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 …”
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| 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!!!
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| Looking left from peg 13 on Gold Lake |
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!!!)
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| 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!!!
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| 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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