Winter has arrived - You Need to Rethink Your Approach

As the water and air temperature starts to plummet its now time to rethink our fishing strategy, gone are those sessions when we would use a lot of ground bait either in crumb form or dumping in boilies and pellets. I have seen anglers on rivers as diverse as the Kennet, Avon, Wye, Severn and Teme put in a kilo or more of bait; they then fail to understand why they didn’t catch. On many occasions even a handful of hook bait samples are far too much.

As the water temperature drops below 40 degrees F so does the amount of food eaten by our quarry, the fish will take longer to digest its food, if your fishing as the cold snaps start then only put one food item in the swim, making sure its got a hook inside it. There might be just one fish in that swim wanting just a single item of food for the next few hours. Remember when the water temperature drops below 39.5 degrees F the whole aquatic environment changes, water is like the oil in your car as the temperature drops the viscosity of the oil changes it becomes thicker, its the same principal in our rivers and still waters. Fish and the aquatic life will slow down. Fish often moving into quieter stretches of a river often well inside of the crease or seam line where the water is often dormant.

I have on several occasions seen fish tight to the bank, often in or under tree roots together like sardines in a can. Don't make the mistake of thinking the water in deeper flowing areas of our rivers will be warmer, it isn’t. Remember as the river flows and swirls its all gets mixed up. From checking water temperatures over the past fifty years I haven't noticed any difference in the temperatures between shallow and deeper stretches of our river. The only time I have noticed a slight difference perhaps .5 of a degree F is on very slow flowing water such as the Welland, Witham and Fen drains, but even then the temperature really doesn't change much.

The reason we find fish in the deeper spots in our rivers, are because it offers a sanctuary, where our quarry finds it more comfortable to remain dormant and protected from predators. Often these deep areas have large rocks, tree trunks and other obstructions on the bed of the river. This is especially true in some areas of the Severn, Wye and Ribble. The Ribble in the area of Long Preston Deeps a water where it’s often very slow and extremely deep. There are some real snags that will never be removed by the biggest of floods, areas that offer sanctuary to both salmonids and coarse fish such as big predatory brown trout, salmon, pike and chub.

The fish you should target during the first few days of a very cold spell are chub, dace and grayling, though having written those words I should mentions that on several occasions last winter when the temperature dropped below zero, I was catching big perch 3lb plus fish from a gravel pit. On one occasion the gravel pit in question had a large area of ice covered water, carp were patrolling and feeding in the margin, this after the water temperature had dropped some 5 degrees F to .a very low 36 degrees F this combined with a very strong north easterly wind. It’s often been said unless you have bait, fly or lure in the water you can't possibly catch, true words indeed.

I have often arrived on the banks of a river an hour before dusk to be told "You’re wasting your time today” but fishing on into the darkness I and my friends have often caught a few chub. If we have a high pressure zone sitting over the country with bright sunshine then I reckon it’s even more important to fish the last hour of daylight, then on into the darkness. I and many of my friends have had many sessions where the tackle and other gear has had a covering of frost, the landing net is often frozen to the ground and though we might shiver, we get enough bites to keep us at the waters edge often to eleven o’clock at night, even later on some occasions. We have even had the occasional suicide barbel pick up a chunk of crust. Mick Holgate of Standish, Anthony Morris of Wigan and Tony Farquharson of Southport have all experienced good fishing when everything is frozen.

From my many years of winter fishing when the air temperature is often down below zero, with a water temperatures as low as 36 degrees F. My experience tells me that the fish want chase a bait in very cold water conditions, one reason why I tend to leger, lay-on or stret-peg. As previously mentioned the fish will usually be in the quieter water, where it’s a case of putting the bait in front of them. The chub will often lie in tiny depressions on the river bed, behind a pile of stones, rocks and bits of obstruction hardly moving an inch or two during the course of a day. I often have the weight just an inch from the hook, especially when baiting with crust.

One subject that gets a lot of anglers talking are the types of bites we can expect, most argue that in cold water conditions the bites will be just a slight tap on the rod tip. Not true, most of my chub bites are quite positive, often if left alone they with pull the rod from the rest. Occasionally the fish will give just a light tap but they are a rare occurrence. I do find the hooking rate improves by holding the rod, even when the fish are whacking the rod tip round. At the start of a session I will often start off with two rods in a rest, once I have an indication that a fish might pick up the bait I often switch to one rod preferring to hold it, and feel for the bites. When fishing in frosty weather under calm conditions, it’s often possible to watch the bow in the line for bite detection.

My tackle is quite simple a soft action rod often described as an Avon action designed for lines between 4 and 6lbs BS line, matched with either a fixed spool or centre pin reel with Gamma line, when the water is very clear as it often is, I will use Gamma fluorocarbon line. My hook choice these days are the range of Pallatrax barbless from size 8 down to size 2’s, for bait I use either bread flake, crust a very soft cheese paste which just hangs on the hook, or a soft sausage meat paste. Despite the weather forecast I say wrap up warm, take a hot drink or even some soup. If you’re allowed to use a stove why not take a dish of stew which can quickly be warmed up. I have a product that allows you to cook or reheat your favourite foods and hot drinks just about anywhere? A product that puts the power of your kitchen wherever you are. It's the Wave Box the world's first portable microwave oven. The reinforced ABS casing, heavy-duty luggage handle and no-slip rubberized legs give the Wave Box true one-handed portability. They can be powered three ways, standard AC, direct to 12-volt battery and via any vehicle power socket rated at 20 amps or higher. Microwave oven is one of the best items of kit I have ever purchased. I just plug it into my car cigarette lighter or clamp onto the battery and soon I have some hot food. If your warm and comfortable your a better angler a more confident angler and you just know you are going to catch at sometime.