I drove down the valley floor to the venue. My heart sunk somewhat as I noticed the larger of the two lakes; the one we wanted to fish was virtually iced right over! But, not to be to down-hearted, I greeted my friend whose gear was already loaded on his barrow.
He`s never late...unlike myself...[well, anyway...]
After a looksee around the lake, we agreed to fish on a spit - it was tight for two anglers and as it was ice free we had no real choice...but, as always, when fishing, I`m confident...
Tactics were very simple: no knot rigs...and light 1oz leads, nothing revolutionary...but I planned to scatter bait (a brilliant short session winter tactic - which I learned on a old wildie pool in Lanson). I had my homemade Haith’s Robin Red boilies with added Haith’s CLO for coarseness and flavour leakage in cold conditions which were lightly scaled and not overtly boiled…BUT on this trip I was using *LRR as a winter glug [*Liquid Robin Red]...
After quickly tackling up and just using the specified two rods I spread around literally 5 or 6 baits around each trap...the idea was to see how the LRR and homemade Robin Red /CLO baits would perform in the cold conditions…
Although it was cold the sun began to rise over the moor and I was enjoying my friend’s conversation - and his coffee! [lol]....the right-hand rod roared off! After a very good scrap in the margins, my proper old skool through action carp rods subdued a lovely mirror carp....after a quick photo the lovely fish swam off into the icy depths...
This procedure was repeated a further three times so I was having a good day, and I must say my friend did a fab job with the photos too!
During this session I reckon I used no more than 25/30 single freebies and in this case the LRR proved its worth...
I drove home a happy man, warm with the afterglow of a good day’s fishing and great company.
Regards Adam Roots.
Written by Adam Roots
