A Good Wintery Session.

            After planning on getting back down to the reservoir for another night, the weather turned and was a bit spiteful for my liking, within the town I live, we had snow for around 4 or 5 hours and I didn’t fancy it. After purchasing some new rods as my old rods had taken a beating, where better to go than to Chestnut Pool in Langford. This is a good lake to get a bend in the rod or two. Where I fished it in the snow I didn’t expect it to be that difficult getting the bites going so a strategy was planned which has paid off for me over the past few weeks. I decided to use bottom baits with my ever faithful snowman on the business end, this consisted of a 14mm NV-R Boilie tipped off with either a white or Pink Pop up, and this was coupled with a small bag mix that even the biggest carp couldn’t refuse. 

            I woke up at around 5:30am to get myself up and pack the car as I was out the previous evening; this took a mere 15 minutes. With all the car packed and ready to go I set off to get up to Langford, I arrived at around 6:45am, I was the only car outside the gates, result! Just after 7:00am a good friend from college came up to meet me so we could have a bit of a social.

2nd Fish - 13lb on the Dot!

            Pete came out to open the gates and I headed straight for the car park, no-one was in the peg that I wanted which was a right result, considering how early I woke up ha-ha. Ticket paid for and the barrow loaded and it was off to the swim to put some fish on the bank. We got round there and as Pete rightly described it, it was like the Somme as the ground was so boggy, nothing I can’t deal with. The rods were out along with a couple of boilies put out in the throwing stick around the 2 rods fished tight together. This is usually a good tactic to catching a lot of fish on high stocked venues, having the rods close together.

10lb 14oz Mirror.

            Both rods on the money and its game on, or so we thought, nothing we could seem to do would scratch a bite until my sirens let out a screamer, I was seen playing the first fish being a feisty little common, no longer had I put this fish back and the right rod ripped off and I was found doing battle with something a bit bigger, after a short battle she was in the net and spun the scales round to 13lb. This shows that the snowman was working and the rod was put back on the money every single time. A fresh bag and 20-30 boilies followed after the rig, a little and often baiting pattern was to there to get the fish feeding as they were, getting nailed every single time it was a pain getting the Fang Twister out!

Small Common

            As the afternoon went on, I managed to keep a good steady flow of action coming which is why I was putting the bait out, in some cases I had only just put the rod down and as I was putting bait out over their heads the rods were ripping off, it just shows that they don’t spook off some grub. Another couple of fish were put on the bank with another low double at 10lb 14oz was unhooked and pictures taken, then the rod straight back out. As I was playing a fish one of josh’s rods ripped off and he was into a small mirror which was his first of the session. I love this type of fishing, really speedy and keeping the bites coming.

            As the day got on, I had a simultaneous take. One fish was staying deep and really showing an account of itself from which I knew was a fair bit bigger than the others feeling roughly the same as the 13lb Mirror earlier on in the session. As I got it in the net, I looked and said to josh “that’s the biggest yet! I’d say a mid-double at least” we got her on the matt and weighed here and she spun the scales to 16lb on the dot, what a lovely chunky fish, there’s always one fish that makes my day and she did it! 

Small Mirror.

           The bag mix I was using was incredibly basic; it consisted of the New Velocity Baits White V-Cloud Ground Bait with the addition of the Velocity Baits NV-R Glug to make it a bit more attractive. This was put into small golf ball bags as I usually tend to go no bigger than that as you don’t want to preoccupy the fish or feed them too much on a big stocking like PVA Bag. This was threaded onto my favoured snowman setup consisting of 15lb Braid, size 10 Nash Fang Twister Hook with a Safety Bolt Bead with no pin holding the clip in place so it was running, this is my usual day ticket setup as the fish can’t shake it, plus with the snowman setup the fish was getting nailed every single time!

Similar Setup to What I Was Using, Same Rig.

            The session moved on and it was getting late, the barrow was then packed and I was setting off home with a good amount of fish on my second session this year on Chestnut Pool, for a few runs as a morale booster, social or testing new gear it is a great venue well worth a visit. I’m sure I will be back before we all break for the summer hopefully getting amongst them again.

16lb Mirror What a Fish to End On!

Thank You for Reading!

Ross.

Follow Me on Twitter - @Rosst93