I was fishing a local syndicate water recently when after about an hour a strong south westerly wind got up.  Now this water is no more that 4 feet deep and a strong wind even at this time of year generally kills the fishing stone dead.

I was only on one of my short afternoon sessions so decided to carry on, anyway 6 hours later I hadn’t had so much as a sniff or even seen a sign of a fish so I packed up knowing I should have gone somewhere else.

This session got me thinking about another shallow lake that I no longer fish. This lake again was no more than 4 feet deep but it had one very discernable difference to the syndicate lake mentioned above, in that around 75 % of the lake was covered in lily pads.  The vast majority of the time the carp would lie up amongst the dense lily beds and you were doing well if you averaged 1 run a day.

Now if you got a big wind on this lake (apart from in the winter) the fish could feed their heads off. The wind would push them out of the safety of the pads and they would feel more confident to move in the more open water. This could lead to some good multiple catches from what was otherwise a fairly slow water.

I can clearly remember one August day when we had really strong South Westerly winds that ended with me and my taking 14 carp (including a stunning high twenty ‘wood carving common’ ), and this from a lake where 1 run a day was good.

So it goes to show just because waters may have a similar depth etc they can have very different moods and if you take the time to learn these moods on a variety of waters, then you can choose the best water to fish for the weather conditions you will be faced with. Thus ensuring you get the most out of your fishing no matter what the weather.

Cheers,

Pat Gillett

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