After averaging over 100lb across my last three matches I was looking forward to drawing yet another corner/flyer peg on today’s open match at Gold Valley – however all good things must come to an end and it was certainly back down to earth with a bump after a couple of framing places in a row!
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| No corner peg today!!! |
On paper today’s draw (peg 113 on the near bank of Syndicate Lake at Gold Valley) wasn’t too bad and this area has recently thrown-up some good weights – however as this lake is essentially a large rectangle split into two by a central dividing rope with no obvious features the fish often congregate along the parallel bank of the corner pegs, leaving the majority of swims (those with open water only) seemingly devoid of fish. Having drawn three corner pegs in my previous three matches I have of course reaped the rewards of such draws, though that didn’t make today’s match summary any easier to swallow – in essence two of the corner pegs (118 and 121) annihilated the match with a fish a bung whilst everybody else struggled to bites!!!
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| The view to the left |
I spent most of the day on the bomb and pellet and could only manage six carp for 42-8-0 – two in the first four hours followed by four more in the final hour. Annoyingly I also lost three further carp that seemingly fell-off on the way in for no good reason – though it reality this was probably down to an issue with the way I was presenting my hookbait or feeding as opposed to some grand conspiracy! As well as the straight lead I also tried the margins (nothing) and had a rig for targeting skimmers at 5m with 6mm meat (which only led to one roach and one perch).
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| An effective combination |
Despite not threatening the frame I did manage to learn something today – namely that a small handful of Ringers ‘donkey choker’ pellets can be fired a long, long way via a Drennan Feedapult catapult!!! However in future matches I personally need to focus on accuracy rather that distance as in an effort to reach as close as possible to the central rope my feed pellets were spreading-out too much, giving any feeding carp too big an area to graze over before encountering the pellet attached to my hook.
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| Scales! |
I nearly forgot to mention – today saw me on the scales for a fourth match in a row, so as well as suffering the indignity of not catching a lot I also had to weigh in the 200lb plus winning weight from peg 118. Happy days!!!
Until next time …
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