January is not the most welcoming month weather wise, it can be a complete mixture of all the inclement types of weather and this year has been worse than usual. To carry on from where I left off last time, the ice had gone but was replaced by rain, rain and more rain ; I have no problem with fishing in the rain, my waterproofs do their job and keep me dry and I do not use a brolly, but the problem with constant rain is the state of a) the water and b) the underfoot conditions. Anyway I plucked up courage and trudged off to peg 10 on the Friday with the intention of videoing the 10m Chinese whip (the banana). I managed to slip and slide my way to 10 and set up the whip with a 5g Blues rig, 0.14mm main to 0.10mm hooklength and an 18 with double maggot and the pike rod. Now at this point I must mention that with the heavy rain over the previous days the water had gone up and now resembled oxtail soup with plumes of sediment clearly visible (the only thing that was visible in that mess!). I began on the 10m whip and have put a couple of clips to show the action on casting and striking, no playing fish as after almost 2hours I had not had a bite. I swapped to the 7m whip instead and managed to avoid the blank with a shell-shocked roach of an ounce- my only bite!

The weather now went cold- very cold so when we went for a walk on Monday the lake was still frozen but with the weather warming up slightly the thaw had started. Next day I went to the Pondtail peg 2 armed with the icebreaker and managed to get a reasonable space as the ice was thin and melting. Over the weekend I had finally taken my old ABU 506 apart and cleaned it up so it now worked- only taken me 15 years to do it! New line had been spooled and although the conditions were not good I wanted to give it a run out to check it was okay. The water was gushing through the weir and it was akin to trotting on a slow river but try as I might I remained biteless, running through going over depth and dragging made not a jot of difference as the fine weather promised on the forecast never materialised and the Bowood micro-climate kicked in with heavy drizzle that further melted the ice and lowered the water temperature again. I gave it two hours then packed up, walking back to the car, Tim, the gamekeeper, drove past going about his business and pointing to his head mouthed “You’re mad!”

I think he may well be right. However I planned to go on Friday but rain in the preceding days had caused flooding on the roads and fields and when the heavy rain began on Thursday night and carried on into the morning I thought about the potential oxtail soup waiting for me at peg 10 and showed a little bit of sanity and stayed home and did this!

The loss of my trusty ice breaker saw a visit to the local DIY store for a length of chain on the Saturday after New Years Day. Equipped with a new chain a new breaker was assembled!

I was loathe to but decided to give it a go on the Sunday, Peg 10 seems a lot further when you have an ice breaker on the trolley I discovered! The temperature was just below freezing when I arrived but was due to rise to the giddly heights of 3C.

Peg 10 was still covered in ice, as was most of the lake apart from a strip on the far side that stretched a 100m or so and was being kept clear by the wind movement. Setting to work with the breaker I cleared an area out to 9m, based on the fact that was the easiest distance to throw the breaker, but rather than the usual rectangle shape, I cut a funnel shape in the ice so I could put a pike bait out as well.

With the ice now cleared I decided to not cup in any bait, rather use a kinder pot to deposit a few micros and maggots with a groundbait plug. My sardine bait for the pike was lobbed to the edge of the right hand edge of the ice about 7m out. I didn’t have long to wait before I had a bite on the pole, a small roach, followed by two microscopic perch.

The bites continued and whenever they tailed off another plug of groundbait kick started them again. The fish were small but welcome, after an hour another brave (fool-hardy) angler arrived on the far bank and went on 19, by the island, which had a clear patch of water, again fishing for pike. The morning passed quickly with regular bites and at 10:30ish the pike float slid beneath the ice! A low strike was met with solid resistance but a fairly short if scrappy fight ended with a pike of 6-12 in the net. A bonus on such a day!

About 11:45 3 other anglers turned up and I decided it was time to think about going, the temperature had risen to those heights of 3C and the ice had started to melt, making my area bigger but the ice water was going to have an effect on the fish. I ended up with 50 small roach and those 2 perch to go with the pike. I said they were small and they were the scales showed 2-9 for the 52 fish! I told the new anglers that I was leaving if they wanted to drop in to my peg (as it was the only one clear on this side).

Tuesday Lockdown 3 starts and angling is not allowed, by Thursday thanks to the efforts of the Angling Trust it was back on the allowed forms of exercise providing it was done locally. If ever there was an example of why everyone should be a member of the Angling Trust, this was it. It may be a pandemic this time but you only have to look at what has happened to angling in Germany in the past as a result of not having a coherent Governing Body to see why we need the Angling Trust.

I decided to leave the weekend alone and returned to peg 10 (yes the rut has set it) on the Monday. The walk was not pleasant to say the least with the underfoot conditions being very slippery. The colour was dropping out of the water and with a very cold wind straight in to my face I lasted 3.25 hours. It was an hour before I had a bite and lost it, in fact that was a theme for the session with 8 small roach being landed and 9 being lost. The hook was checked and fine, it was after the fourth fish landed I discovered the reason, the fish was not hooked but hanging on to the maggot! It seems the ice water had made the fish very lethargic and they were just holding the bait rather than wolfing it down. The session ended with my 8 roach weighing 0-4-8!

Various factors then came into play that stopped me going again until the following Monday. Determined to break the rut, I took my rucksack seat, waggler/feeder/pike rods up to the island to try and almost complete my mission of fishing every peg this season.

I decided to fish a waggler given the overhanging trees and found about 4 feet of water 15-20m out. My first problem was that I did not have a catapult, as when I went to retrieve it from the front pocket it was not there! So I prepared to introduce two balls of groundbait with a few micros and pinkies in them.The pike rod was lobbed out to the left about 20m, just over a slight drop off, with a sardine as per usual. Looking around the island it now only had the one fishable area as the brambles had taken over peg17, so it looks as if I have fished all the available spots this season!

Ten minutes in I had my first bite which I missed, next cast missed again, third cast I hooked what looked like a hand sized skimmer that flipped and came off! I then began to get a run of roach and managed to keep them coming by introducing a ball of groundbait every 40 minutes or so. The pike rod was totally inactive! Towards the end of the session, a large double flashed through the surface chasing the roach, I then moved the pike rod into that area but to no avail. I had set myself a target of 50 roach if possible and at 12:15 achieved that and decided to pack up. Whilst doing so the pike swirled again! The 50 roach plus one rudd and one small skimmer weighed 5-1.

The weather is not looking brilliant at present with the forecast of more rain making the poor underfoot conditions even worse (if that is possible). I have made up a rig with a 5g “Blue”and given the opportunity I am planning to do a follow up video session with my 10m Chinese whip – the “banana”.

After Sunday’s disappointment at Peatmoor I headed to Bowood 10 on the Tuesday without much hope as the rain had continued and the Pondtail was up and coloured and on arrival it looked as if peg 10 had become a huge cup of PG Tips. Still I put the sardine out with little hope and decided to put three balls of groundbait down and see if I could coax something out of the tea! Surprisingly I managed to get a few bites leading to 10 roach and a small skimmer for the enormous weight of 9 ounces! Still I felt as if I had achieved something by catching at all in the conditions.

The weather was such I did not go again until the Tuesday of Christmas week, fishing 9:15 to 12:30. The water was still very coloured but at least it had a better hue to it. The rut continues and peg 10 sees me putting out the sardine and introducing just two balls of groundbait to start. Small roach attacked the double maggot on the first two put ins then went dead, I suspected a pike and 10 minutes later the pike rod was in action as the pellet waggler slid away. This produced a good start – a pike of 9-14.

I could not get any bites on the 10m line so switched to the top kit line and began getting regular fish, albeit small interspersed with two more runs resulting in fish of 6-05 and 6-08. The pike were clearly in situ and pushing the silver fish towards the bank. When I packed up I had 53 roach and 14 rudd for 3-04, all taken apart from the initial two on the top two line.

Christmas arrives and it is the Wednesday before I attempt to go again, now the weather has changed to sub-zero temperatures and this was to cause me an unforeseen problem – the car locks froze and I could not open the boot (could not even get the key in to start). After trying several methods I gave it up as a bad job and went to B&Q for a new shower hose on the suggestion of the wife – “it might jog it open”. Arrived at store- boot opened!

Next day, New Year’s Eve, tried again, temperature was -3C, lock frozen again but this time a hair drier manages to thaw it open! Car loaded and set off on the 3 minute trip to Bowood, lock was frozen again. After a couple of minutes I managed to get it open, the Pondtail was covered in ice apart from Peg 1 where the whirling current was keeping it clear, so ice-breaker in tow I set off for 10. Arriving at 10 the main lake was covered in a thick sheet of ice, so my trusty ice-breaker was thrown to 10m and the sawing back process began. Reaching 7m the chain got stuck and it took a few moments and hefty tugs to release it and continue the sawing process until it got to about 3m out and it stuck again, this time the hefty tugs saw the chain stuck in the ice and the rope come back to me! Landing net was quickly put up and reached beyond the chain sticking up in the ice only to find the path I had cut had refrozen, on tapping the ice the chain disappeared into the 5 feet of water! Faced with no breaker I trudged back to the Pondtail and fished the whip for an hour without a bite before deciding to cut my losses and go home! A disappointing end to 2020