Dave Coster's Fishing Diary - February

This entry was posted on 5th March, 2018

January’s bad weather spilled over into February, so it was quite a time before I got out on the bank again. Many lakes had frozen over and local rivers were up and coloured. I kept an eye on my local stretches of the Upper Witham, and eventually got a window when the level dropped and some of the murk dropped out. I discovered a nice-looking run where I could trot a float a good distance, plus after plumbing up, I found the swim to be slightly deeper than most I have fished this winter on the tiny river.

It was still bitterly cold, so I went easy on the feed, only putting in a few red maggots and grains of hemp every trot through. On only my third cast I got a positive bite and reeled in a 6-inch dace. Normally when you get some action here it signals a busy session, but despite my tackle running downstream perfectly with the steady flow, several hours later I had caught nothing more. I tried stepping up the feed, fishing over-depth, holding back hard and running my float down as far as I could see. Zero response, so I packed up and went home.



A few days later I returned to another stretch of the river, an area I had fished before that looked great, but didn’t produce anything of note. I tried a nice-looking swim where the flow slackens off slightly, before running into a sweeping bend. Below this there’s lots of cover, so I felt pretty confident. This time I fed a mixture of hemp and casters, using my favourite mini stick float.

Not a sign of a bite for the first hour, so I started feeding some bait by catapult further down the swim, to try and draw some fish up. Again, nothing happened and yet another hour passed by.

Time for a move.



Earlier I had spotted an interesting wider area upstream, just below a ford. I quickly relocated all my gear and was soon searching for bites. This was a tricky swim with the swirling current taking my float in lots of different directions, but I reasoned if I kept regular loose feed going in the same spot, sooner or later something would grab my baited hook. A tiny grayling did just that, but it took another couple of hours before a positive bite resulted in my rod arcing over. This was something big and wild! It charged all over the shallow swim and then took a lot of line off my reel as it powerfully surged downstream. I had to stop the fish, otherwise it would have disappeared over some rapids. I applied full pressure and a big trout leapt a foot out of the water. I eventually got it within netting range, but not before the lively fish had tried climbing up the bank! I only just managed to fit it in my landing net, took a quick photograph and quickly slipped the fish back. That was all the action I saw.



I had been invited by Ropsley Angling Club to fish the last match of their winter series at Donington Brick Pit. I had never seen the venue before but thought it would be nice to try somewhere different. Apart from the normal species you would expect, apparently the lake holds barbel, chub, crucians and eels. After my last couple of outings, anything with fins on would do!

The rectangular lake was quite easy to find, although when I arrived I could see one end was frozen. I drew a peg at the end of the ice and as other anglers to my left started to break it up, it moved off pretty quickly. A thick fog was descending so I only set up a couple of pole rigs, one to fish at 13

metres and a closer set up for 10 metres. Groundbait isn’t allowed here, so I fed a mixture of micro pellets, a few 4mm pellets, some chopped worms and casters. Two pots of this mix went in short and one long. The plan after that was to fish for bites and only top up with loose feed very occasionally.

Surprisingly, because it was extremely cold, I started getting a few bites after only 10 minutes. They were only slight touches, but after slightly adjusting my rig, I started to connect with gudgeon and odd small roach on the 10-metre line. I switched to my 13-metre set up and connected with a decent skimmer straight away. This was followed soon after by a smaller one and then the bites dried up. Back on my closer line I bumped a good skimmer and after that it went dead. No-one else was catching much at this stage and the fog was starting to clear. The biting wind was getting up too and already a few anglers were going walkabout to keep warm.

I decided to top up my 13m feed line with half a cupful of chopped worm and casters, plus a few pellets. I sat for ages with a soft hook pellet, feeling sure if there were any more skimmers about they would take this, but only one gudgeon responded. Next, I tried small segments of worm, but these were constantly mauled by tiny gudgeon. The same happened with maggots, so a single caster on the hook seemed the best next step. A quick flurry of slighter bigger roach and a small skimmer resulted before the swim died. I cupped a bit more gear in and went for a walk with my camera.





I was just in time to get a shot of an angler in the corner peg playing something good. He was using a soft actioned quivertip rod and taking his time, carefully gaining line to get the fish within netting range. It turned out to be a fully scaled carp, about 6lb in weight and a very useful catch on a day like this. I was quite surprised really, because this corner peg had been completely iced over earlier, plus once other anglers had started clearing their swims even more floating ice had ended up here. It would have been the last peg I wanted at the draw, but fair play to the guy sticking it out. He was now winning the match!

I took a quick walk to the far bank to see if anything else was happening, and to get warm, then returned to my swim. Back on my long pole line fishing caster, I caught another 12oz skimmer and a quick run of 2 to 3oz roach, before once again the bites dried up. As this lake is quite deep, my next plan was to trying dinking casters in more regularly and to try fishing off bottom. Sometimes better roach respond to this tactic in cold water. It took 15 minutes before I started getting a few bites and I did manage to put a few more red fins in my keepnet, but I wasn’t setting the place on fire. I could also see that feeder rod in the corner bent over again and then the angler next door connected with something big on pole tackle. This led me to try pellets again on the long pole at full depth, hoping for a bonus big fish, which I now desperately needed.



I didn’t catch much more in the latter stages of the match and was quite pleased when the final whistle blew. I watched the weigh in and our man in the corner peg ran out an easy winner with four carp for just over 24lbs. I asked him what his name was, and everyone laughed, butting in and shouting out “Cyril!” Someone next to me explained it wasn’t his real name but he didn’t mind this nickname at all. I did manage to find out his surname was Campbell though, so all I can say is nice one Cyril Campbell!

The angler next door had landed the big fish I saw him playing earlier on the pole, which turned out to be an 11lb carp for second place. As for the rest of us, I managed to creep in third with my net of skimmers, small roach and gudgeon, which pulled the scales round to just over 5lbs.



For my last trip of the month I couldn’t face another possible blow out on the river, so I went back to Woodland Waters to try for those big roach again. It was still pretty cold and not many other anglers were about, but the deep water in the Specimen Lake gave me hope I could make something happen.

I didn’t want to mess around setting up too much tackle, so I opted for a simple cage feeder rig. I had a suspicion bites would be hard to come by and if you start chopping and changing tactics too much in the cold, it’s easy to lose your way.



Something I like to do when fishing cold water, is to only add a dusting of fishmeal groundbait to a non-fishmeal mix. I think if you use too much fishmeal feed it fills the fish up quickly, because they can’t readily digest it when their metabolism has slowed down. This tactic has worked wonders for me in the past, combined with not putting too many freebies in my groundbait when feeder fishing in the depths of winter. Just a smattering of casters and hemp is normally enough to pull and hold fish in the swim. I might also add a chopped worm or two occasionally, to try and encourage a reaction.



It was a quiet start, not helped when a passing angler told me he had blanked in my swim the day before! He said the lake had been fishing very hard the past few weeks. We had a good chat while my sensitive 3/4oz quivertip remained stock still. But after he left I began getting tiny indications on double red maggots, hinting that something was stirring out there in the chilly deeps.

I tried small bits of worm on my size 18 hook, with no interest shown, so I dropped down to a size 20 with a single red maggot installed. This did the trick for a couple of small perch, but nothing more occurred for the next hour.



Many years of match fishing have taught me to keep experimenting when nothing is going in the net, so I tried casting out more regularly for a while, which sometimes stirs fish into feeding. I also experimented by twitching my rig in a few inches every now and then to try and induce bites, along with playing around with the lengths of my trace. Shortening my hook length down to 14-inches eventually brought a good take from a perch, so small I was amazed it moved my quivertip round so far! A couple of small roach turned up after that.



Another quiet spell followed, so I just sat there like a garden gnome, at least knowing the way I was presenting my tackle had produced some action and could do so again. Apart from studying my quivertip, looking for the faintest movement, I ran an eye over my quiver rest. This was something I designed several years ago when working for Hardy and Greys. It’s nice to fish with tackle you have helped develop. My rest is the first sample ever made and it’s still one of my favourite pieces of tackle. Now I do some product development work for the Angling Direct Advanta brand, working on

some interesting new tackle that will be in the shops later this year. I was just thinking about some of this new gear when my quivertip sailed round violently…



…When you hook the bigger roach in this lake on feeder tackle they keep thumping the rod tip hard as you play them in. Using a small barbless hook, this leaves you with your heart in your mouth! They fight a bit like big perch for some reason and I was relieved when I slid my landing net under a decent sized red fin. As usual for this water, it was a perfect looking specimen.

Next cast I was in again and this one felt even bigger. I played it very gently with my soft actioned 11.5ft feeder rod and as it neared my landing net it rolled on the surface. This was a massive roach, almost twice as big as the one I had just landed! It made a last-minute lunge for freedom, thumping my rod tip really hard and inexplicably my tiny hook bounced out of it. I sat there gobsmacked for a while. To rub salt in the wound, a big roach rolled on the surface a few metres out from where I had lost the fish. Maybe it was the same one, or maybe a different member of the shoal that had followed it in. Either way, it was very big!

After that smaller 4 to 8oz roach moved in and the session petered out. As I packed up I vowed to return in March. I badly need to catch that fish!