17 April 2016, Old Lake (Willinghurst)

One of the interesting things about fishing at this time of year is the serious temperature swing can be experienced during a day – whilst the weathermen were predicting a lovely spring afternoon the view from by bedroom window was distinctly frosty first thing this morning! Such temperature changes typically lead to one thing – a very slow start followed by a frantic end to the match!
  

Freezing!

  
I was back to Willinghurst again today and with 30 plus anglers gracing the banks of Old, New and John’s Lake another good draw was certainly the order of the day. Unfortunately my prolific drawing record at Willinghurst had to end at some point and today was the day – I drew the right lake (Old) but unfortunately peg 5 isn’t one that many people would run to!
  

All the Gear ...

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  
With a nice warm breeze blowing from right to left the pegs at the end of the narrow section of Old Lake (occupied by Daiwa Dorking’s Pemb Wrighting and Tommy Hiller) looked like the place to be – unfortunately peg 5 is in the main bowl and is in the part of the lake that is double-banked (and hence doesn’t have a far bank to chuck to). The favoured pegs in this part of the lake are the two ends (1 and 26) with the remaining pegs being a little hit-and-miss – these pegs look featureless but there is in fact a shallow bar running through the middle that can be accessed from either side, though in essence these are open water pegs which are at their best when the fish are up in the water and there to be caught on the waggler.
  

Dan Cooper on peg 3

  
As expected things got off to a slow start for most (though not Pemb and Tommy) – my only bite of the first hour came from the shallow bar with a 24g mini Guru Hybrid feeder with a Ringers chocolate orange wafter and my only bite of the second hour came from the same spot with bomb and bread. The third hour actually yielded two bites – another carp from the bar to the Hybrid and chocolate orange wafter combination, and one that fell-off from a shorter line that I had been loose-feeding with 8mm pellets. (This fish was hooked on the straight lead with a Ringers pellet wafter – my suspicion is that these actually float even when used with a size 12 QM1 so more tank tests are needed before I try one of these on the hook again.)
  

The usual suspects ...

  
Unfortunately the second half of my match wasn’t much better – the fourth hour saw just a single pull from yet another carp to the Hybrid and chocolate orange wafter combination and the fifth hour only lead to a single pull on the bomb and bread (that fell-off). Prior to the final hour I had started to feed a margin line with 7mm meat and dead red maggots – this line would eventually lead to the best fish of the day (hooked five minutes before the ‘all out’, landed ten minutes after) to go with one more on the Hybrid.
  

The scores on the doors ...

  
This meant I ended-up with five smaller carp on the tip and one larger specimen from the edge for a total of 32-8-0 – not a great score but not miles behind venue experts Dan Cooper to my right (six carp on the waggler for 44lb from peg 3) and Jason Morgan to my left (40lb from peg 9). As expected Pemb (105-12-0) and Tommy (95-0-0) filled the top two places on the lake, with local legend Dave Carter taking third with an excellent 64-8-0 from the peg directly opposite mine.
  
Until next time ...
  

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03 April 2016, Old Lake (Willinghurst)

It’s not often that I say this, but the other day I actually read an interesting article in Mach Fishing magazine. The piece in question appeared in the March 2016 edition and was titled ‘The Art of Fish Theft’, though the headline doesn’t really do it justice. Instead Tom Scholey describes in some detail how he manages his peg through the duration of a match, intentionally initially ignoring certain areas in order to allow the fish to gain confidence before plundering them towards the end. I guess we all implicitly manage our pegs, but today I was determined to do this in a more explicit fashion, especially as most of my matches have a tendency to start well before tailing-off towards the end!
  

Unloading all the gear ...

  
One of the reasons I’ve taken to spending my Sundays at Willinghurst of late is the fact that there are actually lots of good pegs to draw! In my six previous visits to the venue I’ve drawn a real corker each time – I’ve been on the Bomb Hole on the Top Lake (flyer) twice, peg 10 on Old Lake (shallow bar, flyer), peg 53 on John’s Lake (downwind end peg on the day, flyer) and peg 1 on Old Lake (corner peg, flyer) twice! So where would I end-up today? True to form it was another flyer and another return to a peg I have fished before (peg 10 on Old Lake) – what are the chances of fishing a 26 peg lake four times and drawing the same peg twice, twice?
  

Old Lake, Peg 10

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  
Old Lake is quite an unusual shape in that it has a large bowl at one end and a narrower section at the other. Whilst there are platforms on both banks all of the way around, in the narrower section only the pegs on the side nearest to the café are included in the open matches. Peg 10 is in this narrower section and has two main features – the platform opposite (at about 35-40m) and a shallow bar that runs through the middle of the narrow section. (Apparently there used to be an island running through the middle of the lake, so I guess the shallow bar is what remains of this island.)
  

The old faithful

  
Taking these main features into account I once again decided to set-up both of my tip rods – they featured identical configurations (8lb Daiwa Sensor mainline and a 3’ leader of 10lb Drennan fluorocarbon with a loop to take various Guru X-Safe legering devices), but one was clipped-up on the bar and the other was clipped-up just short of the far bank. (The bar is quite easy to find – when you drop a bomb onto it the tip springs back immediately and on the retrieve you can feel the tell-tale tap, tap, tap of a hard gravel bottom.) I also set-up a pole rig to fish meat at top kit plus two (that I wouldn’t actually pick-up) and had planned to have a margin line in front of peg 11’s platform – until a late arrival (Martin White) came and sat on it that is!!!
  

Following Tom Scholey’s lead I was determined to leave the far side alone for at least two hours – the matches at Willinghurst are six hours long so I figured that two hours would be long enough for the anglers either side of me to push the carp into my peg, giving me four hours to plunder them. Having said that the first hour was very slow for everybody! I started on the bar with 4 pieces of 10mm punched bread (30cm of 0.19, size 12 QM1 with a 12mm hair, 19g Guru X-Safe bomb with black Hydro) but I eventually got my one and only pull of the first hour (from a pristine 8lb common) on a Ringers chocolate orange wafter (same set-up as for bread except the use of a shorter (10mm) hair).
  

Donkey chokers

  
Going into the second hour I decided to actually feed some bait and deposited 5 method feeders of soaked micro pellets onto the bar before starting to ping 10mm Ringers pellets three quarters of the way across. Whilst doing so I tried fishing to far side (ahead of schedule I know) - no bites materialised but I did manage to prick one whilst reeling in!!! Unfortunately this one (which was clearly foul-hooked) eventually fell-off, so my second aim of the match (to land every fish that I hooked) was also out of the window before the end of the first two hours.
  

The view to the left

  
The middle two hours of the match were hardly hectic either – I managed two smaller carp on a hard pellet hookbait from the three quarters pinging line before suffering the ignominy of being broken on the take as I was busy eating a tuna and cucumber roll!!! Having said that the fishing was still hard all around – Jason Morgan on the end peg (13) was struggling from a lack of fish in his peg after getting off to a good start and I’m pretty sure that Shaun Barnet (8) and Perry Stone (5) to my right were both pretty much fishless at this stage. Only Jake Gallagher (1), Ben Cooke (24) and Mark Glyn (24) seemed to be putting runs of fish together.
  

The view from the far bank

  
As expected the sport picked-up a little going into the final two hours – a nice double-figure fish from the bar on a wafter was very welcome, as was a much smaller sample from the three quarters line that gave me a pull before I could even sink the line. The final hour saw me focus more and more on the far side - carp #6 on bomb & bread and carp #7 on a 24g mini Hybrid feeder with soaked micro pellets and a chocolate orange wafter hookbait from close to the platform opposite were the rewards. Unfortunately the final pull of the day ended in disaster – the carp in question took me into a tree that was partly dangling into the water and I lost the lot! (Hybrid feeders do grow on trees after all …)
  

The moment of truth

  
In the end my seven carp went for 43-10-0, not a great return but much closer to the 65-1-0 (Perry Stone), 64-10-0 (Ben Cooke) and 63-14-0 (Mark Glyn) that filled the top three places on the lake than I expected when the ‘all out’ was called. So congratulations must go to Perry Stone who came from nowhere to take the spoils on the pellet waggler after the shoal that were sat in front of Ben and Mark early doors eventually drifted across to his side of the bowl. (Perry was second on the day, Tommy Hiller winning the match with 85lb from New Lake.)
  
Until next time ...
  

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28 March 2016, Top Lake (Willinghurst)

It seems that in recent months the Met Office has followed the lead of our American friends and has started to give names to the more significant storms that sweep across this fair isle of ours – today’s weather had been christened ‘Katie’ and boy was she angry! Despite carrying a few extra kilos around my midriff I was nearly blown over trying get out of the car in the Willinghurst car park and unless I was very much mistaken the waves on John’s Lake appeared to have white horses on them!

  

Easter - 4 days off work and chocolate!

  

So with little haste it was into the café for a coffee and a bacon sandwich – once again the place was packed-out with Daiwa Dorking superstars (Terry Harrison, Tommy Hiller, Dave Guntrip, Mark Goddard) and half on the Drennan Bordon crew (Tom Arnot, Shaun Barnett, Matthew Barnett, Ian Dixon), so to say that the standard of angler on these open matches is pretty high is very much the understatement of the year!

  

The Bomb Hole in all of its glory

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  

Given the super-strong winds today I think most of the people in the queue for the draw were hoping to draw peg 1 on the Old Lake – this peg has recent form with Jason Morgan winning the match from there on Wednesday and Giovanni Barbatto winning the lake last Sunday from the same peg, but more importantly it looked like a mill pond compared to every other peg on Old and Top Lakes due to the row of trees and bushes along its long parallel margin. So it will come as no surprise to the regular readers of this blog that I promptly drew peg 1 – though you will be amazed to hear that it was peg 1 on Top Lake, rather than peg 1 on Old Lake!

 

The view to the left

   

In all fairness peg 1 on the Top Lake is a very good draw. I used to think it was called the ‘Bung Hole’ but apparently it is actually called the ‘Bomb Hole’ – though in my experience any peg that has been given a proper name is normally a good one! The Bomb Hole is basically a mini pond linked to the main body of Top Lake and there are actually three pegs on it – I drew peg 2 a couple of years ago (this one is next to the entrance to the main part of the lake), and if you draw peg 1 you can choose to either sit on either 1A or 1B (which are both at the back of the Bomb Hole).

  

Given the strong winds I decided to sit on 1A as it was far too windy to even contemplate getting the pole out of the bag and by sitting on this peg I would be able to cast a bomb or feeder across to peg 2’s platform and to some fishy looking rushes slightly to the left of this platform. Personally I’d always choose to fish a feature peg such as this but they can be feast or famine – Stevie Gardner had a decent 55lb from peg 1B on Wednesday but apparently the guy that drew the peg yesterday packed-up and went home early …

  

Bait of the month!

  

The recent rain and strong winds had certainly put a lot of colour in the water, so I was in two minds as to whether I should start on the bomb with bread or not – I’m no expert on the topic but from what I understand of the technique it is the visual nature of bread that makes it work, hence it should be more effective in clear water as the fish can see it (as opposed to coloured water as they can’t smell it). Regardless I decided to start on it – I was starting to regret my choice when the first chuck towards peg 2 was fruitless and I almost didn’t give it a second chance, though luckily I did and 3 carp in the next 4 casts was the result!

  

Unfortunately this good run soon came to an end and after those 3 fish in the first half an hour I could only manage one more (on a 36g small Guru Hybrid feeder with a Ringers chocolate orange wafter) in the next 90 minutes, leaving me on a somewhat underwhelming 4 carp in the net after two hours.

  

The 13m line, tight to the bank

  

During the third hour the wind started to drop somewhat (it was probably still around the 20 mph mark, but better than the earlier 50-60 mph battering) so as bites were very few and far between on the tip I decided to risk getting the pole out of the bag. I set-up rigs for two lines (one tight to the bank to my left at top kit plus two, the other tight to the long bank to my right at 13m) though both featured the same set-ups – black Hydro, 0.19 main line, a 0.3g SconeZone V6 shotted with a bulk of 4 number 9 stotz and a 15cm hooklength of 0.15 to a size 16 Guru LWG hook.

  

Once the rigs were ready I fed a smallish cup of 7mm meat and dead maggots on each line and returned to fishing the tip for 15 minutes or so to let things settle. No indications on the tip soon saw me reaching for a top kit and I was immediately rewarded with 2 quick bites and 2 carp in the net from the 13m line. ‘Here we go’ I thought to myself as the float buried for a third time in a row – however this one was foul-hooked, came off, tangled my rig and seemingly scattered every carp that had settled in the area!!! So after re-feeding I had a chuck on the bomb and bread to the far side whilst the fish had a chance to regroup and as luck would have it the tip soon pulled around, leaving me on 7 carp and giving me a chance entering those all-important final two hours.

  

Moody weather today

  

As is often the way with my fishing those final two hours turned-out to be more of a damp squib than a bag-up session! I could only manage two more bites from the 13m pole line (one of which was clearly foul-hooked and came off) and one more pull on the bomb and bread, meaning I finished my match with a rather disappointing 9 carp in the net and a feeling that I’d let another flyer slip through my fingers!

  

Shaun and Tom on the scales

  

In the end those carp went 43-3-0 for a lowly fifth on the lake. I wasn’t far behind two of the weights that beat me (43-9-0 and 48-9-0), but I was miles behind lake winner Shaun Barnett (95-4-0) and second placed Tom Arnot (68-11-0)!!! Over on Old Lake there was a real tussle between Giovanni Barbatto and Dave Guntrip, with G just edging Dave 120-3-0 to 119-8-0 for a well-deserved win on the day.

  

Until next time ...

  

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20 March 2016, John's Lake (Willinghurst)

After last week’s success at Sumner’s Ponds (from yet another dolly of a peg it has to be said) I was really looking forward to getting back on the bank this weekend. I had originally planned to go to Gold Valley yesterday, but the word on the street (well social media anyway, which is fortunate as I’m currently working over 300 miles away from home during the week) was that Willinghurst is the place to be at the moment – plenty of room and importantly a few more pegs where it is possible to threaten the frame from.

  

All very hi-tech!

  

Having duly booked-in via Facebook (search for “Willinghurst fishery match results”) I arrived at the venue this morning to be greeted by a turn-out that was easily 30 plus – loads of familiar faces too with lots of the Apollo Guildford Match Team (Giovanni Barbato, Pete Franklin, Martin Johnson, Luke Sherriff, Shaun Sylvester), Daiwa Dorking (Tommy Hiller, Paul Holland, Myles levy, Robbie Taylor) and assorted superstars/venue experts (John Radford, Jason Morgan, Perry Stone, Paul Taylor, Jon Cook) all present and correct. (Whilst I enjoy going to Gold Valley it at times feels a bit cliquey, the atmosphere at today’s draw being much more friendly and welcoming.)

  

A nice corner peg again!

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  

Despite living fairly close-by I’d only actually fished Willinghurst four times previous to today’s visit (once on the Top Lake and three times on Old Lake) but my confidence was still fairly high as each time I’d drawn a flyer and my average weight across those 4 matches was a few ounces over 99lb. My draw today put me on peg 53 on John’s Lake – not one of the ponds I’d fished before, but once again a flyer as this peg provides access to the shallow bar that runs through the centre of the lake and more importantly was an end peg on the day as pegs 54 and 55 (which is the corner peg) weren’t pegged today. I had Jon Cook for company to my right, though he was 4 or 5 pegs down (I did say you get loads of room at Willinghurst).

  

Having plenty of features to go at (and not being familiar with the venue) I decided to cover a number of options – a tip rod for fishing onto the shallow bar, 2 pole rigs for fishing short for silvers, a rig for fishing to peg 54’s platform and a rig for fishing at the bottom of the near shelf at 11.5m to the left (effectively fishing peg 54’s 5m line).

  

Punched meat for the bomb/feeder

  

I spent the first two hours of the match legering on the shallow bar – first cast with a chocolate orange wafter, second with a 10mm piece of punched meat and third with a small Hybrid feeder and pellet. All three showed signs of liners, but I didn’t get my first pull (from a small carp) until the end of the first hour after rotating back to punched meat. In an effort to make something happen (as I was already falling behind Jason Morgan and Martin Johnson opposite who were catching on the long pole) I then tried pinging a few White Acres 6mm pellets (which are more like a small 8mm) over the top – this led to an immediate pull from a good carp to a chocolate orange wafter, but sadly nothing else, leaving me to finish the first 120 minutes with just two carp in the net.

  

The view to the left

  

In order to at least get a few bites and put something in the net I started hour 3 fishing short for silvers with maggots. I’d been feeding a line to my left for a good hour so I expected immediate bites – as a result I was rather disappointed when ten minutes later I only had a translucent gudgeon to show for my efforts!!! As you can imagine the silvers rigs were soon dispatched up the bank (never to be seen again) and I decided to set-up second tip rod – whilst I normally only use one rod when fishing with the Guru X-Safe system, I went with a second today as I wanted to alternate between casting to the shallow bar and the parallel bank to the left, and as these features were at different distances it was easier to have two identical set-ups but clipped-up to different distances.

A size 14 QM1 with a 12mm hair for bread

   

I’ve never actually fished with bread on the bomb before (you can’t use it at venues such as Gold Valley and Sumners Ponds), but after watching an excellent video on YouTube by Paul Holland and getting my hands on one of those Guru boxes that comes with a set of punches I was ready to go. To be honest I didn’t think it was going to work (4 pieces of 10mm punched bread on a 12mm hair looks rather odd), but after casting to the bank to the left, looking around for my flask then looking back the rod was hooped-over and it was fish on in a matter of seconds!!! Unfortunately this fish was a one-off, so another on pellet from the shallow bar saw me reach the halfway point with a less than satisfactory 4 carp in the bag.

  

Bread - I wish I'd tried it sooner now!!!

  

The fourth hour was an interesting one – for the majority of it I couldn’t buy a bite (despite rotating between the bar, the parallel bank, the 5m line and peg 54’s platform), but right in the middle of it I took three good carp in three casts on the bomb and bread from the long bank in front of peg 55!!! The final two hours followed a similar pattern - hour 5 was biteless, then in the middle of hour 6 I had another run, three pulls on bread to the left-hand bank leading to two nice carp in the net and one falling-off halfway back (in fairness this one gave a very funny bite and was probably foul-hooked in a fin or somewhere outside of the mouth at least).

Looking across the lake to Jason and Martin

  

This gave me a total of 9 carp and a gudgeon for 38-1-0. I’m not sure of my final placing but at best I was third on the lake behind Jason Morgan (61-10-0) and Martin Johnson (52-2-0). As they use the continental pay-out at Willinghurst Jason was third overall behind Shaun Sylvester (77-13-0 from Top Lake peg 13) and Giovanni Barbato (66-8-0 from Old Lake peg 1).
  
I’m still deciding what I’d do differently if I could fish my match over again – simply casting to different spots along the parallel bank with bomb and bread for the whole six hours would certainly be an option, though fishing the long pole with meat and fishing to the shallow bar on the tip could also be very good options on their day. If I draw the same peg next weekend I’ll let you know!!!

  

Until next time ...

  

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13 March 2016, Match Lake (Sumners Ponds)

As is often the way I have a little poke around the internet when I’m planning a fishing trip – checking the weather forecast, reviewing recent match results, that kind of thing. Well prior to today’s trip to the Match Lake at Sumners Ponds I received something of a shock – Facebook was full of photos of people wearing chest waders netting the very same Match Lake, looking to capture the resident carp in order to transfer them to a newly opened specimen lake!!!

  

What impact would this have on the fishing?

  

Whether or not the majority of the 27 Godalming AS and Woking DAA anglers were aware of this netting I can’t say – regardless the turn-out was good for the time of year and the breakfast was even better! (Sumners Ponds is primarily a caravan/camp site and has a proper restaurant, hence the food really is the best I’ve ever eaten whilst wearing my fishing Gore-Tex.)

  

Yum yum!

   

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  

My last visit to this venue (which was another Godalming versus Woking affair) saw me draw a narrow peg in front of the furthest island from the car park – this seemed to be an area devoid of carp so I was really looking for a peg on the open water part of the lake, ideally with a chuck to the shallow bar created by the sunken island as this seems to be a real fish magnet. As it happened I drew peg 1 on the day (the venue isn’t permanently pegged) – this was the peg nearest the car park, not on the shallow bar but in the main bowl and an end peg to boot.

  

End Peg Billy!!!

   

Hoping that such a draw would put me on a few carp (those that eluded the netting anyway) I set-up my usual tip rod and a rig for fishing with corn at top kit plus 2slightly to the left (black Hydro, 0.17 N-Gauge main line, a 4x14 Roob shotted with a spread bulk of number 9 stotz and 15cm hooklength of 0.13 to a size 16 LWG (eyed)). To keep things ticking-over I also set-up a rig for fishing for silvers with maggots – this one featured yellow Hydro, 0.13 main line, a 0.2g SconeZone V8 and a 15cm hooklength of 0.10 to a size 18 Tubertini 808.

  

I caught a reel. Yes a reel. Not an eel!

  

At the start of recent matches I’ve spent the first five minutes looking for an early carp on the short pole with corn – being a bit of a carpy corner I thought I’d do the same today and got rather excited when the float dipped immediately. Unfortunately it was only a small roach but at least I was off the mark and had avoided a second blank in a row! This was a good sign for later (when I planned to fish for silvers during middle of the match) but as it was still very early in the day I swapped straight on to the tip rod, casting Ringers chocolate orange wafter on a straight lead rig just short of the halfway point between myself and the angler opposite (who interestingly had only set-up the pole).

  

Unseasonal?

   

This soon resulted in a pull – unfortunately from a slightly unseasonal 2lb tench instead of the 20lb carp I was secretly hoping for! A few more casts to the same spot produced a few liners but no proper pulls so I slowly but surely started to casting further and further to the left, creeping towards the long margin of the bank in front of the car park every 10-12 minutes. Once I got tight to the bank the liners increased again and eventually another pull saw a 6lb carp in the net – unfortunately this was a one-off and apart from a reel (that I hooked cleanly through the bail arm) that was the end of the action for the first two hours.

  

Early spring sunshine

  

I’d been throwing maggots onto my short line throughout the first couple of hours and as a bite from a carp wasn’t looking too likely the start of the third hour saw me reaching for my lighter pole rig – this saw a good run of some decent (2-4 ounce) roach, allowing me to alternate between fishing for carp whilst still putting something in the net. (The roach fishing would be good then fade, so fishing the tip for ten minutes allowed to me to rest the roach line (and vice versa).) After a while the roach came-up in the water so I set-up a shallow rig – every now and I’d swap back to the deck rig and eventually the inevitable happened, though the carp in question ran me ragged on the yellow Hydro I was using and eventually transferred the hook onto Mick Redman’s keepnet!!!

  

Funnily enough when I was replacing the hooklength on that pole rig the tip slammed around out of the blue and I was attached to another good fish – after a bit of a tussle and some shuffling a nice 15 pounder was looking up at me from my landing net.

  

The usual suspects on the side tray

  

Going into the final two hours (we were fishing for 6 hours today) I was in a real quandary and couldn’t decide whether I should keep alternating between catching silvers and looking for carp or to focus solely on carp – however I could see Pete Worsfold and some of the other anglers on the sunken bar catching the odd carp so I decided to gamble and go for carp only.

In order to try and induce a bite I started pinging 10mm Ringers pellets straight in front and started fishing a small 24g Guru Hybrid feeder tight the bank to my left. Sport was hardly hectic, but a 6lb carp on the straight lead over the lose feed, a 20 pound beast on the Hybrid feeder and a last gasp 4lb barbel on the same tactic was a reasonable return and more than if I’d have fished for roach too. (Unfortunately I lost another carp than came tearing towards me on the straight in front line, and more significantly my lucky fishing watch fell-off my side tray, straight into the drink never to be seen again!)

  

Was there enough in these nets?

  

As is often the way when you are End Peg Billy I had the pleasure of being on the scales today and had to weigh-in the whole of my bank (14 pegs) – this was a bit of a chore but was also quite interesting. The guy on the far end peg caught 7 small carp, but for the next 8 or so pegs (those in front of the islands) it was nothing but roach, Andy Rogers being the best with a lovely 22-15-0 bag. As expected the pegs into the main bowl all had carp, Pete Worsfold’s 54-14-0 being top with just my bag to weigh.

  

My gut feeling was that I had fifty pounds and I was going to finish just out of it so I weighed my silvers net first – when this bag went 11-0-0 I knew I was in with a chance and I was proved correct when my 4 carp pulled the dial around to 45-15-0, giving me a total of 56-15-0 and victory by just over two pounds, the five pounds of roach I caught in the middle of the match making all the difference!!!

  
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28 February 2016, Gold Lake (Gold Valley)

Following last week’s success (where I banked my first ton of 2016 and nearly won the match from the jackpot peg) I was understandably confident going into today’s match at Gold Valley – though as Paul Weller once sang: “paint-splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat, lights going out and a kick in the balls, I say that's entertainment …”
  

All the gear ..

  
With hindsight I massively underestimated the impact of what I’m going to write next: on the way to last week’s match there was a south-westerly wind blowing and the temperature gauge on the car was reading 13 degrees Celsius at 8 o’clock in the morning; on the way to today’s match there was a bitterly cold northerly wind blowing and the display was showing a miserly 3 degrees!!!
  

Looking left from peg 13 on Gold Lake

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  
Today’s match was on Gold Lake and there were a few more out on the bank that last week – somewhere between 23 and 25 I’d guess, but as we had the whole of a near 60 peg lake to ourselves there was still plenty of room for everybody. My draw saw me on peg 13, one that I would consider to be a lovely summer peg as it offers nothing but open water and is hence a great one when you can pile in loads of bait and fish the pellet waggler or the straight lead over the top. (Not that I’m living off past glories or anything, but the last time I drew the peg (August 2013) I weighed-in over 140lb caught doing just that. OK, I am living off past glories, I admit it!!!)
  

Today's bait selection

  
However at this time of year, and especially with the cold wind blowing, I feel that in order to do well you need to draw a feature peg at Gold Valley – i.e. one in a corner, one with a chuck to an island or one with something like a sunken bar (as per my peg last week). Despite knowing this I was still confident I could catch and set-up three rigs to cover a few options – a pole rig for fishing corn at the bottom of the near shelf at an angle to the left, a 13m line for skimmers with expanders over micros and a running line set-up for fishing the straight lead or feeder.
  
To cut a very long and cold story short I blanked. Never had the merest suggestion of a bite – in fact I reckon if I’d have sat there for a week fishing the way I was fishing I still don’t think I would’ve caught anything!!!
  

No pulls today!!!

  
Why do I say this? Well to be brutally honest I got things totally wrong – in effect I was still fishing last week’s flyer with last week’s weather when I should’ve been fishing today’s peg under today’s conditions! I should’ve had one chuck the rope at the start of the match (just in case today’s carp epicentre was strangely in front of peg 13) then if after 30 minutes I’d have had no signs of a carp I should’ve switched to a groundbait feeder with a long tail and a couple of dead fluro pinkies on the hook for skimmers, then at the half-way point I should’ve dropped-in over my 13m (which I had feed at the beginning with joker) for more skimmers and roach. Simples!!!
  
Until next time ...
  

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21 February 2016, Middle Lake (Gold Valley)

Back to Gold Valley again today – there are some that don’t like the place but personally I quite enjoy it. Obviously it isn’t a bite-a-chuck venue and a run of bad draws can easily dent your confidence – in effect you are fishing for carp that would once upon a time have been considered specimen catches, and as a result the tactics required are becoming more like those adopted by ‘proper’ carp anglers with every passing year.
  

One of those would've done nicely!

  
Despite being mid-February was today’s weather was pretty mild at around 13 degrees Celsius, mainly thanks to some pretty thick cloud cover and a strong wind blowing in from the southwest. There were 13 of us fishing today and as we had the whole of Middle Lake to ourselves we’d have plenty of room so I went for a change of tack and went into the drawbag last – this worked a treat as flyer 97 would be home for the day, a fact made even better when John Raison asked Bagger to draw the jackpot peg (worth £150) and 97 came out again!!!
  

Peg 97 on Middle Lake

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  
Those of you familiar with Gold Valley will know that Middle Lake used to have a cluster of islands in between peg 97’s platform and the central rope – however these islands were removed last year and the area has become something of a fancied area, presumably as what remains of the islands have created a shallow area with some underwater plateaus. However the area is notoriously snaggy – venue experts Malcolm Bond and Jon Cook between them implied that some of the corrugated sheeting that used to protect the banks of the islands had been left in situ and that 20lb shock-leaders were needed to prevent regular cut-offs!!!
  

The Guru Hybrid Feeder

  
Not having any 20lb line with me I decided to stick with my regular 3’ of 10lb fluorocarbon leader attached to the 8lb Daiwa Sensor reel line that has become standard fair for most of my match carp fishing over recent years. Despite the relatively short chuck to the rope (30m tops) I did however decide to use long X-Safe stems fitted into heavy Guru Hybrid feeders and inline leads (36g and 31g respectively) given the increasingly strong wind that was blowing from left to right – accuracy is the key after all. I also set-up a rig for fishing the pole at top 2 plus 2 (I daren’t fish any longer because of the wind) with corn – this rig was made-up on 0.17 line and featured a 4x14 Roob and an 0.13 hooklength into a size 16 LWG.
  

Blinded by the light!

  
I kicked-off my match by feeding a few grains of corn and some 6mm pellets onto my short pole line and spent 5 minutes looking for an early edge dweller with a single piece of corn on the hook. Unfortunately no signs materialised so I was soon reaching for my tip rod and switched to the straight lead cast 2m short of the central rope with a Ringers chocolate orange wafter mounted on a size 12 QM1 and 30cm of 0.19 N-Gauge (I also included two number 8 stotz spread evenly along the hooklength to help keep things pinned-down). This resulted in a few obvious liners then a proper pull after 12 minutes and I was off the mark with a nice 6lb common. No signs of fish on the second cast meant a swap to a small 36g Hybrid feeder loaded with micros for the third – this didn’t induce a pull so it was soon back to the straight lead and wafter again. Frustratingly this also led to line bites only, leaving me with just the one carp in the bag at the end of the first hour.
  

Today's bait selection

  
One of the things I’d noticed before the start of the match was how shallow parts of the peg were – casting to the rope gave a bit of a drop but once I’d reeled back a few turns it was so shallow that I could see the fluorocarbon leader even though the lead was on the bottom and there was a 45 degree angle between the water’s surface and the rod tip! Presuming that the liners I’d been receiving were from carp milling about on top of a shallow bar between myself and where I had been fishing to the rope I decided to take 6 or 7 turns of the reel out of the clip to see if my theory was correct – well it certainly was as in the next two hours I banked eight decent carp, 6 on the straight lead/wafter and 2 very quick fish on a Hybrid feeder covered in Almond Goo!!!
  

Anyone lost a bivvy?!?

  
Unfortunately the fourth and fifth hours weren’t quite as prolific, but by switching between the shorter line and the rope and by swapping between the straight lead and the hybrid feeder I did manage 4 more to leave me with a total of 13. Interestingly, despite my worst fears, I didn’t lose a fish all day and landed 13 out of 13 –at the at the start of the match I decided that I’d play all of my fishing standing-up with the rod held over my head. No doubt this looked terrible and won’t appear in any textbook, but it was effective and kept my line away from any underwater obstacles.
  

2016's first pick-up

  
At this point I have to admit that I’d thought that I’d won the match from the jackpot peg and that I was quids in as I was sure I’d caught more than all the anglers that I could see – as it turned-out my 105-0-0 had beaten the 11 anglers that I could see, but unfortunately I couldn’t see Anthony Thomas who’d smashed the match with a terrific 20 carp for 140-4-0 from corner peg 85!!!
  
So how could I have caught 4 or 5 more to win the match? Persist with the 5m line? Fish in the margins? Set-up a loose-fed line to the left? Tried loose-feeding over my shorter line? Tried the hybrid feeder with a PVA bag? That’s a question I hope to answer next time I’m on the bank!!!
  
Until next time ...
  

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