After having to scrape ice from my car's windscreen on Sunday morning, I expected to find some ice on the Island pond, but not the 1/2' that greeted us :-(
But, with a small boat and some willing helpers, the ice was a least broken up by the time we drew our pegs at 09:45. With the water cooling so rapidly (it had been 6 degrees on Friday) I expected that the fish would once again congregate, but the question was where? A betting man would have picked the deeper end of the Island pond, but I hoped he would be wrong, as I drew Peg 9 - a great summer peg, but not ideal when it's 2 below!
It was evident that although the ice had been broken up, it was already starting to re-freeze, so with some creative use of a combination of pole and landing net, I managed to clear a meter wide strip all the way to the far side, which is around 13m on P9.
By the time the all in was called at 11:15, the ice that remained between me and the adjacent anglers (George Glen to the left and Jonathan Dalziel to the right) was already pretty solid and any thoughts of fishing outside of the narrow strip in front of me were quickly dismissed.
As I shipped out to try the far side, George was already playing a fish, which turned out to be foul hooked and he didn't land it - little did we know that there would be no more action for George……
So, after 30 mins or so on the far bank, with no sign of any fish, I changed to the rig setup for down the middle, where the water is at it's deepest. And within a further 30 mins I had landed a nice F1 of just under 3lbs and a common of just over 1lb. I then hooked and lost a fish in the space of 2 seconds - and for me, that was it - not another touch. I tried different baits, in varying places but it appears that they weren't there. And it felt like it was getting colder - The sun had gone behind the increasing cloud cover, and it wasn't much fun :-(
Bit of a rant now. Peg 8 is well known haunt of a shoal of Chub and Jonathan managed to land 3 nice ones in the space of an hour - even better, to his right, his brother had managed to land 4 nice F1s (and lost 3 more) - so what did they do? They went to the cafe!!!!!! Most of the juniors seem to be unable to fish a full match without going for a walk, or to the cafe……..I *know* that even if I'm sitting 'biteless', I stay put as there are loads of examples of fish suddenly appearing - that's why we are there! - Rant over………
The expected shoaling of fish had happened but it was around pegs 22,23,24 which produced the top 3 weights, with Wullie McAuley landing 28lb to just pip Chris Hughes with 26lb+ and The Old Fox, John P in third with just over 20lbs.
So from 24 anglers, I finished 12th with 4lb 4oz - Not a good day, but still better than working. There were 6 DNW (did not weigh), most of them to my left where it got even shallower, so I can't complain.
I'll be back on Wednesday when it's supposed to be back up to 6 degrees - time to break out the sunscreen :-)
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