PCT Winter League - Session 4 of 8

Polonia Carp Team Winter League, another session behind me. It was a session four of eight. It was a very, very cold session but why complain, it is a Winter League after all. The good part was the fact that I was able to have my vehicle very close to my rods so every time I got cold, I could jump in for a quick warm up.
Fishing Time: 7:30am – 3:30pm
Temperature: 12°F - 8°F
Wind: 21mph NW – 20mph WNW
Pressure: 29.95in – 30.00in
Surface Water Temperature: 45°F
Bottom Water Temperature: 48°F

Already few days before, I knew that this session will not be easy. Not because of bad fishing day, luck of this or that, but because a very cold weather. The bottom line is this, I hate cold weather and I hate to be cold. I am a warm weather type of an individual, who eventually needs to move south to warmer climates. One day, one day it will happen, but enough dreaming for now, let me go back to this session summery.

Sunday morning wake up was without any problems, like a wake up before any other fishing trip, lol. Scraping ice off of a car windows told me already that this will be a pain in the ass day. A lot of people told me that it will be a bad fishing day also, but I thought otherwise. For three days, prior to this session, air pressure was very low, so in my mind, this corresponds with great fishing days. During the day, the pressure was slowly rising and I knew, that this will not affect the baits that much. I was right.

Morning draw moved me from peg 7 to peg 8, an end peg with great water and a lot of potential. I know this peg very well, because during an off season, I fish there quite a bit. What is interesting about this peg is the fact that it has areas typical for canal, with high walls, and also areas with natural bank side, rocky shore, trees, and gradual incline. Although, this peg being an interesting peg, it has a tremendous number of snags. Snags caused by, fallen trees, big wood pieces from old dock, metal wires and tons of fishing lines tangled under the water. This being a severally snagy area, is a very good area to fish in, especially during winter months. In my opinion, during these months, carp is looking for spots that can provide him coverage, security and also being filled with lots of food. Carp in winter months don’t travel a lot, so they need places which easily will help them survive this cold period and snagy areas are perfect.

It is always fun to set everything up when the temperature is in single digits, wind is above 20mph, and everything is freezing in moments. For this session, I have chose to use fishy flavored packbait and garlic corn, boilies and artificial corn as my hookbait. I have set two rods with garlic dipped artificial corn and one with K-1 Baits Natural Garlic pop-up. For rig presentation I have chosen simple hair rig for plastic corn and chod rig for pop-ups. About couple hours in, I had my first fish on my Natural Garlic setup. About 30min later I had another bait on the same setup but unfortunately fish swims into snagy area and line got cut on some underwater debris. The fish was in the swim, but only where the natural garlic presentation was set. Bad part was, that this area was probably the hardest to fish due to the numerous underwater structures and setting other two rods in the same area, was just impossible. So one rod was in this hard snag area, next one was not far from it and the third rod way into natural bank side surrounded by fallen trees.   

I have decided to change all my three rods to garlic setup. Was that a good decision or bad, I am sure opinions will vary but at that time, I felt it was a right call. The whole day had on and off periods, and you just didn’t know when the bait will happen. It was at times just a waiting game and good part was that I was able to park my vehicle very close to the peg so I have spent there quite some time warming it up.

As the time moved closer to the end of the session, I have lost two more fish in a snags and landed one small one before the day was over. I think it was a successful day which have proven to me once again, that fish is still baiting in the cold weather, but you just have to do some homework to be able to find it. The interesting part was the fact that all the fish caught by the guys were between 5lbs and 15lbs and this poses a lot of questions. Where are the big fish? Did they move out from the area? Maybe they were there but not feeding? Maybe they were feeding, but what we presented to them, was not it.

In this blog, although fish was caught, I am not including any pictures with the fish, I simply did not take any. I have made a conscious choice to release them as fast as it was possible due to the severe weather conditions. Nets were freezing almost instantly when out from the water, same thing with lines and rigs. Fish care and safety is always a high priority but that day very close attention needed to be paid and all the fish caught have been safely returned back into the water. Now I have two weeks before next session and it will be a time to reflect, draw conclusions, and get ready for session five. Can’t wait.