Winter Fishing

[Jimmy55]

Anyone got any tips for winter fishing. Any help would be good.

[Fishing Forum Admin]

River or lake fishing ?

[perch_king]

coares or predator

[Banana Steve]

keep things tight, simple and scale down, and you should be ok.

[BoldBear]

Normally in the winter it is advisable to scale down hook size, line size and bait size when the fish are lethargic and don't overfeed.
However there are exceptions to this rule when some fish (Like Chub) seem to want to save energy when they feed and will occasionally take a single large bait in preference to lots of smaller items once the temperature cools significantly.

When using non-natural Baits (Paste, Pellets etc.):
Avoid using fatty baits like fatty luncheonmeat or sausage meat etc. and also avoid using Oily Baits like Halibut Pellets as fats and oils thicken up in freezing cold water and don't dilute so readily, so lose some of their attractiveness.
Try using soft pellets or pastes and use Flavours that readily dilute enticingly in cold water ie. Spicey, lamprey, Garlic, sweet & smelly baits.

Natural/live Baits:
Try stepping down to Pinkies instead of maggots as you will be surprised how productive they can be in winter when everyone else is using maggots.
Casters can also be good but once again don't overfeed.
A spicey flavour (Chilli or Nice-n-spicey etc.) or sweet flavour (like wasp grub) is a good addition to your maggots/Pinkies etc. in the winter months.
Some Pike anglers have found that pike like to minimise their energy loss and on some waters will pickup a larger fish rather then use up their energy picking off smaller baits. so you will have to find out what they prefer on your waters.

Keep warm using lots of thin layers of clothing rather than one thick garment, wear a hat as you can lose a lot of heat from your head; and make sure your feet and hands are kept warm and dry, also take a flask of hot drink.

Remember that fish in rivers have to use more energy than fish in still waters so need to replenish this energy more, so rivers can tend to be more productive in the really cold weather.

Don't ignore the bright sunlit days when the ice starts melting in places as these days can be very productive when the sun penetrates the ice and the water warms up a degree or two below the ice (Like a glass house) before the sun goes down and the ice reforms.
Lastly, a tip that I learnt from my weather forecasting days; The warmth doesn't come directly from the suns rays, its only after the suns rays hit the earths surface (even through cloud) that it is converted to heat energy which is then reflected back off the earth (or lake bed) so remember that a cloudy sky is generally warmer for longer than a clear sky in winter as the clouds act like a blanket keeping the heat in, and can mean a really good day to fish.

These are things that I have found work in really cold conditions on the waters that I fish.

Hope you have a successful winters fishing.
Tight Lines
BB

[headless]

i fish the local river for chub with bread flake, it is an excellent bait. on still waters a use sweet corn for carp, trickle one or two pieces of corn every five mins and have a slow falling, float fished bait of corn re-casting a few mins after it has settled on the bottom, it has given me some good catches on really cold days. obviously the lake needs to have a head of carp, fish the deeper areas near reed beds or features
Darrell

[Steve E14]

If your going to a lake, remember to check if it is fishable before you go. I checked last night, got there this morning, completely iced over. Nothing a couple of bricks wouldn't have sorted, but i suspect that may have disturbed a few fish, and my bag is heavy enough without carrying half a wall around with me.

[gullyworm]

Wear thick socks.