Arrans Lake, Entire Farm 23-12-15

It’s been a funny end to the year – lots of grey, cloudy skies leading to unseasonably warm weather,  think to date we’ve seen just two frosts so far this winter and the fish in my pond being far more active than usual. So, when the weather forecast for today said sun and warm(ish), I decided this was the day to go out and try and catch a fish or two.

Having had a fantastic session at Arran’s in August, I wanted to go back and see what it was like in the depths of winter. Maybe I could to ‘a ton’ in December, (that’s 100lb of fish to the uninitiated) something I’ve never done before. So with the omens looking good I decided to get up early and give it a go.

By 7am I was enjoying a hearty breakfast at the Rose Café on the A414 ready to be at the lake for first light. I set up round about peg 15, next to an overhanging tree and away from the worst of the breeze. That would give me options if things didn’t work out and avoid most of the cold wind. 

My peg for the day

I was ready to start at 0810. I potted in a few 6mm pellets at 10m and went out a full depth (about 4ft) with double maggot. This resulted in a few rudd only, so I went onto a small expander and bagged a few small carp in the 2-3lb range. It wasn’t hectic action, but there were fish coming. After this it went quiet, except for knocks and swirls when the loosefeed went in. I set up an almost summer-type shallow rig with a size 8 hook to try an 11mm expander – yes, I know that sounds crazy for December. 

But, it started to produce bites. Some were iffy, some knocked the pellet off, and some produced fish. Almost exclusively carp, and one or two were a little better. So I pressed on and after an hour I had 30lb to my name and a ‘ton’ seemed very doable.

At this point I had a chat with the owner. He said it had been fishing ok and I should be good for a couple of hundred pounds if I fished well. So that seemed like a good target at the time.

Hour two was split between the 10m line shallow (which was a little hit and miss) and feeding a line at 4m by the tree to the right. After about 30 mins and after seeing a few tail patterns I had a look at it with my deep rig, and landed a 6lb common and pulled out of a few, which felt foul-hooked and possibly hooked mid-water. Surely in December the fish couldn’t be feeding that well that close in?

I chopped and changed and tried a few things. If I fished at 5m (sort of 2+2) style at mid-depth I could get bites, and bag a few nice carp. If I fished deep I’d get just the odd fish and lots of knocks, if I fished line to hand with the deep rig set shallow I’d get bites, but the presentation suffered and if I fished shallow closer in I’d get bites but the fish were small. So I persevered with the 2+2 approach.  

Second hour down and another 40lb caught. So 70lb in two hours in December, with 200lb as the target, that’s something else (well for me, anyway).

In the third hour I felt I was started to suss things out of the 2+2. Not all the carp were massive, but plenty of 4-7lb fish were in the mix and the feed, play and land rhythm was starting to build (as was the swim as a whole). I sailed through the 100lb mark with ease and was up to 160lb with three hours gone.

Feed These

And from there is got better and better. Regular swirls on the top reinforced that there were fish present and more importantly feeding and chasing the bait. It wasn’t crazily hectic like my last visit, but the fish kept coming and in the fourth hour I added well over 100lb of fish to the total. Before I knew it, it was time for a short break (to fill up the baitbox with more 6mm pellets if nothing else) by which time I’d passed the 300lb mark. Every now and then I’d have a little run of good fish (say 2-3 fish adding over 10lb) and then it’d be 2lb fish and gaps, then it would get going again. But there was no real pattern.

Hook These

As my watch moved around to 1:30pm I had pushed the total up to 410lb. So I set myself a target – could I catch another 90lb of fish in 90 minutes? I didn’t want to stay much later than that, with the M25 to negotiate on the way home, could I keep it going?

Catch These

I started to catch nicely, and as the light levels eased a little so the slightly better stamp of fish started to come in more often. By 2:10pm (six hours after I'd started) I’d managed 500lb and ran out of 11mm expanders for the hook, so I thought I’d try something different for a little while. On went an 8mm pellet, set 1ft deep off the top three, and I fed. And the bites came and came, and came.

2:50pm and I stopped fishing having bagged 600lb of fish.

Unbelievable in December.

Catch List:

Rudd: 8

Tench: 1

Common Carp: 100

Mirror Carp: 70