Ice hole “ pt 2 “

Well it was cold again and yes, Oakham like everywhere else was frozen. We ended up at Oakham because the winter league match was called off, a burst pipe or something. Any way, i for one was secretly pleased, a chance to catch some fish.

Me and John met at 7.15am and had a pleasant drive to Oakham, it was nice because the sun was rising and it gave the impression it was going to be a nice day, eh wrong , well weather wise any way, it was bloody cold.

We fished the lake to the right , the same one as last week but different pegs , we fished the east bank , it would make a change , we already knew we would catch where we were last week, where would the challenge be then. John started with a small ball of groundbait, i decided on liquidised bread again , but fish red maggot instead of punch,  feeding pinkie. I started well and had about 10 Roach before John had his first fish. All was going well for me but a bit slower for John. John decided he wanted to fish to the island but with the ice it looked impossible, how would he break the ice at 9 metres. On went his pole cup and he began to tap the ice, breaking a small hole near the island, surely he was not going to fish it , he was. Over went his rig and he slowly lowered it into the 6 inch diameter hole and had a roach straight off, he played it then began to drag it over the ice, i thought it was hilarious , i had never seen anything like it, the next put in a carp, his no2 elastic stretched under the ice, he eventually got it tio the surface and struggled to drag it across the ice, this was not right , so he got his cupping kit and filled it with hot tea, trying to make a small channel to play the fish in, god it was so funny, but it worked and using is cup again tapped out a nice small channel. John began to fish the pellet and began to get the odd Carp, i was plodding along nicely with the Roach and the odd Carp.

  The day passed quickly and we both put a nice bag together, but with John feeling ill , i might have got a few more than him, alas he weighed a great 7lb to my 6lb, we still enjoyed it , even though the weather turned really cold.

My 6lb  = 102 Roach, 4 Carp          Johns 7lb mostly Carp.