This Sunday our club went to long pong fishery, this is a really scenic lake in the summer with lots of trees and Lilly pads lining the place. I've never been here in winter though so on arrival it looked like a completely different lake! more so because it was completely iced over! sods law it had been warm all week with one frost on Saturday night meaning it iced up! fortunately it was breakable with a pole pot!
I had no idea what i was to be fishing for or what pegs would be good, so i was first in the draw bag to find my destination for the day. Peg 12. This has an island to fish too, and also some open water, although it is shallower than other parts, the island is 14.5 meters away as well with reeds on the end to make for awkward playing of fish! I've actually drawn this peg before so knew it was as deep next to the island as the rest of the peg, which gave me confidence to target this area.
I opted to fish 14.5 meters to the island and start by feeding a golf ball of micros and 4 mm with a couple of grains of corn, a balled in joker line at 11 meters in the open water, and a short line where i fed one small ball of joker just to make sure i didn't blank!
I started on the short line catching 7 consecutive tiny perch in 15 minutes, at least it was fish in my net! I spotted someone hook a carp across the lake so decided to give the carp line a go in case there was something there already, the float stayed for no longer than 10 seconds before flying under and carp no 1 was on, after a 5 minute battle it was in the net. I then put the rig in again and caught another one, then again and caught a lumpy 10 lb er! Id put 20 lb in the net in the space of 20 minutes. I didn't think i was going to weigh more than about 15 lb so this certainly wasn't a bad start! I also got those 3 in before the bloke opposite got his one in, as he had it on a 20 hook on an .08 bottom!
I went in again and foul hooked one, and decided that my small golf ball of bait must be gone! so i put another 2 p sized ball in and instantly caught another one. Unfortunately no more followed and i had to work my lines for bites, which weren't coming at all! the joker lines were dead.
It seemed as though I had caught some resident fish rather than drawn anything in, which i did expect having a deep island to fish too.
I spent next 2 hours just fishing the line against the island and introducing small amounts of bait through a kinder pot, i caught 2 bream in this time so at least it wasn't wasted time. I couldn't get a bite from a roach or anything anywhere else. I decided to spend the rest of the match on this line, trickling in the bait, I eventually hooked another which was foul hooked and came off, and straight after i put another in the net.
I sat bite less for the last 2 hours, and the bloke opposite had caught 2 more in the last hour which left me wondering if i had done enough!
I finally weighed my 5 carp and 2 bream in for 31 lb 9 oz, closely followed by the bloke opposite with 30 lb 15 oz. Those bream had been the difference as we both caught 5 carp each! Certainly a close one but my peg is no where near as good as the other blokes in the summer, so maybe its better for holding carp in the winter as well. The backup weights were not so good, with one bloke weighing 18 lb of roach and clearly having a ball of them in front of him as no body else had hardly any! Other weights with 11 lb and 9 lb of skimmers, and the rest were all 6 lb or less. so it had been an incredibly hard day for most.
I was happy to bag my third win in a row though, and win the club championship in style!
Next week I am off to Arrans lake in Ingatestone again, I've grown fond of this water even though ive only been 3 times, I already feel as though I've got it sussed! Hopefully ill have a good report for next week, can I make it 4 in a row?
Thanks for reading, and ill try to remember to take photos again next time!
