The town was completely frozen. The rimes were shining at rays of the first rays of the rising Sun. It brought much of light, but not warmth. We have to wait until the spring comes, the ground defrost and the trees getting green again. I was walking sleepy to the lake called Boating Lake. It seemed the whole world were sleeping at that moment. There was none on the lake bank, I met with some ducks only. The anglers gave some groundbait to them. I never bring the remaining with me, just left it for them.

Shiny and chill morning.

The winter was unusually warm. The gentle weather has its effect to our water as well. My skates getting dusty at the corner, while I was thinking on fishing continuously, do I have any chance to catch something? Who knows how long will we have such a good weather? When the time comes, the ice starts to grow on the lake’s surface and anglers has to be stay in the warm rooms to make the rigs and hooklengths. Every minutes counts!

The frozen put away the anglers from the bank.

I was one hundred percent sure that my skates will not have their dust on them so long, I have to forgot fishing for a while. I decided to use a very simple tackle for this las fishing event. I chose the Gold Star Negra Match float rod earlier. It is a 12 feet long medium action float rod with low price, which made a good impression on me. Here in Hungary, the telescopic rods are very spread, but there is no one with the right action for float fishing, it is good we have a worth price rod dedicated for floating! I also get one to try it out. It will be great to use it in hard conditions, I mean on hard, rocky river banks or so on, where the rod can be knocked accidentally.

Rich and dark groundbait for cold water fishing with lots of casters.

For the reel i chose the ET Extreme Spin, which, to be honest, gave great surprise for me. It is a good price product as well from the shelves of Energoteam. It is a front drag one, built from graphite except the metal spool, the drag feels smooth. It seemed like a light toy for kids, but I think I will use it after several years. because it’s simple construction. I put the ET Power Waggler on the spool with size 0.20 millimeter. I knew that the weather needs thinner line, which meets the needs of sensitive, slow moving fishes. To be honest there is some bigger carp in the lake, and I want to give a chance to catch them. Who knows?

I have company.

Furthermore, nobody is able to strike gently with frozen, stick arms, this is not the summer. I had to keep in my mind that there is some good carp in the water, which wants to complete the winter savings. Eventually I used this big game tackle and waited for a miracle or something. Frankly I did not know, what I am waited for, if the float will swim like sharks got the bait under the deeps and I strike fast, hard and get the frozen fishes in the landing net? These guys are swimming slowly, think on every movement if it is really necessary or not, because they already know that the slow and attentive ones will live when the spring comes. They need to subsume their winter fat, swim as less as possible and chose the food wisely. The world of waters do not give second chance to the one, who wastes the first one. This is is the truth on the water and on the bank as well.

Waiting for the initial bailing in.

I am sure that if I want to be successful, I must to adapt to the circumstances. I think i was fortunate with the few fishes I caught on that morning, but wait a minute and let us think on it for a while. It is a known thing that there is a deeper zone in the middle of the lake. There is an old river bed lies through the lake’s longer axis. I need to cast 45-50 yards, to reach this zone, but going upper in the bank, this distance goes up to 70 yards. Not so easy to fish with a waggler, therefore I use feeder rods for fishing here.

Simple tackle.

Today I want fishing this deeper area at the center of the lake with the 50 yard casts. I chose the Exner Bream Dream float in weight 8 grams. Now after that morning, I would rather use thinner mainline, for example in size 0.16 or 0.14 millimeters. If I were smarter than I was at that moment, I would have been using a longer rod with a thinner mainline, but as we say, a lot of water needs to be flow on Danube until I learn to cast so gently, firmly and accurately. But let’s see, what I did to solve this situation and how I made a fairly good fishing on that freezy morning.
To be honest, I used another rod for carp fishing next to my float rod. Maybe it is a shame, but I never tried a stick, strong rod, used for carp fishing, because I always turn to light tackle since now. I just want to make sure that the light tackle is truly far more sensitive, faster and easier-to-use, than our traditional carp fishing technique.

Versatile reel.

Of course, from my first hand!. The rig I used was a single method feeder rig with a single 1 oz method lead. I used the same groundbait, as for the float. The hook was the same as well and I used the maggots on them just like on the float. Now at this moment I must say that I don
‘t want to compare deeply the two techniques. The conclusion was that the float is much more sensitive and we can change the behavior of the bait using lead weights on the line.

The winner bait = 3 maggots.

But let’s back to catching fishes. I slinged the initial bailing in at the start. I used a special groundbait designed for cold water (below 12 degree celsius). I can say that I see the chance to develop myself on this field as well. After this I shot a single one-hand groundbait ball in every quarter to keep the fishes in place. It seem I made something on the right way, because after half an hour, some small carp arrived on my bailing-in.

What a lovely, small carp from the middle of the lake!

I really dont know, what experiences has the others, but I think the small a carp is, the big takes he makes. Despite of the cold water, I had strong takes to strike in and the fishes were fighting really intently! It was good to release them after making a quick shot. They deserved it.

He was just posed me for a second.

I did not catch any big fishes on that day, I have a feeling that they already slept, waiting for the next spring. I really like this rod and reel, it was good to use them during 4 hours. Both passed. I successfully get cold on the bank and the wind was strong as always in this town. Still I was walking the way back home, I felt some pleasant warmth thinking on this fishing. Sometimes, it is enough to spend some time next to the water. The reed sough in the wind, the Sun is shining and the the things goes well.

A new hungry one again. He is still swimming I guess.