Well after a nice relaxed festive period with family it was back to work and normality well almost the weather had seriously taken a turn for the worst, with snow and extreme frosts and with temperatures dipping to as low as -7 locally this months fishing was going to be hard. Whilst we had quite a bit of snow up in the hills the prolonged cold weather had kept the snow there and not in our rivers, so the first week of the new year saw cold but favourable Chub conditions. I find when the water is as cold as this the good old Chevin is still usually up for a feed, but you need to literally put it on there nose as they don’t like to move far for the bait. Scalling the feed right down and just fishing small fishmeal paste baits full of soluble hydroslate’s to trigger a reaction, I persevered on with my 3 areas on the “unknown stretch” with a couple of fish on my first visit again only small. With the biting northerly winds and subzero temperatures sessions have been very short with 2 hours being more than enough to catch and keep that little bit of free feed going in my areas. The second session of the week was slightly more favourable as the wind had backed off and the temperature hovered on and just above 0 degrees making it a lot more pleasant to be sat out. The session went well with 4 bites and connecting with 3 of them with the biggest going a whisker over 5lb.

It put up a decent account of its self out in the river on such light gear but one thing I did notice the bites were incredibly delicate but been sat ready with your hand on the rod at all times allowed me to make the most of the situation. That weekend I even ventured out for an afternoons Pike fishing on the River Ouse, fishing a nice deep slack that has decent winter form, but the session was a blank with no indications of any kind to my float fished Sardines. I wasn’t too bothered to be fair as it was a nice catch up with my mate Chris with work commitments we don’t get to fish together a great deal these days. With dusk approaching the temperature really plummeted and we were soon away home.

On the second week of the month storm Goretti landed bringing 50mph winds, torrential rain and an increased temperature. Normally this would have me rubbing my hands together for either a bit of Roach, Zander or even winter Barbel fishing. But with all this snow still up on the Yorkshire Dales, storm Goretti soon melted that and in a flash the Yorkshire rivers were top of the bank with cold grey snow melt water, rich in the dreaded road salt. These conditions to me just don’t warrant making any sort of effort towards my fishing and staying home was the order of the day. As the midlands didn’t get the amount of snow we did up here the Trent could be a viable option come the weekend so it was a case of watching the water temps and hope for at least a stable trend or if I’m lucky a slight increase. It would just so have it that from Wednesday at 5.7 degrees
It had slowly risen most of the week albeit very slow to 6.2 degrees on Friday morning, which shows things were moving in the right direction and definitely worth a look. Saturday morning soon came round and I was back heading south early doors, arriving just before first light the car park was empty again ? Good conditions on a weekend and no one to be seen, just how I like it. The session started very slow with only a huge murmuration of starlings to keep me entertained, the weather was grim with fairly heavy rain most of the day and despite what I thought were favourable conditions I didn’t see a single barbel roll. Mitzi didn’t even seem interested, spending most of the morning sleeping in my jacket under the brolly.

Around mid day I received my first knock, something had finally picked up my dead bait roach after almost 5 hours of a motionless rod tip. Instantly I was poised on the edge of my seat waiting for it to go again, over the next 5 minutes nothing came back so I wound in to check the bait and recast back to the same area. It wasn’t long before I had a series of taps and enough of an indication to strike at, fish on ! It didn’t feel big and was soon on the surface trashing about. What happened next was a first for me I was guiding the Zander over the waiting net when out of no where a huge Seal came charging in at full pace to only roll and turn away inches from my landing net erupting the whole swim infront of me, it scared the s**t out of me as I was crouched down landing Zander making me jump back and almost slipping and falling in the river.
Crazy I hadn’t seen any signs of the Seal hunting or popping his head up before our interaction, maybe this was why the morning was so quiet.

I unhooked the Zander and returned it after a quick mat shot, it wasn’t very big but in real fine condition and still alive and not Seal food.
A couple more hours passed before my next bite this was a pretty violent bite with a single knock followed by the rod literally folding over in the rest, this fish felt a lot bigger boring deep and shaking its head to try and relive its self of my treble hooks. I played the fish in as quick as I could all the time expecting the seal to return, in the net was another decent fish and after a quick weigh and self takes she was resting in the edge.

The pictures came out alright and the Reuben’s had recorded 9lb 14oz so it was turning in to a good day. By this time the rain had eased off and the Hound Dog was fetching me sticks to be thrown. Another couple of hours passed before my next opportunity with a few taps before the tension slowly building up in the tip and I lifted in to what felt a very big fish, real heavy and slow as it stayed deep. I thought this could have been the fish I had been putting the time in for, after a few minutes it was netted.
It was a beautiful Zander in incredible condition with loverly colours and tipping the scales at 10lb 4oz rounded the day off nicely, I fished on for another couple of hours without any indication.

The beginning of the following week, we had incredible mild conditions with a low pressure system moving in and night time air temperatures saying at 9 degrees for two days in a row, this to me screamed an opportunity for a winter Barbel, with the rain lifting my Local Yorkshire River Derwent by a healthy 2 foot it had to be worth a visit after work and a nice catch up with my mate Chris. I got down to the river about 7pm giving me a few hours to get a bite. I opted to fish simple a nice lump of my homemade Boilie paste and a small bag of crumbed matching boiles on a 5oz lead. Half way across the river you could see a nice flat smooth like glass run. This signals to me that the bottom is nice and uniformed depth most probably a gravel run. Chris was slightly down stream of me and he opted to fish a big bunch of Lob Worms a deadly method down there especially in the current conditions. Chris was first off the mark with a tiny barbel about a pound in weight, perfection in miniature and a good indicator that the river is healthy. Time was ticking away for me but bang on 10pm my rod burst in to life and I was hooked in to the target species. It gave me a right battle on my braided mainline feeling every lunge all the way back to the net, once safe in the mesh of the net she was allowed to rest while I sorted out the mat sling and scales. It looked a decent fish especially for this river and once lifted the needle was just flickering under 9lb 1oz, to most anglers and rivers 9lb isn’t a big fish but on the Yorkshire Derwent that is a proper one. Over the years I’ve managed a few low doubles from the area but I would still regard this fish a real specimen for the river. The pictures didn’t come out to clever with a lot of glare and reflection from the IPhone flash but with a January Barbel I was more than happy.

Towards the end of the month the weather again was pretty inconsistent, with odd mild days followed by frosts. I did manage a couple of evenings after work on the Trent for Zander, fishing was pretty slow with just the one bite in two 3 hour sessions. It was again a nice fish coming in at 9lb 10oz and taken on quite a large Dace dead bait. The pictures came out a lot better this time, I recently purchased a Rhino Beam V5 light and used this to light up both myself and the fish instead of relying on the flash from my phone.

This month’s report has been fairly heavy with Zander. That’s mainly due to the conditions as through the winter I enjoy my chub fishing but the rivers I fish have been out of sorts since before Christmas. Add to that I’ve got my sights firmly set of a big specimen of over 16lb I’m needing to put the effort and miles in. It’s only going to be a matter of time I feel but the season end is approaching fast.