Ice fishing!

To begin this months blog I found this interesting link on winter roach fishing on the Anglers Mail website.

Ice on the Trent & Mersey canal at Willington.

Three perch, one of which was about a pound and a skimmer bream graced my landing net on 9 February on a sunny, cloudy, chilly and windy afternoon at Willington, with temperatures reaching about 6°C.

On 17 February I was back on the canal bank at Willington, it had been -4°C during the night and when I arrived there was a layer of ice on the water and although the sun was shining it was only a few degrees above freezing with a slight breeze. My first cast landed on drifting ice but the temperatures did reach about 7°C by early afternoon and the wind got up a bit, unfortunately I only managed to land one perch! I did hook into other fish but just didn’t land them. I fished opposite a turning space for boats thinking it would be fairly quiet but several boats turned in front of me and that along with the very low temperatures the night before didn’t help the fishing.