Sunday 12^th January 2025 – Winter League #3 – Margaret’s Lake, Whitehouse Farm

Moving swiftly on from last week’s rapidly rising river disaster and into the uncertainties of an icy abyss. Well, what could possibly go wrong? Our latest winter league match was held on Margaret’s Lake at Whitehouse Farm, where we were greeted by an unwelcome sheet of ice over the lake’s surface. I wasn’t sure whether to get out my pole or my ice skates. I didn’t have my ice-breaker with me but thanks to match secretary, Jason and a couple of Tonys, much of the ice was broken. Actually, it wasn’t on my peg for some reason…

So, we had 14 contestants for this third round of the Winter League and everyone seemed to be in good spirits. I think we were all under no illusion though about how the day was about to pan out and so at the draw there was a psychological dash for the deeper pegs. In reality, only 5 or possibly 6 anglers were going to be lucky enough to draw deep water, which meant everyone else was going to have to face the fact that they might not be able to buy a bite today. Any thoughts of catching a carp was pure fantasy and the possibility of latching onto a chub was nothing more than a pipe dream as the ice made it impossible to reach the island.

So, I drew peg 6, which during the summer months is an absolute flier and a peg most anglers would sell their grandmother for. However, at this time of year, it’s no different from any other mediocre peg. When I arrived it looked okay. It was flat calm… but then I noticed a duck gingerly walking on the surface and realised it was all solid. The breaker boys had missed it, probably thinking it wasn’t iced over and to be fair, it certainly didn’t look like it was. As I didn’t want to be the only person now making a sh*t load of noise with a breaker, I opted to use my landing net handle with a blade attachment. This worked quite well although I could only reach out to about 4.5 metres at the furthest point.

Well, I just had to get on with it. A top 2 plus 2 was the order of the day with a maximum of 5 feet of water to play with. I set up 3 rigs, one for straight out in front and one each for either side. My out-in-front rig was set at full depth with a size 18 hook to a 0.12 hooklength. I was secretly hoping I might find a skimbo or two here and possibly the odd small roach. To my right was a spit, where the carp would normally lie and so I set up a stronger rig with a size 16 hook and a 0.15 hooklength for this one. I had about 3.5 feet of water to work with but didn’t really have much confidence in catching anything on this line.

My third and final line was to my left where there was a small tree with overhanging branches. My plan was to fish up in the water here at 2.5 feet deep, and fish with a size 20 hook to a 0.08 hooklength. This was my desperation rig. The shotting pattern was set so my bait would fall slowly and gently through the water. I was hoping to catch the attention of any surface and mid-water feeders here regardless of species. So, on the “all-in”, I started by dobbing a 6mm disc of bread all over the place. I also tried a 4mm and 8mm disc of bread but after 30 minutes there were no signs of life.

Next, I cupped out a tiny marble-sized ball of groundbait laced with dead pinkles straight out in front. Over the next hour, I followed up with a few more balls of the same and tried both live pinkles and live red maggles on this line but there was nothing doing, not a twitch, not a sniff, not a dink… nought… nada… zilch. So with 90 minutes gone already and no fish to show, I was beginning to think I was in for a blank. Then, I saw Mike Reid on peg 7 catch a roach, which was encouraging and spurred me on to get going with my next line just under the tree branches. I flicked out 3-4 maggles and laid in my shallow rig. It was a good 15 minutes before I got a positive indication and a few minutes later I was netting my first 1-ounce roach.

It’s just so satisfying to get that first fish in the net when it’s fishing so hard. So now I’m all cock-a-hoop and waiting for the next one, which came just a few minutes later. That one was a rudd about 2 ounces… whoopee! I was flying! My method was working but bites were slow to come. I was having to wait maybe 5 or 6 minutes between bites but with continuous feeding, the stamp of fish began to improve with my best one being a roach of around 6 ounces. I did have a few more checks on the deeper swim but there was still nothing there so I concentrated totally on the shallow approach.

In the last hour, the bites tailed off and I even lost a few fish, which prompted me to put on a new fine wire hook and shot the float down to a pimple. I managed to snare a couple more on this improved presentation until the all-out-shout went out! Well, that was tough and I was sure it was tough for everyone else as I watched 2 anglers pack up early having blanked. I know that Mike on peg 7 had caught few and I was sure he had caught more than me as he began catching much earlier. Then I heard that someone had caught a couple of skimbos so it was defo game over for me.

I was the first to be weighed, which turned out to be 1-15-0 and at that point, I was at least winning… lol! Next was Mike who had 2-4-0, which put me in second place. I thought I was well beaten but when all the weights were in, I was quite surprised to end up in 4^th position, picking up the third place spoils. Well done to Kev Murch whose 2 skimbos helped him to certain victory with a whopping 3-14-0 total. Tony Welsby finished in second place with 2-11-0. The next round of the Winter League is next Sunday and will be on George’s Lake. At least the weather will have warmed up by then so weights should be a little better me hopes. Keep you posted!

If you enjoyed reading this blog then be sure to join the Fish Wag Facebook group HERE for blog updates. Please Like and Share… it’s appreciated! Check out my older blog posts below…