Tag: winter

Beating the ice at the Bosbaan in Amsterdam

If it looks cold - it was !

Well it is a very glad Quentyn who is back from the Bosbaan leaving 1/2 way through a 2 day session. Normally I would be annoyed about leaving half way through planned session but after the 1st night i though I would quit whilst the going was good.

Here is a tip for you, if you are packing to go fishing and you shake your cooking gas bottle and think “hmm I wonder if there is enough in there for 2 days” there is not. The meerest action of checking ensures that there is not. Now in the summer you can get away with no hot water, in the winter it could be deadly. Well you have guessed it, during the 1st night I went to make a cup of tea and found that in the cold my gas bottle was almost empty with not really even enough grunt to warm 1 kettle of water.  Lesson to be learned I feel and my thanks to Mick to popped along in the morning with a hot flask of tea which was very welcome.
Continue reading “Beating the ice at the Bosbaan in Amsterdam”

Oh to be back on the bank again

Cold and Grey….

Bosbaan can be a cold grey place at times, especially in the winter so it is with a heavy heart that I will drag myself out of bed tomorrow morning and head on over. Only joking I can hardly wait, I haven’t been on a proper carp session in months and I am itching to get out. I was meant to be out last weekend but it rained from 06:00 – 21:00 and the wimp in me won out. I consoled myself by believing that my PVA would just melt 🙂

Anyway here’s to a 2 day session on the bosbaan, which thankfully was not affected by the recent weather unlike Amsterdamse Bos which seems to have been completely wiped out.  Tactics will be small bags of ccmoore bloodworm pellet with either a Meteor popup or a small fluro pop-up. Will scale everything down to size 8’s and lower and will probably use the rather excellent Fox Illusion fluorocarbon in 15lb bs.

Here’s hoping the fish are hungry !

Winter Wonderland

Some of you might be wondering why a lot of the posts recently have not been about fishing but have been about rigs and reviews, well for the last month most of the waters I would like to fish have been completely frozen. The pic above shows one of the lakes around here and as you can see it is absolutely solid. If it doesn’t start to thaw out soon I will have to start ice fishing. I am getting cabin fever it has been so long since I wet a line. Still there is light at the end of the tunnel I have taken a day off of to go fishing with Fishing Amsterdam next week. Here is hoping that the canal is defrosted enough to get the boat out !

Anyway until then there will be limited numbers of catch reports as there is 3″ of ice between me and the carp and pike.

Winter colours

Often you will see in articles discussions about how it is lovely to catch carp in ” their winter colours” with the author seeming to suggest that carp change colour in the winter (Photoperiodicity ).  A brief google seems to show this as rubbish, however does any one have an evidence that carp can effectively change their colour depending on season ? is it just that the winter sun highlights  subtly different tones on the carp’s scales ? I have to say that my personal opinion is that carp do not possess the ability to change colour whether in the winter or in the summer, they lack the mechanics in their bodies to accomplish this .  Oh well another angling myth.

What do you think ?