On Friday 12th January 2018 Liz and I set off for a day of general coarse fishing at one of club pools (KF-VV), leaving the house at 0815 with the car thermometer indicating an air temp of 5.0’C although as we passed through the countryside it did drop to 4.0’C, and we arrived at the pool’s car parking around 0900.
I was a bit concerned on arrival that the water might have been frozen, looking from the car it looked very ‘glassy … but a quick walk showed it to be merely millpond still with not a ripple (apart from those caused by some ducks on the far side) showing.
The weather forecast had shown that any expected winds/breezes to come from the south-westerly or westerly directions – both good on the fishermen’s expectations ie ‘when the wind is in the south it blows the bait into the fishes’ mouth’ and ‘when the wind is in the west the fish bite the best’… both far better then ‘when the wind’s in the north, the angler goes not forth’ or ‘when the wind is in the east, the fish bite the least’ …. Anyway, the expected wind direction and the fact that the west bank of the pool has a backdrop of shielding conifers to keep the breezes down and thus lessen any wind-chill effects determined our position to fish from … the west bank. And this bank also gives access to a few features as there are two islands and the end of a spit to fish across to given where you actually locate … and on this occasion Liz chose a swim so that she could fish a channel between the two islands and I fished the next swim along directly facing an island.
Anyway, the forecast was slightly out – the breezes, when they existed as quite often the pool was back to its glass-like state, tended to be southerly to slightly south-easterly if anything.
Water temps were measured at 3.3’C at around 1000 rising to 3.5/3.6’C at midday and remained steady at that until we packed up at 1515.
So, Liz elected to fish two ledger rods, as I say positioned in the channel between the two islands. One with a maggot feeder and maggot on the hook, the other an open end feeder with luncheon meat on the hook. This gained her a few bites, but they mainly resulted in dropped baits – or were line bites possibly – but she did capture a nice 6lb 8oz mirror carp taken on the meat…
Myself, I floatfished up to the island using a 4AAA bodied waggler, 6lb main line with a 6lb braid hooklength terminated in a size 16 hook baited with 2 or 3 red maggots fished over catapulted mixed dead maggots and although I only had one bite all day long (despite later changing the hook to a size 12 baited with worm), it did result in a nice 1lb 10oz perch…
And so, at 1515, with a slight chill creeping into the bones, we packed up and headed home – via the local hostelry as per usual for beer and scratchings – for a warming bath followed by a lamb stew that had been cooking in the slow cooker ….
PLANS:
Not really sure as I’d been planning a ‘pole on the canal’ day for Monday or Tuesday but with high winds on both days and rain on Monday forecast I’ve abandoned those ideas… probably be out on Friday 19th Jan though…
WATER TEMPS:
stevetheangler 
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