Back to Gold Valley again today as the second part of a rare weekend fishing double, and back to the scene of last Sunday’s match – Middle Lake. (This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite lakes as the recent re-stocking with stockie carp and F1s is providing a nice change from the usual ‘bigger’ carp fishing that prevails in my local area.) As a bit of added spice I’d also be fishing against Mark Hayes (of Tarquin’s Angle fame) in a so-called battle of the blogs!!!
My home for the day was to be peg 97, a peg on the far bank of Middle Lake towards the clubhouse end of the pond. This is actually a peg that I’ve drawn twice before – the first time was years ago when it contained a couple of islands, the second time was back in February of last year when it didn’t!!! The removal of the islands has created a number of shallow bars that can be real fish holding features – however these same features are also home to some tricky snags that can be very costly in terms of lost fish and lost feeders!!!
Very tidy (before the match anyway)
Given the presence of these shallow bars and based on the understanding that most of the big weights last week where formed from big fish taken on the long pole shallow, for my pre-match plan I decided to ignore the stockie carp and keep things simple by just setting-up the following before the start of the match:
A long pole (14.5m), long line swinger rig for fishing with hard pellets
A long pole (14.5m), long line swinger rig for fishing with cubes of 7mm luncheon meat
A tip rod featuring a 24g mini Guru hybrid feeder for dropping onto the shallow bar
(This plan was fatally flawed, but more on that later!)
The view to the left
I started my match on the feeder over the shallow bar, hoping for a good run of big fish to get things underway – unfortunately this wasn’t the case and in those opening 30 minutes all I could manage were a couple of the new stockie carp that gave ridiculously savage pulls on the rod.
So it was soon time to give the long pole shallow a go – unlike last week the weather was cloudy and rather breezy meaning there were very few carp visible so mugging really wasn’t an option. Instead I tried pinging a few cubes of 7mm meat to about 16m then swinging my rig into the feed – this tactic didn’t work at all and as the increasingly stiffening right to left wind was making holding the pole tricky it was quickly time to get back on the feeder!
The view to the right
Unfortunately no big fish had turned-up on the shallow bar and as that wind was making it impossible to feed 8mm pellets with any level of accuracy I regretfully concluded (after a good 90 minutes) that my pre-match plan was shot to pieces and I’d been rather foolish in not gearing-up to catch the stockies and F1s!!! Eventually I got off my box, found a nice spot at top kit plus three with a similar rig to last Sunday and quickly knocked-up two bags of Special G Green with a smattering of dead red maggots mixed in.
Thanks for coming!
After feeding three balls of groundbait on the TK+3 line I had another quick look on the feeder, but as soon as I switched to the new pole line it was clear that there were some fish there to catch – the only problem was that most of them were tiny (four/six ounces each), so once again I wasn’t convinced that I could compete with any anglers that were into the bigger, older fish on a regular basis.
The scores on the doors
As a result I continued to try the feeder on a fairly regular basis, feeding 8mm pellets in an attempt to pull some fish onto the bar when the wind allowed me to do so. With hindsight this was another mistake as I didn’t get any big fish, my final score of 51-8-0 being made-up of fish averaging well under a pound – as the majority of these fish were probably caught in about two and a half hours of focussed pole fishing I’m obviously wondering now if 100 pounds was on the cards if I’d have fished for them from front to back, especially as a low 90lb weight won the match and just another 20lb was needed to take the section!!!
Claire ‘Bagger’ Hollis
However it’s only right and proper that I finish today’s blog with a big shout-out to my partner in crime Claire ‘Bagger’ Hollis who came second on the day with a terrific bag of skimmers, stockies and proper carp caught on the feeder from peg 85 – Bagger weighed 77-4-0, not that far behind eventual winner Olly Tilley who weighed 91-0-0 from peg 78, half of his weight being skimmers!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment