Saturday 31 March 2018

31 March 2018, Bat Lake (Gold Valley)

Today’s match (the section winner’s final at Gold Valley, a match that you needed to qualify for by winning a section in 2017’s teams of four or the 2018 Rushmoor league) was one that I’d been looking forward to for quite a while, especially as it was supposed to have taken place quite a few weeks ago but was rearranged at the last minute due to the ‘Beast from the East’ and the heavy snow that came with it.
  
Cheer-up!
  
Given the considerable amount of extra cash added to the prize fund by the management team at Gold Valley the queue for the draw featured quite a daunting array of venue experts, Guildford bait-Tech teammates and some of the best anglers the south of England has to offer in the form of Will Raison, Robbie Taylor, Mark Goddard and Paul ‘Tommy’ Hiller – nothing to worry about there then!
  
A peg with legs
  
With the match spread across Middle and Bat Lakes I think it is fair to say that everyone was looking for a nice dolly peg on Bat – personally I was praying for a draw on either side of the sunken lily pads (1 and 12) or the peg that Luke Sheriff won last week’s match from (11). Regular readers of this blog will know that I haven’t drawn a good peg for at least five seasons so I really couldn’t believe my luck when I saw a nice shiny 11 in my hand!!!
  
All the gear ...
  
For those of you not familiar with the venue, peg 11 is on the causeway between Bat Lake and Gold Lake – there is an island (just out of long pole range) slightly to the right, the entrance to the narrow channel formed by the island and the causeway to the right at an angle of 45 degrees, and there’s open water in directly front and to the left. For company I had Zak Brown in the corner opposite to my left, Paul Garrett directly in front, Charlie Dalton on one side of the lily pads and Gary Clifford on the next peg to my left (but out of sight) on the other peg next to the lilies.
  
The view to the right
  
On plumbing-up there seemed to be a slightly raised area at TK+3 straight in front that was exactly the same depth as the majority of the swim at 13m – the areas either side of the shallower area at TK+3 were 3-4” deeper so I set-up two rigs (with identical components): pink Hydrolastic, 0.15 N-Gauge main line, a 4x14 Roob shotted with a 1” strung bulk of 7 number 9 stotz, 15cm of 0.10 Pure fluorocarbon to a size 18 Guru F1 Pellet hook.
  
Nice selection of vans on the far side
  
I started the match at TK+3 straight in front, clump feeding micros and fishing with an expander on the hook. Even though the lake was fishing hard I was disappointed to have just two skimmers and one F1 in the net after 45 minutes. (I’d also been broken by an F1 that took me into some brambles to my right – after that mistake I made sure I played all of the other fish that I hooked to my left where it was snag free.)
  
A photo much like one above
  
At 11:45 it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen short so it was time to venture out to 13m, initially on a line slightly to the right. This was good and got me a nice run of fish. When this line died I moved across to a new line at 13m straight in front (i.e. 3m to the left of the original) – this was a good move and led to another good run of fish.
  
Time to change the channel
  
Going into the final hour the second 13m line started to fade so I started a new line at 45 degrees to the left in the open water (13m still) – I thought that this was going to be a really good option but it only threw-up the odd fish and was generally pretty slow. Luckily a switch to another new line at 45 degrees to the right into the mouth of the channel turned-out to be a brilliant move and led to another good run of F1s that saw me through to the end of the match.
      
Fomer MMT winner Zak Brown on the scales
  
In the end my 55 fish (probably 50 F1s and 5 skimmers) went 51-8-0, a mere 2 pounds or so ahead of Gary Clifford (who included two big carp for 13lb in his total of 49-4-0), meaning I’d managed to win another big match and a whopping £770!!! (Zak Brown was third overall with 31-14-0 so Gary and myself were well clear of the chasing pack, that late run of fish from the mouth of the channel made all the difference and just about got me over the line.)
  
Cheers!!!

Sunday 25 March 2018

25 March 2018, Bat Lake (Gold Valley)

Well it was back to Gold Valley for the second part of a rare ‘fishing double’ on Sunday, this time for an open match on the prolific Bat Lake. (There was also another open match on Syndicate Lake and it seems that going forward Gold Valley are going to be offering parallel open matches on weekends so you can choose between big carp and F1 fishing.)
  
All the gear ...
  
My draw landed me on (temporary) peg 4, a nice peg on the carpark side of the lake, one to the right of where I won the final round of the 2018 Rushmoor league and one to the left of where I fished on the recent WC Group Coaching day, so pretty much spot-on!!! However, the pegging was pretty tight and full of quality – I had Anthony Flint to my left, Nigel Smith, Dan Carey and Jason Morgan in a row to my right and Luke Sheriff directly opposite – so I knew I’d have my work cut-out from the off.
      
The view to the right
  
Unfortunately things started slowly – I couldn’t get a bite on my short line and by the time I eventually got my first fish at 13m (after half an hour) I was already 10 pounds behind Jason (who’d snared a big carp first drop) and Luke who was literally getting ‘one a bung’ on his short line. I eventually got my act together and with half an hour to go I’d got to 72 F1s, all taken from 2 different swims at 13m on pellet.
  
The usual suspects
  
Unfortunately I made some bad choices in the final 30 minutes – with my second 13m line fading I decided to try and revive my initial 13m line and to try and catch down the edge to my left where I’d been feeding maggots by hand for an hour. Neither came to much and I think I only put 4 fish in the net (3 from 13m and 1 from the margins (plus 2 lost in the brambles)) – this gave me a total of 76 F1s for 64-13-0, miles behind Luke’s terrific 89-15-0 and agonisingly close to Jason’s hard-fought 65-10-0, leaving me ‘one out of the money’ by a mere 13 ounces!!! (With hindsight I was never going to catch Luke but if in that last 30 minutes I’d have opened a new swim at 14.5m I’m sure I could’ve snuck second – that’s fishing I guess!!!)
   
Some F1s and me!
   

Saturday 24 March 2018

24 March 2018, Middle Lake (Gold Valley)

It was back to Gold Valley again on Saturday, this time for the open match on the Middle Lake – things started badly when I drew peg 88 (the peg to the right of my least favourite peg in the world, number 87) and got worse when I arrived at the swim to find a floating concrete block moored against the platform!
      
Now you see me ...
  
The block was quickly moved by the fishery team but the process of dragging it along to peg 89 certainly didn’t do my chances of catching those finicky F1s any good!!!
      
... now you don't!
  
As expected the peg turned-out to be something of an F1 exclusion zone and all I could muster were two F1s on the maggot feeder and five skimmers (one on the maggot feeder, four on the pole) for a level 14lb – this was actually a respectable return as the guy directly opposite blanked, Mick to my right had 10lb and the corner pegs 85 and 84 to my left only produced 18 and 10 pounds respectively, tough fishing when you consider that this lake was stocked with 30,000 F1s last year!!!
 

Friday 16 March 2018

16 March 2018, Middle Lake (Gold Valley)

Well it was back to Gold Valley for a cheeky Friday cost cutter today – with 17 of us squeezed onto the causeway bank of Middle Lake things were always going to be tight but I wasn’t best pleased to find myself in the middle of a run of pegs that read 72, 73, 74, 75 and 76!!!
      
Gold Valley, Middle Lake, peg 74
  
Such pegging (when compared to (say) every other peg or peg two, miss one) means that there are effectively less fish to draw upon, but it also means that the actions of those around you can have a negative impact on your own peg. This is especially true of F1s – they really don’t like a lot of banging about, nets being thrown full length into the lake and big pots of bait going in!!!
      
No bites = no coffee left!
  
Unfortunately on the day I didn’t factor in the tight pegging and given the recent weather I thought it was going to fish really well, with 60-80lb needed to do well - how wrong I was! Personally I could only muster 7 fish that went a level 10lb, a pretty decent return as those around me weighed 10-8-0 (67), 7-0-0 (68), 10-0-0 (70), 2-0-0 (72), 13-4-0 (which included a 5lb carp in the final 5 minutes) (73), 8-14-0 (75), 6-14-0 (76) and 9-0-0 (78), though the weights improved towards either end with Bagger doing really well to come second overall with 33lb from end peg 84 and Adrian Harris winning from peg 64 with 33-14-0.
      
Heave!!!

Sunday 11 March 2018

11 March 2018, Bat Lake (Gold Valley)

Back to the amazing Bat Lake at Gold Valley again today, this time for a practice session with Bagger who hadn't been on the bank since the final day of Preston Innovations festival at White Acres last October. Personally I didn't think the fishing was as good as yesterday, possibly because the fish backed away as we were the only two on the lake - having said that we still caught well over 100 F1s between us in 4 hours and more importantly learned loads for our next visit!!!
 
Still got it!!!
   

Saturday 10 March 2018

10 March 2018, Bat Lake (Gold Valley)

Today's trip to Gold Valley was for another WC Coaching day with Will Raison and Callum Dicks, this time on the prolific Bat Lake with the focus being the use of the short pole and pellets for F1s. Once again it was a terrific day with loads learned and loads caught!!!
  
Say 'cheese'!!!