Another day, another flyer!!! Today saw the draw bag cough-up a third corner peg in a row, this time at Gold Valley, the peg in question (61) being the nearest peg to the clubhouse on the Causeway Bank of Middle Lake. Unusually this swim has a large set of lily pads to the left (not always ideal when you’re doing battle with hard fighting carp) and on arrival I was greeted by a thick layer of scum that extended 3 or 4 meters from the bank. However today was a lovely sunny day and I really couldn’t have asked for a better draw - so who am I to complain!!!
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| Lights, camera, action! |
I once again left the pole in the bag and went with two tip rods – both with 8lb Daiwa Sensor main line and both with 3’ leaders of 10lb (0.30) Drennan Supplex fluorocarbon. (The idea behind the use of flurocarbon leaders is that being super-heavy they keep the line behind the feeder/bomb pinned to the deck, making things a little less obtrusive to weary fish.) Both were set-up for using various Guru X-Safe gadgets (so each fluorocarbon leader was finished with a simple loop), but one rod was clipped-up for casting fairly tight to the central dividing rope straight in front, the other for casting towards the funny man-made mini island thing that formed part of the parallel bank to the left.
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| End Peg Billy - yet again!!! |
The first hour of the match was pretty good with 5 carp and 3 skimmers, all but one of which falling to a 24g Guru mini Hybrid feeder loaded with soaked micros and a 6mm hard pellet hookbait from the open water to the rope swim – the other falling to a straight lead set-up from the same area. Despite this good start the second hour was rubbish – biteless in fact – leaving me wondering if I wasn’t about to ruin yet another flyer!!!
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| That's more like it |
Luckily things picked-up from 1300 with a barrage of 8mm pellets fed via a catapult to the rope eventually leading to steady bites through to the end, 95% from the open water swim and just the odd pull from tight to the parallel bank to the left. Despite landing twenty-odd carp I did though lose a disappointingly high total of five: one simply fell-off on the way in, one straightened a size 14 QM1, one broke the elastic running through the feeder and two broke my 0.22 hooklength – all mainly as a result of needing to clip-up to the rope but the fish being able to swim under it before I could remove said clip.
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| On the scales again! |
Luckily those losses didn't cost me too much as my 121-8-0 was enough for second overall - a mere three pounds ahead of a rather disappointed Linus Neale, but tantalisingly close to the winning 140-8-0!!!
Until next time ...
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