Look Back to Look Forward

ELLIOTT GRAY reflects on a fruitful period this time last year to see what clues he could draw upon for the next few months.

- Elliott Gray

It’s the very beginning of February as I write this and it’s always a funny time of year; some people hate it, but I love it. From now on it’s onwards and upwards, goodbye winter, hello spring – let’s be havin’ ya. A lot of change will come and as anglers we need to constantly adapt our approach to simply keep up. It’s going to get warmer and, quite frankly, much better with every day that passes, and for me that’s exciting. The only issue I do have is that the banks are going to get a damn sight busier and no-one likes a busy lake, so get out there and enjoy it while there’s still room to do so.

This time last year I was having a go on a venue close to home; nothing too serious, just a few short evening sessions in between fishing another venue. I would often finish my fishing for the week by packing up from one lake and going to the other in search of a bite. It was an awesome venue and I always enjoyed fishing there. It was a lake I had only really ever fished during winter but it was always good for a bite.The lake is cool and the carp even cooler – it had plenty to lure you in.

I eventually decided that I would do the 2016/2017 winter on there because the big ’un was an incredible carp and good for a bite too.The prospect of a winter on there seemed too good to refuse. I always go for the hard option during winter and I fancied the idea of a change the following winter.

Being a relatively deep lake, but also having a lot of large shallower areas, the fish would be found in different areas at different times, generally dependent solely on the weather. I remember catching them right out of the edge last December for an ACF mag article, but we were blessed with some lovely weather around that time.

Come the end of January, though, things were different. It was a lot cooler and the lakes locally were all frozen for short periods.