A snowy morning on the river, with some fish to boot!

Dragged myself out of bed this morning at 5.45am, took the dog out for a quick walk and noticed we'd had a good blanket of snow, but given that conditions haven't changed much for a week or two i still felt I had a chance.

I had intended to walk a lot further today but the snow made it twice as hard so i only really fished a small section of river, one which i hadnt tried before. The plan was to fish away from my car for chub, and back towards my car for pike.

Given the conditions i wanted my chub bait to move around with the flow, so all I had was a link ledger with 1 x AAA and a size 8 korum hook, and starting off with my favourite cold water bait ;) ;D

The pic above was the first peg, which produced no fish. A move further and my next swim, i flicked the bait out towards the centre and after 5 minutes or so the rod wrapped round to an unmissable bite. A pleasing start, at 4lb 9oz...

Despite trying 5 or 6 other pegs no more chub were forthcoming other than the odd pluck. Away went the chub rod, and out came the piking gear for the walk back. Smelt was the bait (Again!!). The first two swims produced nothing, the i had a very slow dipping of the float which i hit and hooked. After a short tussle amongst the branches i soon landed this pike, not quite a double but a pleasing 9lb 8oz.

No more bites after that and I got back to the car happy with my efforts and supped a nice cuppa to warm me up.

The sort of morning I like!