Home Features Diaries My Approach to Winter Carping #3

My Approach to Winter Carping #3

January 18, 2008

MARK HODSON

“T-Rex’s ‘Metal Guru’ was No.1 nine months before I was born and my earliest fishing memories were of cold, blowy winter’s days with my dad fishing off the beaches of Norfolk and Suffolk”, says Dave, who hails from Devon.

But it wasn’t long before he was into carp fishing, a particular facet of angling that he’s much preferred ever since. Dave absorbs all the information he can about his favourite species, dissects it, and then uses it to carve his own somewhat unique path to catch Britain’s most popular species. He is more competent than most at all methods for catching carp and like most specialists he prefers to catch the biggest fish, but enjoys the smaller ones along the way.

Dispelling the myths of winter carping – third session

The wife’s working patterns meant no fishing this week (but I managed to sneak a bit of bait in), and a trip to Wales for a gig meant none the next. So the next chance I get is on probably the coldest night of the year so far!

By the time I pull into the car park at just gone 6, there is already plenty of frost on the cars… hmmmm cars as in lots of swims taken? Unfortunately so! It was actually pretty packed, so I end up in a deep corner of the lake and I cant say I’m that confident due to the amount of lines that the fish would have to go through to get to my swim. Still, if I’m quiet enough, I should be in with a chance.

So it’s on with the 1/2 oz leads, and a stringer on each rod flicked to the bottom of the marginal shelf in about 8ft of water and a handful of bait scattered around each rod. The pop-up rod is baited with a small mesh bag, and flicked out 20yards or so to the corner of an island.

By now I am starting to get a light covering of frost, so I get the brolly up, keeping well back from the waters edge, and get straight into the bag. Looking out over the lake, it is absolutely flat calm, and you can almost hear the brolly freezing up. So it’s on with the vibration mode on the remote, on with the I-pod, and get my head under the bag for an hour or so of tunes.

Sometime later a couple of bleeps have me peering out from under the bag, but it turns out it was just a coot banging into the line…by ‘eck it’s cold now – thank god for the Trakker fleece cover!

I watch and listen for a bit, but there’s absolutely no movement ……until ……. the alarm goes for me to pack up. First blank of the ‘campaign’, but I can’t say I’m particularly surprised, and I heard no action to anyone else during the night.

I scatter the kilo of Hi-Nu-Val around the swim as I don’t like re-freezing milk proteins (hardly defrosted really!) but take the rest home – not really fair on the other guys fishing to put loads in, though it’s not a swim that’s fished a great deal.

There’s a thick coating of frost over everything, and when I get into the car, its got -4