Being just a four day festival, the Garbolino Spring Classic leaves the Friday free and that can only mean one thing – Bolingey!!!
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| All the gear ... |
Today’s weather was a combination of thick mist and fog – not ideal, but at least that cold north-easterly wind has dropped at last!
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| Peg 11 today! |
My draw saw me on peg 11 – a nice peg on the lake at the rear of the venue with a nice chuck to one of the points of the central island. As a result a pellet feeder up to the far margin would be my main focus and given the size of the fish in this venue I’d definitely be using my heavier hooklengths of 10cm of 0.22 Guru N-Gauge into a size 14 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band. 6mm White Acres pellets would be the main hookbaits, though in fact these are somewhere between a standard 6mm and a standard 8mm – something like a 7mm I guess you could say! As well as the pellet feeder I also geared-up a straight lead rig for fishing into open water at 20-25m slightly to the left and a margin pole rig for fishing towards the vacant peg 12 next door.
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| Off to a good start on the pellet feeder |
My match started well and at the end of the first hour I’d clicked-up to 33lb of pellet feeder caught carp. The second hour was somewhat slower with nothing on the pellet feeder – however lots of fizzing on my 20-25m line saw me try the bomb. This failed to produce any bites, but a hastily assembled waggler (fished at mid-depth) saw me snare a big F1 and a 4lb carp to move my total along to about 39lb.
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| Looking across to pegs 25 & 26 |
The third hour was spent mainly on the pellet feeder and sport was reasonable with 2 good carp and an F1 making their way to the net. Hour 4 was also OK with 3 more carp on the pellet feeder moving me on to about seventy pounds going into that all important final hour.
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| The vacant platform of peg 12 |
This season has seen a significant change in the rules at Bolingey – basically you are now no longer allowed to use one of my most productive tactics, groundbait down the edge!!! As a result I had to replace my usual edge mix with micro pellets and dead red maggots, but to cut a long story short I didn’t manage a single bite from the margins – I’m not sure if this was down to my choice of feed or whether the fish just didn’t fancy the area I was in, but those along the far side of the lake to my left all bagged-up from their margins in the final hour!
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| Back on the pellet feeder |
Unfortunately I could only manage 2 carp on the pellet feeder to the island in the final 60 minutes, giving me a total of 84-7-0, a decent enough bag but just behind a string of low to mid 90lb weights to my left, that final hour having really cost me at the final reckoning.
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| The all important pay-out |
In the end there were a handful of 100lb weights, though nothing over 120lb. Well done to good friends Mike Halstead for coming second overall and Jon Cook for beating me off the next peg to win the section.
Until next time …
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