A smashing ton at Viaduct Fisheries?

WHEN ice becomes a factor in targeting lakes for a bite or two, my inclination is to head for the river. The chances of finding moving water frozen over are substantially less than that of still waters and to be honest, I'd almost certainly be at the river at this point in the season anyway.

But not every river holds a head of carp, whereas it seems that nearly every lake does, be it commercial fishery or club water. It also seems that this is the species for which the masses want to fish. Now, this is no revelation and it's been the case for what seems like forever, or at least since I became aware of trends within the sport.

I believe that it's this voracious appetite that anglers have for hauling carp which has fuelled the recent debate over whether ice should be smashed when fisheries become frozen, and indeed, has been the deciding factor when people have chosen to do so.

As a passionate angler, I want to wet a line as much as the next person, but when confronted by a frozen lake I just wouldn't bother to get my kit out of the car. If I wanted to go ice fishing, I'd go to Alaska and do it properly. Chances are, the fish aren't going to feed anyway, and call me naïve, but surely carp wouldn't be the obvious target species in freezing temperatures... would they?

Well apparently they would. News that bosses at Viaduct Fisheries in Somerset, spent two days smashing ice so that a match could go ahead came as a bit of a surprise to me. But it was a 100-peg event so I can understand that they didn't want to lose out on the revenue that it would generate.

But what was a real shock to me were the winning weights. A few pounds of roach right? Wrong. The top three anglers all breached the “magical ton barrier” with the winner putting together a 144lb bag. The story doesn't specify what species the fish were but my money is on that well documented winter feeder, the carp.

To me this is unnatural. How was it possible to catch so many carp so synonymous with lazy summer evenings and floating baits, from a lake where it took the preceding two days to smash the covering layer of ice?

This says two things to me. Firstly, the viewpoint that smashing ice is detrimental to fish stocks is blown clean out of the water. Clearly, it isn't.

Secondly, it speaks volumes about the fish in commercial fisheries. These carp must have become so conditioned to a regular feed-up of angler's baits that two days under ice must have been the equivalent of a heroin addict going cold turkey for them. When the bait started going in again they must have been only too relieved to get their hit as the dinner bell was sounded.

More worryingly, such a high stocking density means that the fish begin to get seriously hungry after two days under ice, as competition for what natural food exists is fierce, and they haven't had the slightest sniff of a pellet upon which they usually rely. So these fish need that bait and were queueing up to be hooked.

And that's really my beef with commercial fisheries. I'm not a biologist but if these were wild fish, surely they'd be lying up and conserving energy, avoiding predators and perhaps feeding sporadically, not consistently over five hours. When I go fishing, I want it to be an experience where I try to outwit a wily creature in it's natural habitat that is behaving in a way that has taken thousands of years of evolution to perfect, and yes, I often fail but that's all part of the game. What happened at Viaduct Fisheries is akin to feeding time at the zoo and I still can't quite get my head around it and the type of angling experience it represents.

Chub rewards cold water efforts

LOADS of recent headlines and articles have been singing the praises of the chub as a species that will continue to feed, even with a lot of the country still firmly in the icy grip of winter.

My last three outings have all ended – though one of them didn't start – in pursuit of this greedy predator and after a couple of blanks, I finally connected with one of about 3lbs which was a most welcome sight after a good few fish-less hours on the frozen banks.

After lamenting the time I wasted at the Loddon in my last post on this blog, I took my own advice and headed a couple of days later to the river Blackwater. Conditions were indeed perfect though the fish disagreed as they stubbornly refused the cheese paste that I legered in all the likeliest-looking holes. Even into darkness they showed no interest but so angling goes...

Not entirely deterred, I returned yesterday and thought a size 20 hook tied to a 1lb 8oz link and baited with pinkies under a small stick float might winkle out a few dace and roach. It didn't. After flogging the swim for some hours with nothing to show but an aching arm for my efforts, I conceded defeat and put the float gear away.

There was just enough time left to give the leger a go and although the chub weren't playing ball last time, I reasoned that a slight rise in the air temperature might have encouraged them to feed. So with light fading fast I went to the most reliable swim on the river and was rewarded within a few casts with a big pair of rubbery lips slipping over the rim of my landing net, restoring my faith in my bait, tactics, tackle and ability!

Choose carefully...

DAYLIGHT hours are at a minimum at this time of year and this, coupled with the recent extreme weather conditions means it's important to choose a venue where you can be reasonably certain of a return from the time that you have on the bank. Get this right and you can maximise your winter results. Get it wrong and you could well be kicking yourself as I recently discovered...

I learnt the hard way yesterday when I had some free time to go in search of some River Loddon chub. It had rained solidly throughout the previous day which meant the river would be up and quite possibly still rising as surface water continued to run off the surrounding fields and roads – not ideal conditions by a long way.

I didn't consider this properly before leaving however, as I'd already made up my mind and was determined to go to the Loddon having not been there for some time. Upon arrival, a quick look over the road bridge confirmed that the river was indeed pushing through hard meaning fishable swims would be down to a minimum. Still, with blind optimism I unloaded the gear and went off in search of some slack water and hungry chub.

There's another river close to me that I've fished regularly for some years and have got to know its characteristics and foibles. The recently much-hyped Blackwater is a shallow river at the best of times and needs a lot of rain immediately before you fish it to give it some colour and the angler a chance of success. It also runs off very quickly so the window of maximum opportunity is not generally open for very long.

Needless to say, conditions yesterday would have been perfect and hindsight says that it's to there that I should have gone. The Loddon was pushing through so hard and high that swims were to a minimum and so were the chub. I did see several buzzards that spent a lot of time circling low directly above me, as well as mice and the usual maggot munching robins so it wasn't a bad day out in the countryside.

Fishing is a continuous learning curve and this goes to show that no matter how much you want to go to a particular venue, prevailing conditions may mean that you'll do better elsewhere and ignoring them will ultimately cost you fish on the bank.