Angling Lines blog

Here’s a list of things I would not leave home without on a winter session;

1. Local weather forecast

2. Mobile telephone

3. Brewing kit or flask

4. Hat – the majority escaped body heat leaves through the head. Less clothing is required if a hat is worn.

5. Polarised Sunglasses – the low level of the winter sun causes a lot of dazzle off the water and you may be surprised at how many carp you can find in incredibly shallow water in winter – if only you look!

6. Binoculars – essential for spotting the tell tale signs the carp still give such as the odd gas bubble releasing to the surface after a carp has disturbed the bottom as well as turning around to inspect hook points for damage – many seemingly sharp hooks have their points slightly twisted sideways.

7. Emergency car kit – shovel in the car (pointed nose shovels as used by the army are the most useful for digging your car out of a mess), tow ropes, jump leads, emergency tools, spare clothes.

8. Selection of different coloured baits

9. Spare socks and boots

10. A bag of pre-soaked boilies.

That’s my list!  Shaun Harrison.

Magnificent 41.03 winter mirror

What a days winter fishing!

The tactic I used was to roll our boilies in the new paste we had made for us by Shaun at Quest. So each boilie had its own paste outer shell.

It proved to be very successful to say the least by me landing 12 cracking fish including 2 x 40s, 5 x 30s and 5 big 20s… and this in the middle of winter on a very cold day, this must be good!

I started fishing at 8am and finished at 6pm. My baiting up was done with Lac du Val pellets. I think the paste had a special affect making the bait taste fresh and the flavour release being quicker in cold water

Best Regards, Dave.

David writes;

The Winter fishing at Vaux this year has been superb – see the January 28th Blog post here

In this post from Chas, the owner of Vaux , he gives away one of his winter edges… his Ice Rig!

Chas's Ice Rig

From May 2002 when we bought Vaux until March 2004 when it was opened as a carp fishing venue, the mill storehouse was converted into a gîte, extensive works were carried out to the banks, fish stock was introduced ….. and we were at liberty to fish our lake. For the past six years, we have been lucky enough to fill the main season weeks with carp anglers and it is not until the season winds down that it becomes ours to fish again. That means Winter fishing! continue reading…

Following on from yesterdays post which definitely proves it’s worth winter carping in France, today we address the age old question – do UK carp feed sufficiently often in the winter  to make it worth while fishing for them?   In this excellent piece Shaun Harrison gives us the benefit of his 30 years of carp fishing experience;

Finally most lakes around here have eventually crept back up in water temperature to make the catching of carp a much more realistic prospect than it was a couple of weeks back.

For 30 odd years I have taken water temperatures during the winter months. I don’t mean just dangling a thermometer in a few inches of water in the edge as this will give you a false reading compared to the temperature in the depths you are fishing. I have simply cast my thermometer into the sort of depth I am fishing then simply cranked it back in quickly and taken the reading.

So, to save you many years of work before being able to come to any semi accurate conclusion I will share what I have learned after 30 years of doing this on so many different waters I would struggle to list them. continue reading…