As I drove through the gate the rain was falling again but I could see something was wrong. All round the edges of the lake there were white areas of ice showing. The water level was still falling and what had happened was that the ice was still there but as the water level fell…

Winter barbel fishing can also be fast and furious, if only for short periods. On many rivers stretches which are filled with anglers all summer long suddenly become deserted after the first frosts. All of these factors have meant that my barbel fishing year has rarely begun before September over the last few years. Apart…

Nice idea! When I arrived at the lake it was higher than ever. From the gate I could see the water was far higher than when I had left just a week before. As I drove in to the back of my usual swim where the water was usually a full three feet below the…

The only way had to be with waders and I thought there just might be a couple of swims from where this may be possible. The first session I had planned during the week was a false start because despite the lake being flooded, we had experienced the first sharp frosts of the winter and…

We certainly have had plenty of rain down here in the South East, the Sussex Ouse and the Medway suffering most but the Colne and Thames have had an influx of cold winter water as well. The lake often floods in winter but with these being the worst floods since 1968 I should not have…

Well, this may not always be the case but one condition they do like is flood conditions. The only problem with winter chub fishing as opposed to barbel fishing is that some knowledge of the river we intend fishing in winter is very useful if not essential. The obvious spots will be overhanging trees and…

I was not expecting the level to be quite so high, so the waders were back at home in the garage and I was hampered by how far I could wade out to flick the baits back to the clear spots. I was eager to get a bait in the same spot that I lost…

This of course was no joking matter, but from a river anglers perspective it was dammed inconvenient. As portrayed very graphically by the media, floods were everywhere, but most that hit the headlines concerned areas affected by sustained floodwater over several days and more. There were of course many other floods occurring; flash flooding, where…

Having last month covered in some detail river characteristics and timing your fishing to coincide with peak activity, let’s look at where best to find fish feeding and sheltering from flood water. The first thing that strikes you as you walk by the side of a river or a stream carrying extra water, is the…

The weather was still a bit up and down, one minute mild and rainy, the next clear and frosty. This afternoon was a wet and windy one so darkness was early, almost before 4pm. I had no time to wade round to see if any other carp were showing signs of distress as I had…