I was going to start this blog by saying how ‘industrial’ Gold Valley seems when compared to lots of other venues. Then I started to think – well is it? Gold Valley’s cause isn’t helped by the fact that they were knocking down the bungalow that gave Bungalow Lake its name today – however Sumners Ponds is good looking enough but full of rats; Twin Oaks and Bolingey at White Acres have both had work done and seem a little ‘lunar’ at the moment; so that only leaves Marsh Farm – picturesque but at times seemingly devoid of fish!!!
Bungalow no more!
Today’s fishing saw a return to Gold Valley for the Saturday open – not the usual stellar field, but still a pretty strong line-up of about twenty including top southern anglers such as Ian Dixon and Paul ‘Tommy’ Hiller of Daiwa Dorking fame.
This event was held on the causeway bank of Middle Lake and my dip into the bag of dreams threw-up peg 69 – pretty much in the middle of the bank with Tommy Hiller on peg 70 to my right. Now that the islands have been taken out most of the pegs on this lake look the same – basically 30 or 40 yards of open water until you hit the central rope that divides one half of the lake from the other.
One of the new Guru Hybrid feeders
Having plenty of time to set-up I decided to put together a rod and no less than five different pole rigs: my usual 10’ tip rod with 8lb Daiwa Sensor main line with a loop in the end so I could swap between different Guru X-Safe gizmos (method feeders, the new Hybrid feeders and in-line leads); a rig for on the deck at top kit plus one; a rig for on the deck at 14.5m; and three further rigs for shallow at 14.5m – a long lining shallow rig featuring a 0.4g Drennan crystal dibber, a 2’ jigga and a 4’ jigga (both featuring the heavier form of the Preston Innovations version of the cult float). However on plumbing-up the 14.5m line I discovered it was no more than 3’ deep meaning my ‘deep shallow’ jigga rig was a foot over-depth – next time I’ll check the depth before getting my shallow rigs out!!!
The view to the left
Unfortunately the first 90 minutes proved to be a little underwhelming – all of the carp that were cruising about disappeared on the whistle and all I could muster were three small skimmers (one on the method to the rope, one from 14.5m and one from the short line).
A carp at last!
The next hour was a bit better though as it included a spell on one of the new Guru Hybrid feeders where I managed a carp and three decent skimmers in five chucks on Bait-Tech micro pop-up hookbaits – though I continued to struggle on the pole (which I had expected to be the banker today).
The view to the right
With a couple of hours to go I decided to start feeding my tip line with 8mm pellets via a catapult (up until this point the fishing had been so hard I was scared to feed hardly anything) – as the wind was slightly behind me I could just about get them to the rope with a good whack! Along with a switch from the Hybrid feeder to a two thirds of an ounce in-line lead with 12 inches of 0.17 N-Gauge (later swapped to 0.19) to a size 14 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band, this more positive approach saw four good pulls on the tip and three carp (including a double) in the net – the other one went rights and kept going, eventually falling-off about three pegs down!!!
At least the ducks like Old Ghost groundbait!
Going into the final hour I did set-up another pole rig and fed some groundbait into my left hand margin – as it was only 10 inches deep I knew it was unlikely to work but it was worth a gamble and same fish did eventually turn-up, 5 minutes after the final whistle!!! I did though manage three more carp on the tip meaning I ended-up with seven carp and few skimmers for 46-0-0, just two carp behind Tommy’s nine – though his came from the margins and went eighty odd pounds!!!
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