It’s been a while

I’ve been getting lazy from a fishing perspective over the last few months so decided enough was enough. I had my first launch of 2017 today in sub-zero conditions. I would love to report a few fish but unfortunately it was a blank session. My plan was to fish deadbaits and do some trolling with large lures for Pike. This was scuppered right from the start, after I rigged up my float rod I noticed the mono furring up somewhere along the first three eyes of the rod as it took the weight of rig. Yes, another cracked eye…

 Given that the water temperature was just above 5c this was probably the method that would have worked best. In hindsight, I should probably have set up my heavy lure rod with a deadbait, instead I decided to track down the areas with plenty of baitfish and spend my time with the lures around these spots.

There is a lot of barren water, some areas had some life. These are baitfish represented in traditional sonar also showing in structure scan. There may be one or two slightly larger fish in amongst the mainstay of small fish.

When you see marks like this you might expect the predators to be somewhere nearby. Especially given the acres of lifeless water covered while searching.

On traditional sonar you just see the mass return on the left. It is open to interpretation  but I suspect there are a few dour Perch underneath that tree shown on the right. I spent some time with the dropshot rod around one or two spots like this.  A few worms might have helped. You can see the shadow of the tree on the structure scan on the top right.

I fished pretty hard to no avail.

 

These Patagonia gloves worked really well as did my new Thermos Ultimate Flask. Along with new neoprene socks over my drysuit feet I wasn't bothered by the cold at all. Just as well really or I would have been up the road after a few hours. I'm certainly geared up for the cold weather, I just hope it's worth the effort at some point.