Give Yourself Options

MAP consultant Tony Curd reports back from a recent winter match where it proved that covering all the options can pay off in Winter...

Winter is well and truly with us now, and as I drove to Kent’s Monk Lakes Fishery with the frost warning light beaming at me from the dashboard, it confirmed what I was already thinking; “this is going to be a tough day”! Monk Lakes will always throw up some bites, even on the coldest winter days but naturally though, good form at the draw bag becomes even more imperative to success. That’s obviously the same wherever you go – to me a good winter venue is one that provides bites even on very mediocre draws to keep you interested. 

End pegs are always favoured here, particularly pegs 112 and 113 on Lake 3, and that day there would be no exception to the rule. So when I drew Peg 67 at the end of the spit on Lake 2 I was more than happy to take a risk on it being half-decent, although historically speaking, the right hand arm of Lake 2 (it is shallower) is generally poorer in the winter months so in terms of winning the match I would be most up against it such is the power of the Lake 3 flyers.

Arriving at my peg it was a typical wet and windy day at Monks – I don’t think I’ve ever been there when it’s flat calm! My match would be very simple, basing around one short line but with a couple of back- ups just in case the fishing proved harder than I expected.

Six metres is where I chose to fish pellets. It’s possible to catch on this line right through the winter and can be a real winner but as with all winter fishing you really do need to give yourself options just in case a line dies. The rig for this line was as simple as it gets; 0.15mm Mainline to a 0.11mm hook length and a size 18 B911. Float choice was the ever-faithful MAP WD1 in a 4x14 size, shotted with a strung bulk of No9s starting from the hook length connection loop. The depth was around 4ft here, which in winter is plenty enough to hold the fish should they want to be there.  

Not a one of the nailed-on favourite, but a peg with plenty of room would do nicely.

The second line of attack would be approached exactly the same as the short line rig, but this time at 16 metres. The water at this distance is only marginally shallower than it is on the short line but it’s a must-have line when the fish can stay planted in one area. They also may not like it close to the bank where the anglers are; it’s all about covering likely looking water I feel.

Elastic on both my pellet rigs was the new MAP White 6-10 Twin Core, which is superb for both dealing with fish on light(ish) gear and also catering for larger fish if they make an appearance; it’s what I use for nearly all my winter commercial fishing.  

As I mentioned previously, being an end peg, fishing to the adjacent bank is always an advantage and if it works you’re able to put together a weight of the lake’s bigger mirrors in no time at all. My kit for fishing this line was a 4x12 SD2 float, 0.15mm mainline to 0.13mm hooklength with a bulk of No10s and one dropper. Here it’s about two and a half foot deep, 13-metres down the bank. Again it would be a pellet attack here, but I wouldn’t be planning on feeding anything there until half way through the match, as its very uncommon to catch any earlier and I feel feeding any earlier kills the swims before you’ve even started!  

The back- up in case Pellets failed me was to totally start again find a new line of the same depth and feed and fish maggots on the long line. I also set a rig up on a top 4 to my right where I’d loose feed maggots on to hopefully nick the odd fish here and there while I re-fed/rested lines. 

The final ‘get out of jail’ attempt would be a small maggot feeder cast up the bank around 30 metres away to some reeds – there are a lot of big F1s in this venue and once it gets cold, a maggot feeder out-fishes anything else. This feeder was set up as a standard running rig with a 15-inch hook length of 0.13mm and a size 16 B911, all attached to a 10ft Parabolix Bomb rod.

At the start I potted in roughly 10 Bait-Tech 4mm Carp & Coarse pellets on the short line, and about 20, along with a few micros, on the long line, shipping out to six-metres with a 4mm Xpand pellet on the hook. If I’m honest I did expect a short burst of bites from this line being an end peg, but 20 minutes in and nothing to show for my efforts prompted me to leave it until later; I just loose fed three 4mm pellets here every couple of minutes to hopefully build it for later in the day.

Moving onto my long pellet line, I fed a few 4mm pellets through a small pole-mounted pot and slowly lowered the rig in. I waited for a few minutes then a lovely, fast dig on a dotted-down float was met with a lift and plenty of white elastic streamed out. A short scrap saw a nice mirror of about 4lb slip over rim of the net – a good start considering no one else had caught on my lake yet. Going out again I waited a further five minutes and hooked another carp; now I was beginning to get excited, especially when a slightly smaller fish (a three-pounder) made an appearance.

"...After a 20-minute biteless spell on the 
feeder the pellet line was as dead as it could possibly get…"

While I didn’t feel there was a load of fish there, I thought if I kept the feeding light and fed for one at a time I should be able to put a decent weight together. I had a 10-minute wait before another bite came – this one was a bit bigger and charged off as only carp in shallow water do. The beauty of soft elastics in this instance is you can let fish run with very little disturbance to the other fish in the swim. Soon enough, with the use of the side puller the fish was netted, a real bonus carp of about 7lb. The very next put-in produced an F1 of about a pound giving me around 15lb at the end of the first hour; if I could keep that up I’d find myself in a very good position. 

To my dismay the next hour produced absolutely nothing, despite resting the line and trying my short line once again – not good at all! After a 20-minute biteless spell on the feeder I was beginning to think about changing things, as the pellet line was dead as it could possibly get. Despite plumbing a new line and starting over I just couldn’t get anything going. In a bid to provoke a response I started loose feeding maggots at 16-metres on another new line and shipped out with a full Kinder pot of maggots with double red maggot on the hook. Lowering the rig in it went straight under and a 2lb skimmer was most welcome. Several more followed and I was getting in to some sort of routine once again. I then managed an F1 of around 3lb and a four-pound carp – “this is much more like it”, is said to myself. Re-feeding a full kinder pot of maggots roughly every three minutes seemed to be the best way to go about it.

Catching a bit of everything I managed to stay steady until the end of the match. Nothing massive showed up and wasn’t exactly bagging but it turned out that a ‘just catch a fish’ approach was a far better option on the day.  Come the last hour, I wanted to try my short lines and down the edge again in a bid to catch some bigger fish, and both failed; if I’m honest, once I didn’t catch on the short line that should have been enough of a hint to say I wasn’t going to catch in the edge, but the lure proved too much and I had to try – live and learn as they say!

At the weigh-in my net went 49lb 8oz, enough to win my half of the lake but as predicted the usual pegs took the money, with peg 112 on lake 3 winning the match with a 100lb+ weight. That’s winter fishing for you!