solid with ice

  Hi all.

john and i had a trip to Oakham this weekend , targeting the Roach on old pool .

The overnight temperature had dropped to minus 4c and it was still below freezing when we arrived at the fishery, but even i was suprised to find the old pool frozen over. We still decided to give it ago and after an hour breaking the ice with a 8 foot piece of fencing post we had cleared enough ice to fish 3 sections of pole.

Both of us had about 3feet of water , enough for the silvers to feed comfortably. John started on the punch, feeding a tosspot of crumb each put in and caught from the off, i meanwhile fed some canal black and fished the bronze maggot over the top but had no initial response. John was having a fish nearly every put in and he showed me why. He had rolled his bread and used a cloudier crumb, i changed my set up and used some of johns bread and began to have a few.

Now was the time to try something different and have a bit of fun, we both tried feeding more pinkie for john and maggot for me and began to have some better fish , then i tried a big piece of flake on a 22 hook with no chance of ever landing a rouge carp on 5 elastic with  1 inch thick ice in front. John tried white pellet on a 3 elastic. I would have loved it if he had a carp on this set up.

Anyway we had a bit of fun and considering the commotion breaking the ice plus the conditions,  we had some nice fish. I reckon john had 6.5lb of roach and myself, about 4 lb 10 oz so was pleased

Johns net                                  And me frozen