A Titanic Session!

Arrived at the mighty Cudmore at 7am to find a few fellow keen anglers rolling into the car park. After a freezing night and midweek snow, it did not bode well for the lone musketter, his normal companions busy fighting other causes, one with cable and the other with a caravan. One for all and all for one.

Having paid the charges I selected the same peg as last time fearing the old scenario of if only I'd fished............ Setting up on Peg 13!! all was well despite the unlucky number . But the weather was arctic, as the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic's loomed, ice bergs could potentially have been floating across milo.



Then boom, an ice berg hit the Nicholls ship, the cold waters flooded in, the ship was going down. Bait and fishing tackle first into the lifeboats. Well one foot anyway, I now knew the true meaning of cold and an exact understanding of the temperature of the water and how hard the challenge ahead was going to be. Where were the other musketters? Why weren't they also freezing their nuts off, with wet feet and the prospect of catching nothing after an hours drive?



However the band played on, by chance an extra lifeboat had been placed in the car and on went the boots, but the prospect of frostbite was not appealing. Anyway a steady morning session. 9 Chub by 12 noon, all to red maggots on cage feeder with pellets and groundbait. Some close to island some further away. Casting a little randomly to gain a bite. But by lunch fairly happy with cold conditions, life jacket, snood, coat, thermal suit, woolly hat and two hoodies on.

But as the temperatures reached the dizzy heights of 8 degrees the bite increased and fish after fish followed. Mostly chub with the odd skimmer, smallest fish 1lb.



Skimmer comes to the net.



Typical chub. Biggest of the day was around 2.5lb.



Only barbel of the day around 2.5lb.

Anyway the more I fed the more I caught. A good pint and a half of maggots, plenty of pellets and groundbait. As the day went on if I didn't get a bite it was due to the bait had gone. Lost count but 1 barbel, 30 chub and at least 10 skimmers wouldn't be far off.

At conservative 50lb on a very cold day can't be bad. In the summer one of the those island pegs will lead to a real net full. Or are they shoalling due to the cold?

Rematch with PC Thursday or Friday.



THE END