steve (stonecold)

Twas the final session before Christmas and everything was ...........bloomin cold.

It was decided the day day before, (saturday 22nd), that myself and fishing buddy Chris would have a session on the final sunday before Xmas, here in Ely town centre. Now to get a decent (if any) spot in Ely town, you need to arrive early.Now early can mean as little as 6:30am and as late as 8pm. So we arranged to meet between 7:15 and 7:30am.
I was up at 6am and looking outside, it was touch and go as to whether I got back under the warmth of the duvet, thick fog and a sharp frost was all I saw and it looked quite nippy to say the least.
So up I got, stuck my head outta the door and my suspiciations were correct, too right it was bloomin cold. Well on went the layers, black coffee in the flask and all the gear in the car, I set off on the LONG journey to the destination. Now when I say "long", I'm over doing it a little as it's only 5mins.......lol.
On arrival, I could see that the area we wanted to fish was free and on closer inspection it didn't look too bad and we were feeling quietly confident of catching a few.
So trudging back to the motors we got all the gear and proceeded to get back on the bank.
First agenda was mixing the groundbait up with my new 24volt cordless drill, now guys head to your nearest Malins electrical store an get on, £30 with a spare battery and they the dogs wotsits.
Groundbait was 75% VDE secret, 20% VDE Supercup, 5% pv1 and a sprinkling of grilled hemp. With all that lot mixed up, the pole was out and two rigs set up.
First was A 3grm Sensas Jean Fransois, this I set up as my running/inching thru rig. A 2.5grm was set 2-2.5ft above the hook, with number 8 and 10 droppers to set the float to a pimple, hooklength was 0.08 powerline to a mustad canal/seed hook size 20. My other rig was a 2grm flat float for nailing the bait dead still for (hopefully) better skimmers or roach. 2grm ollivette was attached onto the 0.13 powerline and a micro swivel below that to which was attached a 2 ft 0.10 powerline hook length and a size 18 mustad canal/seed hook.
Plumbing up at 11.5mtr, you've got around 13/14ft of water, so it's a decent winter depth. The running thru rig I set at about 2 inches over depth so as I could inch the bait thru the swim just a tad slower that the pace of the river. The lollipop flattie was next, a clip on plummet was attached to a number 8 shot just above the micro swivel, thus allowing me to plumb up so the olivette is around 2-4 inches off the bottom.
Bait was plain and simple, red and white maggots and half a pint of pinkies. Right I was all set, so Groundbait was the first to now sort. I was going to cup in, but Chris said he tried it the other day and he found balling had better results. So in went a handful of dormant pinkies and 5 balls were formed ready for the wake up call. Out went the pole to the desired area and the balling comenced, all on the button bar one which I dropped slightly shorter just incase. Right I was set for a session, so I thought til I realised that the ever trusty mobile had been left on the front seat of the car, so off i went back to the car, which was only 150 mtrs away, and imagine my suprise when I returned that Chris was already netting a pound skimmer, weh hey thought I it must be solid lets get at em.
Double red maggot went on and shipped out, first cast wallop a skimmer around 10oz.Next cast the same,with Chris catching aswell we were on a shed full. Now this went on for a good couple of hours, both of us catching decent skimmers every 10mins or so. Then the bubble burst. At around 11:30am, all of a sudden alot of rubbish started coming down river, where before it had been clear. The temperature appeared to be dropping and the fog was coming down thicker, and the bites just disappeared. So it was time for the flattie to try and work some magic. First put in I had a skimmer, next put in another, that's it thought I I've got it sorted. Next cast and nothing, not even a touch.Why this happened we could only put down to the extra drop in temperature and possibly the water temperature dropping aswell.
Being the hardy fellows that us fishermen ( and women) are, we stuck it out until 2:30pm to which time it was bloomin cold. Out came the keepnets, I ended up with just scraping a low double figures and Chris easily had 14-15lb of fish, possibly a little more. All the fish we caught were skimmers and not a single roach. All in all it was a nice days sport and having a good laugh along the way made the barren spell go alot quicker than it seemed.
Well with the festive season knocking on the door, that'll be my final session until the merryment and festivities are out of the way.
So here's hoping you all have a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year, Tight Lines too all.

Pete M

Good read Steve.
A nice way to end the year given the conditions.

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steve (stonecold)

Cheers Pete, read a few escapades an thought i'd start t share my own