Winter Fishing in Granchester

After months of being too busy to get out fishing, I recently spent an hour (of an afternoon) at Granchester mill pool. On arriving, I found another angler, deadbait fishing for pike and ledgering worms for perch. He pulled a couple of small perch out while I was there but otherwise had limited luck. It was very cold, probably about 1-2 Celcius and there was only an hour to go before sunset so not much time to fish.

I targeted the roach and dace with bread flake on a size 20 hook under a self cocking float. I varied the depth between 1-4 feet. No nibbles on the bread so I switched to some soft hooker pellets. Slightly more luck here with something definitely nibbling the pellets but no bites.

Unfortunately after an hour I had to pack up as it was getting cold and too dark to see the float. Despite not catching anything, it was nice to get down to the water again after so long. Next time, I think some worms and ledger would be worth trying. I suspect the fish were down on the bottom given the nibbles came when I increase the depth of the bait. It would be good to do a little more research on winter baits. From past memory I recall that scaling down tackle and bait helped e.g. pinkies rather than maggots and smaller hooks. Hopefully I'll get anther try soon.