Light at the end of the tunnel

For the last 3 winters, I have had a real “tunnel vision” about my fishing, stubbornly refusing to go off and target an easier or more heavily stocked venue. Instead, I have doggedly continued fishing my 140 acre syndicate lake through the coldest of conditions, even with the lake 80% frozen. With depths of up to 30ft, the lake can take a bit longer to warm up than some and I have endured long blanks with not a bite to show for my efforts yet still I keep on. 

This determined behaviour, which friends of mine have admired yet questioned in the past is all very well but it can be a bit soul destroying if I’m honest. I fish one overnighter a week so my time is limited and I have moved all over the lake in search of bites through those winter months, fishing the deeper water, the shallower areas, drop offs, up to south facing reed beds during milder conditions all to no avail. 

Life is too short isn’t it? I have to say, I have enjoyed the challenge though and I just love to be there angling for that bite that would make it all worth it. The first bite of spring is a much anticipated and welcomed event but you just never quite know when it might be. All over social media, fish started to come out around the country as the lakes started to wake from the winter slumber yet the syndicate steadfastly refused to give up its prizes. As I say, the lake does take a bit longer to warm and so even with signs of new life and vegetaion around the lake, it still wasn’t ready. 

I’ve long believed that the biggest catalyst for the fish to wake up is the increasing daylight hours, almost irrelevant of temperatures. The longer hours

of daylight promote photosynthesis and therefore growth to all vegetation which in turn promotes insect life and this in turn kickstarts the whole cycle. Of course, the temperatures slowly rise and this further encourages the fish to start moving around the lake but they wouldn’t do that if there wasn’t any food there for them, because as we know, the only reason they stop eating in the colder months (and go torpid) is because there is no point in wasting energy swimming around looking for food that isn’t there! 

The light at the end of a very long, muddy, dark and cold tunnel is that my first bite of spring each year on this syndicate has been April and this year has been no different. On the 16th, I caught a mirror carp of 19lb 4oz on a white Crustazia pop up.

All 3 fish were caught on the white pop ups while the match the hatch ones not a metre away produced nothing. 

I know what hookbaits I will be using next week! 

The next trip out, the swim I had been having success from was occupied so I decided to fish the  other side of the lake and after a quiet night for me (and the person in the other swim), I had a bite  early in the morning resulting in a23lb 6oz mirrror. Again, despite fishing a match the hatch crustazia pop up close by, the bite came to a white crustazia pop up.