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Guest blogger, Dale Calvert, recollects a recent practice session at his local Wrightington Fisheries.

A lovely clear but frosty, cold morning up here in the North West. A much desired session in cold water for skimmers has been on the cards for a few weeks so I decided to pack the van up full of my gear and head off the Wrightington to give the canals a work out.

Upon arriving I can see ice has formed on some of pegs. I have a walk down to the two canals and there is ice from pegs 14 onwards. There isn't much wind so I decide after a short walk that peg 12 is a good one for me. I just can't bring myself to fish peg 13.

Back at the van I put all the gear on the trolley and double up with my hooded fleeces as it about -1 degrees today and I really do like to keep as warm as possible because my hands never ever warm up. Trudging down to the canals I follow the path along the canal 1 watching for the water as I walk and "fump". My feet are apart and I'm doing the splits on the ice. Surprisingly I'm still holding onto the trolley, but I'm on my right knee and my left leg is spralled out in front of me. Luckily no one is on the venue here today as I have just performed a pathetic swim approach and feel like I've just split my pride in half.

Picking myself back up I can see the ice now that I'm looking. How on earth did I miss that. Black ice as it is, I could have seen that coming. Anyway, hobbling now, and under normal circumstances I'd sit and catch my breath, but today, being half nine in the morning and only fishing till twelve I get to my peg and set up my gear... in pain.

Armed with some Bag 'em Matchbaits Skimmer Dark and about half a pint of dead reds. I mix up half a bag of groundbait and put a handful of dead maggots along with some hemp. Smells very wintry this bait. I love fishing for skimmers at this time of year.

Tackle up my tip rod with a small Middy cage feeder about 9" from the hook and clip up cast down to peg 14 right near the ice with two dead red maggots on my size 18 63-13. Five mins, no movement. I fill the feeder and chuck it back out hitting the same spot pretty much and sink the line and sit back to put my hands under my legs to try to warm them up. "Argggh!" It's a habit to do this in the cold, but with a very sore leg, I'm squinting with the pain.

I have about six more put ins and the tip on the Middy 4G tip rod shot round. Just lifting the rod I'm into an obvious skimmer. The tell tale dull thumping gave it away. I land the near pounder with ease and bait up two more reds and fill the cage up with the fluffy mix and throw the lot back at the icy swim. While I'm sinking the line it's off again and a similar stamp of skimmer is in the net. The next 20 mins and 8 more skimmers in the keepnet. I decide to change to a lead instead of feeder as I think there is enough bait down. Quite right too. Another 5 skimmers are in the net and this, though painful, is turning out to be a good short session.

Two hours later. A total of 18lb on the nose of lovely winter skimmers and a lesson learned. Watch out for ice. I am still hurting today!