Entire Farm, Arran's Lake in winter, a first for me.
A low turnout for this one mainly because of the weather forecast I would think as up to the day before there was heavy rain forecast to start at 9-10 am and for the rest of the day, when I arrived at 8 am I checked the forecast and it had changed to rain from around 2 pm, how wrong did THAT turn out to be!
As the match started, so did the snow!

We knew the fishing would be very tough going by Arran's Lake standards but it was even harder than I expected. Considering just how dense the carp population is in this lake, it was amazing that most of the 9 hardy souls fishing only caught a couple of carp.

I fished popped up bread on the bomb a little short of half way across the lake and also tried a short feeder line now and then with micro pellets on a small hybrid feeder but this did not get any bites.

​I had 8 bites on the bomb and popped up bread for 8 carp which went 23lb 4oz and this was just enough to win the match, cementing my place as club champion for the season.

The club report and full results can be seen HERE.

This match was on the match lake at Claverhambury Carp Lakes in Waltham Abbey.

I had never been to this lake before, I gleaned a little info which told me I would probably just need some micro pellets and some maggots and the target species were to be roach and small to mid sized carp.

After a couple of very hard frosts in the area and the wind swinging round to a North Westerly we all assumed it would be a bit hard going and so it proved.

I started by feeding a medium cad pot of pellets and maggots at 13m and a smaller amount of the same at 6m, I then tried the bomb and popped up bread for a while to try to snare a carp or 2. After 30 minutes and no signs on the lead I re-fed the 6m line with a small amount again then swapped to a small banjo feeder and tried a couple baits on that for a few casts but still no bites.

Time to try the pole, I started on the 6m line and after a bit of a wait I caught a couple of roach then a little carp, this line was very slow going though so I now tried the 13m line. Cad potting a few pellets and maggots each put in I started catching a few plump roach, after a few roach and from what I had heard from others it was obvious not many carp were feeding so i changed to just feeding maggots via the cad pot.

I continued catching roach slowly but steadily and another little carp put in an appearance too, the last hour was very slow going and in the last 40 minutes the only bite I had was a roach 30 seconds before the all out.

When the scales got round to me 6lb 4oz was winning and the only other 2 anglers left to weigh had only caught some tiny roach, my catch went 6lb so I was second on a tough day. I was happy with the result as it makes me one point from uncatchable in our Club Championship for this season with 2 matches remaining.

The club report and full result can be seen HERE.
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