STEVE RINGER
Where to locate the fish on stillwaters
WITHOUT doubt, when it comes to catching fish at this time of year the most important thing to bear in mind is location.
You can have the best bait and rigs in the world, but if the fish aren’t there you won’t catch them!
Unlike in summer, when the fish will move to bait and are a lot more active, in winter carp in particular lie virtually dormant. They will eat, but they don’t tend to move very far in order to do so.
Obviously, when match fishing, it’s all about the draw as most matches in the cold are won and lost at this early stage. Pleasure fishing is very different, and when you can pick your swim there are lots of things to think about when it comes to choosing the right one.
For those of you on the bank this weekend here are a few pointers that will help you…
CHECK WIND DIRECTION
The first thing I do on arriving at a fishery at this time of year is check the wind direction. In summer I like to fish into the wind, as this is where the food tends to be and the fish will follow the wind to find it!
In winter, though, the opposite applies. Generally a big wind in the winter is a cold one, and fish do not follow a cold wind. If it’s an Arctic blast, then nine times out of 10 you’ll find the fish off the back of it in the calmer water at the back of the wind, where it’s slightly warmer.
LOOK FOR FEATURES
Carp love to hold up around man-made and natural features and it’s worth spending time sussing out the obvious ones above water in your swim.
Aerators (not switched on), bridges, big rush beds and overhanging trees are all magnets for fish to shelter under. If an aerator is switched on in winter to keep a lake ice-free the chances of any fish being in the vicinity are virtually nil – the aerator chills the water even further by mixing it up.
Fish favour features like these because they feel safe under them, especially when the water is clear. The secret to fishing these pegs is to get your float or bomb/feeder as tight to the feature as possible. Quite often this will mean literally resting the float against it!
Normally, in this instance, there is no need to feed as the fish are there already, so dobbing bread, corn or maggots becomes the number one tactic.
The good thing about features is that fish don’t tend to leave them – yes they might get tighter underneath them but you know they are never far away.
PLUMB UP FOR ANOMALIES
Above-water features can be really obvious, but there are also fish-holding features beneath the surface of the lake. If I go to a venue I’m not familiar with in the cold I always try and
find out where the deepest part of the lake is, because this is a great starting point for finding the fish.
Quite often this will be an area that provides poor fishing in the summer unless you can catch shallow or in the margins.
However, in the winter, deep pegs can be full of fish.
Using a plummet properly is perhaps even more important at the moment to build a picture of exactly what’s in front of you.
Any sort of depth variation, no matter how small, has the capability of holding fish, and so careful plumbing is required.
Sometimes these features are tiny, but they can still have a huge impact on your catches.
I remember a peg on Snake Lake at Makins which had a slightly deeper hole on the bottom that was stacked with fish. It was no bigger than 50cm across, but the fish piled into it.
Had I not found it by careful plumbing I would have missed out on the best part of the swim!
FISH AT THE RIGHT DEPTH
One of the biggest myths surrounding carp in the cold is that they lie dormant on the bottom of the lake.
However, unless the lake is very shallow, you will find the carp are usually sat up off the bottom.
The reason behind this is that on deeper lakes of 6ft-plus there will be a band of warmer water, and this is where the carp will sit.
I honestly believe, on lakes such as these, that the only time a carp will go near the bottom is to pick up items of food, and if the water temperature is really low they will be reluctant to do even that!
This is when fishing off bottom comes into its own, and methods such as straight lead and poppedup bread produces bites when all else fails.
The key to success when carp are off the bottom is, of course, to find the right depth, so if you know carp are in front of you then experimenting with the depth you present your bait at can make all the difference.
ONCE YOU FIND THEM…
Having said it’s important where possible to try and sit on the fish, what I haven’t mentioned is that more often than not, once you start fishing and catch a few, they will back away.
Ideally, you want to pick a swim that gives you the scope to follow these fish out.
It’s different in matches, because when a lake is full the fish have less room to move and tend to
settle where they feel safest.
Too much room in matches can therefore be a nightmare, as the fish will simply sit in the gaps.
On snake lakes, in particular, when this happens you end up fishing 16m left and right to try and pick fish off.
The point I am trying to make here is that if you start to catch and then it dies, be prepared to move around to stay in touch with the fish. Once they move they don’t return to the original spot.