The most common complaint I hear is that winter fishing is boring

Since the abolition of the close season on stillwaters and canals coarse anglers appear to have adopted their own three month lay-off between December and April. Yet, I think that this has more to do with the comfort of the anglers than the quality of the sport that can be had. Fair play to you if you don’t want to get wet and cold, but for the total fishing addicts, the thought of going all winter with no fishing is anathema. Equipment today means that winter fishing, whatever your chosen species, can be a comfortable experience. The most common complaint I hear is that winter fishing is boring. What this normally means is the anglers aren’t catching, although for some the fourteen hour long nights are also extremely tedious. The main reason for lack of success in the winter is choosing the wrong fisheries to begin with. Some lakes appear to switch off totally in the winter. I was talking to a couple of members of a very well known carp syndicate the other day, and despite this being a relatively prolific water in the summer, during the winter it is rare for a fish to be caught. Conversely, other lakes can fish better in the winter than they do in the summer. Exactly why this should be I can only hazard a guess, although certain trends appear to become clear. One of my stock ponds has a gently sloping bed, from literally an inch deep to around four feet. In the morning the sun shines on to the shallow end and even in the depths of winter it is not uncommon to find the fish (mainly carp) sitting in the shallows absorbing the suns heat. This lake is also surrounded with trees, so it is rarely affected by the wind. Even when there is the barest twinkle of the sun in the sky the shallows warm up and the fish appear, as if by magic, from the depths. This pond actually bears quite a resemblance to a lake I fished a decade ago. Again the water was very shallow and rarely affected by the wind. The carp fishing was often superb in the winter as long as there was high pressure, resulting in a clear sky (lots of sun) and no wind. Under such conditions, the fish would move into water only two feet deep and gorge themselves on natural food. Location was never much of an issue on this lake, all you needed to do was walk around until you found their tails sticking out of the water! And this in February! Obviously, shallow water warms up more quickly, but of even more importance is the fact that the fish can feel the warmth of the sun on their backs, yet still be close to the lake bed. I am convinced that carp behave in the same way on deeper lakes, but have to move several feet above the lake bed to feel the warmth of the sun. Baits presented on the lake bed are not going to be sensed by the fish and so results will be poor. Many anglers have tried fishing baits on long hook lengths to get them up in the water closer to the fish. Generally, these rigs don’t result in a lot of fish being caught. I think this is probably down to the lack of subtlety in this technique. Perhaps scaling down to finer hooks and fluorocarbon hook lengths might result in a few more fish on the bank?

By far the most successful technique in this situation is to fish on the tops of shallow bars. As long as you can find the depth at which the fish are moving (easier said than done) then this method can catch a lot of fish. The ultimate example of this method is perhaps to catch fish off the surface in the middle of winter. Now this might go against everything you think about carp being a warm water species, but just remember about the sun on their backs. This really is an unexplored area of carp fishing, yet one which could offer the answer to a lot of boring winter sessions!