Snow Joke!

We set off on Saturday with the intention Pike fishing Lymm Dam, the weather reports for the day did not look to promising but undeterred we were out before dawn. After about 40 minuets drive we arrived at the Dam or the rink as I could call it! Ducks were huddled round a six foot square of water by the Dam wall the only area that wasn't frozen solid. Now as I had no saw in my tackle box, ice fishing wasn't an option.

The River Dane just so happens to be on the way back from Lymm, so having never seen it before, let alone fished it, I quite fancied taking a wander down and wetting a line, despite the worsening weather. As we had intended to have a go for some of the double figure Bream whilst at Lymm, we had some tackle suitable for a spot of river fishing.  So arriving at Bay Malton Angling club's stretch of The Dane at Holmes Chapel, we decanted our limited supply of river tackle and bait, then set of with a roving approach hoping to winkle out a cheeky Chub or even my first river Barbel.
We chose a really nice looking corner swim to start at, with a fallen tree over hanging the far bank slightly, normally I would have probably opted to trot bread or casters under a small float, but unfortunately I had to make do with a small cage feeder and a nice fat lob worm on a running rig to 10lb main line on a 7" quiver rod. Toby set himself up a similar rig with some luncheon meat. We sat and admired the scenery on what was a really cold and frosty morning, pretty much bite less for an hour or so before we moved on down steam. 
As we past the car on the walk to find a suitable swim further down stream I thought we must be quite mad, we were now treated to some vary nasty sleet and hail.
The move didn't pay dividends we faired no better in any of the other swims we tried, even with slight variations on terminal tackle and bait. To give you an idea of how cold it was, as we moved swim, the worm that I was using as hook bait would become solid if kept out of the water to long!

Heading back to the car it became very apparent that the hill that we had no problems earlier descending was going to be quite the challenge to ascend and get home. The sleet and freezing conditions had covered the slope with a quite thick layer of ice, which Toby's family saloon was having great difficulty getting any traction on. If it wasn't for a tow by some friendly chaps with there 4x4 that had been dirt bike riding near by, we may very well have still been there now.

For more information on rigs, set ups, bait and tackle please have a look at our brother blog

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