At the start of the month we were blessed with a lot of rain fall which pushed the rivers outside the banks on a lot of rivers especially the ones up here in Yorkshire, during these times I’m usually glued to my river levels app watching waiting for the perfect levels to pounce. My first trip out for the month was a day session on the Tidal Trent in the hunt for big Zander, it was looking pukka mild flood water and plenty of colour with most spots unfishable due to the extremely high levels I knew I had to be in one of just a handful of places. Arriving at the river just before first light ensured I set up exactly where I needed to be. I started in the bottom of the two creases and within the first 20 minutes had a slamming take on a dead bait Roach, after a short battle the fish was at the net when it made one last attempt for freedom and charged to my right down the margins and found the cover of a submerged bush. I could feel the fish on for a few minutes and after trying all my tricks to get it free the fish was lost and I had to pull to straighten the trebles and get my gear back. It was gutting to loose a fish so soon in to the session but it also told me the fish are up for a feed today. I fished the same area for another hour without a bite, I upped sticks and moved further upstream to a big crease that has done me quite a few bites in these conditions. The rest of the morning flew by uneventful, it didn’t disheartened me as I don’t think Zander are held up in the creases and slacks like Pike, but more likely patrolling and dropping in for a quick strike at unsuspecting bait fish before moving to the next so sitting it out can work as they can appear at any time.
Just after dinner I received a bite out of the blue and bumped it which is not what I needed, a quick chuck to the same area resulted in another bite some 30 seconds later and I missed that one aswell. I needed to make some changes so I had a look through my cool bag and found the smallest roach I had and put that on and chucked out again to the same place, again it was only a matter of 30 seconds before the rod tip signalled a single bang before pulling over slowly I waited a split second longer before setting the hooks on what felt a heavy fish in the deep flood water. After a decent battle I had a good Zander in the net,
she was easily unhooked, weighted and a couple of quick self takes before releasing back to the chocolatey river. At 12lb 2oz I was more than happy for the days angling and the rest of the day went by uneventful and it was soon dusk, so I packed up and headed home for tea.

It was the week before Christmas before I managed to get out again, wrapping up from work on the Thursday and with a solid week of rain could only mean one thing. The Trent was top of the bank again and I had Zander on my mind, with the levels as high as they were and showing little signs of peaking it was going to be touch and go if i could even get near where I needed to be. I put my waders in the van as a precaution but when I got to the river I literally had a couple of inches to spare before it was going to breach. The session was pretty slow without a single indication for the 5 hours, the Barbel put a show on for me with countless fish rolling out in the flow. This to me is a good sign because if the barbel are active the Zander definitely would be. I wound in to recast but the bait upon inspection had puncture marks, a tell tale sign a Zander had picked it up but I hadn’t seen a single indication god knows how I missed it I must have been in my flask or having a piss. I rebaited with a large Bleak before plopping back this side of the crease, it must have only been in position a couple of minutes before I receive one violent bang on the rod tip followed by a slow pull over. I was on it in a flash connecting with an angry fish with vicious head shakes and lunges but it was soon tamed and in the net, it looked a decent fish so I pegged the net in the edge whist I sorted my kit and got my self organised.

Unhooked weighed photographed and returned like a well oiled machine, I don’t like to keep Zander out of the water long they have a tendency for going funny on you. She weighed 9lb 11oz coming in shy of the magic double mark but and incredibly clean well conditioned fish, it made the day a success. The rest of the session was very slow and the barbel had stopped rolling now aswell, I fished right up to dusk without any more indications and called it a day.

With it being the Christmas holidays things at home were quite busy especially because both my boys were home from University, so fishing wise it would be a case of grabbing short evenings here and there. This winter for my Chub fishing I had turned my attentions to a new stretch of a local river, some two miles of bends deep holes and gravels it has everything. The stretch is an unknown because it doesn’t get fished at all with poor access and long walks scare modern day anglers away, but both upstream and down of this stretch have produced some serious Chub over the years. It’s this type of untapped areas that could throw up a seriously special fish. I’ve studied the Navionics depth charts for the stretch and settled on 3 areas that to me through past experience look to be ideal holding areas for the winter, with my areas chosen it’s now time to pre bait and I try and get to them twice a week when the conditions allow. It’s not about the amount of bait but more the regularity, with 8-10 of my homemade barrels being enough for each spot. So far I’ve managed to fish two of the three spots, they are a fair distance apart so it’s hard to fish them all in one short evening session. I’ve not blanked yet but the stamp of fish have been surprisingly small with fish ranging between 2-4lb, my best result was on Boxing Day with 4 fish to the net. I’ve found when I’m dropping in to the areas I get a mad hour with a bite a chuck then I’ve either caught all the fish present or the shoal moves on. On this session two of the four fish were of a better stamp with fish of 4lb 12oz and 5lb 8oz, I’m still hopeful going in to the new year for this stretch but time will tell…

No Christmas time off would be complete without a road trip, I had talked about another trip to the Highlands of Scotland with Chris in search of a mighty Common Skate. Looking at the forcast around New Year I didn’t fancy been out for a few days in sub zero temperatures day and night, it’s just not fun at all and in all honesty there’s plenty of other fishing I could be on with.
We talked about it and settled on a day trip to South West Scotland in the pursuit of big Grayling, next was picking our window of opportunity the cold temperatures were going to inevitable but the deciding factor was going to be the wind. We settled on the day before New Year’s Eve 4mph winds I could live with that for trotting but leave it any later and some heavy winds were setting in for the rest of the week. It wasn’t long before the morning of the road trip came round and we were on the road at 4am, its just over a 3 hour drive to get up there and with limited day light hours we needed to make them all count. Upon arriving at the river for the first time half the morning was wasted exploring, trying to find the access tracks down to the river and which pools and runs looked deep enough to fish. I was a cold crisp morning and the sunrise was so clean but with the temperature gauge registering -3.

I settled on a nice glide below a riffle where it looked to deepen off across the far side with some tree cover, with the water been tap clear and a bright clear day I felt any sort of cover and depth of water together would only help the situation.
I opted for my old school Drennan IM8 super stick it’s a timeless classic with a beautiful spliced tip perfect for this type of fishing, with that a 4g alloy stemmed Avon style float fished with a 4g Olivette and a few no8s to trim the float down to an 0.14 hooklength and a fine wire but strong Kamasan B520 in a 16.

Once rigged up and waders on it was time to enter the water and slowerly wade in to a position, where I could comfortably trot 30-40 yards and stay in control all the way down the swim. I had a few trots through adding depth each time till I was catching the bottom odd times and then shallowed up an inch. Bait wise good old red maggots you can’t go wrong, I introduced 10 maggots every now and then and fished a single maggot on the hook. I find it best to roll the maggot around between your fingers to kill it, this stops it contracting in the cold water and masking the hook if it’s big and limp you stand a far better chance of hitting the bites. The fishing was hard with the air temps blow zero the line was freezing in the guides on the rod creating little balls of ice, restricting the cast and paying line out for the trot down stream. I battled on managing a few fish with a couple of better ones mixed in, the biggest of the morning came in at 2lb 2oz and a fine specimen of a Grayling.

Around dinner time I went back to the van for a spot of lunch, the air temperature had crept above zero in the low winter sun making trotting that bit easier now. We also decided to go and try a new area for the afternoon heading to the upstream limit of the stretch, finding again a nice deep glide across the far bank below a riffle it looked perfect. The afternoon was closing in fast it was now 2.30pm so realistically we had about 90 minutes fishing left before dusk and the predicted temperatures of -4 to -5 would be upon us.
I seemed to struggle in this area having only a couple of bites but managing to make contact with one, a solid weight hung on the end of the line kiting and using the flow to its advantage. The odd heavy lunges were easily soaked up with the spliced tip of the IM8, a few nail biting minutes passed as I knew I was attached to my biggest fish of the session. By now the temperature was dropping fast as the last rays of the winter sun dipped down below the distant hills and tree line, with this brought the creaking and grating sounds as the guides on the rod froze up with balls of ice. I tentatively steered the fish up stream and slowerly brought it back down to me and the waiting landing net, once netted I could see the fish was huge and definitely a PB. I waded back to the bank and calmer water and whistled Chris over to be the camera man, and weigh the incredible creature. Surprisingly it didn’t weigh as much as I had estimated coming in at a respectable 2lb 6oz and still a new PB, it was a brilliant way to end a cold but enjoyable day landing 10 fish. It is definitely somewhere I want to return to it’s just shame it’s not closer to home but I’ll be back chasing the dream of a 3lber…