stevetheangler

On Friday 19th January I decided to return to the venue of the previous outing (KF-VV) albeit by myself.

A heavy overnight frost led to me having my breakfast sat in the car on the car on the driveway at home whilst I ran the engine and tried to defrost the windows at 0645 in an attempt to get them clear for a 0730 set off for the pool … and that worked out fine and I set off at the intended time.

Air temperature on the drive was showing as +1.5’C …. and on arrival at the pool itself as +1.0 … but during the trip the temps varied from a low of  -2.5’C up to a high of +1.5’C.

Water temps measured at the pool ranged from a low of 2.8’C on arrival and had risen to 3.2’C when I left at 1200.

OK now … the ‘hard’ bit of the title doesn’t refer to the ‘catchability’ factor of the pool itself, in fact the pool is very ‘commercial’ in nature and usually its harder to not catch there than it is to actually catch. The ‘hard’ bit actually refers to the physical state of the water on arrival – ie it was 95%, at least, iced over with a few pockets of clear water over on the east bank.

So, I had intended to fish the west bank, that’s the one with the line of conifers that you can see in the first picture, as the wind of the day was forecast to come in from that direction and the trees would have formed a bit of a windbreak … but it was not to be as, as I said, the only clear water was on the east side and thus I was forced to that bank – the third picture is the actual swim I sat in with a clear area in front of me of around 8-10 yards.

So, before prepping tackle, etc I catapulted out a couple of pouches of dead maggots and a few small prawns as I was hoping for perch to make an appearance. I also cast out my FishSpy underwater camera in the hope of catching a view of some fish but with a quick preliminary glance at the captured footage I’ve not seen anything but perhaps on a more prolonged and closer examination….

I floatfished, lift method, with a 3AAA driftbeater float on 6lb mainline with a size 12 hook, making the first cast around 0830, and tried both worm and prawn baits with no joy whatsoever until I packed in at 1200. At that time although air temps in general were rising, the temp on the east bank was dropping as the air passed over the icy surface, and as the ice was gradually thawing it was drawing warmth from the air to do so (latent heat)… and at 1200, even though I was wearing fleecey fingerless gloves that have a pullover full mitt I could no longer feel my fingers – and that meant it was time to leave….

WATER TEMPS: