WINTER COLOURS
15th December 2021
Danny Martin reveals the fruits of an early winter campaign with some incredible looking carp sporting perfect winter colours.
The cold weather may be a huge drawback of winter angling, but as with most things in life, there’s always a positive to come of most situations and that is the colouration of the carp themselves. Most lakes become much clearer as the weather cools, algae die off, weed dies down and the bottom of the lake darkens with the sediment left behind. All of this makes the carp become darker and incredible to look at, so when they do make an appearance, they are well worth the extra effort winter angling entails. Danny Martin recently shared some beauties from his winter campaign, with some magnificent looking fish falling to his rods in quick succession.
The unique blend of powders means the Active mix constantly releases particles upwards from your baited area. This helps catch the carp’s attention and entices them to investigate.
Danny said:
“Due to not being too much of a fan or summer fishing, I was buzzing to get my teeth stuck into my autumn/winter campaign. The banks are quieter, the rewards are better and it’s a time of year that I enjoy the most other than spring.
“My Winter ticket didn’t start until November 1st , therefore I decided to keep a fresh mind, prep my kit and go all out ready for the ticket to start rather than flitting around before-hand with no real goal in place.
“The lake itself is a day ticket of around 12 acres and is home to around 120-150 carp. I won’t name it as the lake is very quiet and holds some absolute gems. I’d done some time on the lake the spring just gone which produced 10 fish up to 29lb. So obviously as you can imagine it was all steam ahead when the ticket finally came up.
“The lake has a main bowl which averages between 10-14ft with a series of bars between 18-22 wraps from either bank. Finding the deeper depressions of silt in between the raised bars saw me bank some lovely carp.
“I fished a mixture of maggots dusted in Manilla Active Mix, Cloudy Manilla Liquid, 12mm whole and crushed Manilla Active, with 12mm Peach & Pepper Medusa Maggots rigs over the top. A winning winter formula for all of my fish in the end! So far, I have managed six nights totalling 12 fish which included eight twenties to 29lb and the rest being good doubles. The best bit is we aren’t even deep into winter yet and in my opinion this lake doesn’t seem to switch off like some lakes do. So, hopefully, I should keep the fish coming, fingers crossed!”
