Well it was back to Gold Valley once again today, this time for round 3 of the Rushmoor league. As ever a good draw was required and this time Kris Fields stepped-up and duly pulled team draw number 1 from the hat, the same set of pegs as last week and a nice selection of end pegs once again.
At this point it is worth mentioning the weather – like the rest of the 80 strong field I’d been following the forecast as the weekend approached and unfortunately they got it right this week as we had to endure snow followed by sleet followed by rain without a break all day long!!!
At this point it is worth mentioning the weather – like the rest of the 80 strong field I’d been following the forecast as the weekend approached and unfortunately they got it right this week as we had to endure snow followed by sleet followed by rain without a break all day long!!!
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| It is January after all |
Putting that to one side we all had some fish to try and catch and I was pretty happy when Kris handed me 116, a peg on the nearside of Syndicate Lake two pegs away from the far end peg (118). In fact this is such a good area I had to ask for directions as I normally end-up drawing the not so hot pegs closer to the clubhouse!
The only downside of drawing this peg is that I was in a section with some equally good (if not better) pegs as along with 118 I was in with 117 to my left and 119 to 123 on the far side, a section made even tougher as I had Anthony Flint and Geoff Ball to my left and the likes of Terry Turnip, Robin Headley and Craig Meadows opposite.
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| All the gear ... |
As I was towards one of the corners of the lake I decided to leave the pole in the bag (my thinking being that most of the skimmers would prefer to be in the middle of the lake so catching them on the pole would be tricky) and instead went with a 2-pronged attack featuring a long chuck to the rope for carp and a medium chuck with a cage feeder for skimmers as a plan B in case I needed to avoid a dreaded blank.
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| Pete Arnold's umbrella (ella ella) |
I started on the straight lead with an orange wafter towards the diving rope and within a few minutes I knew I’d made a massive mistake as both Anthony Flint to my left and Pete Arnold to my right (luckily in a different section) both hooked and landed a carp each on the method feeder.
I did leave the bomb in place for 20 minutes before switching to a 42g medium hybrid feeder (orange wafter again), but it was only when I switched to a yellow wafter (in conjunction with a hybrid feeder still) that I got a proper pull just into the second hour of the match (the feeder had been in place for 14 minutes) and a decent carp was soon in the net.
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| Please go 'round!!! |
The second hour of the match proved to be far the best as by the end of it I had three carp in the net, all on the same hybrid feeder and yellow wafter combination, the second fish coming after 7-8 minutes and the third after 14-15.
I didn’t know it at the time but the fourth and final pull (and carp) of the day came just after the halfway point of the match.
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| Looking towards 118 and 119 |
Going into the fourth hour the whole lake seemed to shut-down and as far as I could see nobody was catching anything at all – as I was leading the section at that point (a number of people were on two carp, but nothing more) I had a go on the cage feeder rig for skimmers in order to try and consolidate my lead, but with no signs whatsoever after half an hour I was soon back fishing towards the rope with carp.
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| A golden ticket? |
The final half an hour did see some more action (but not for me) with Robin, Craig and Flinty all ending with 3 carp and Geoff ending on 4 – luckily for me my 4 were slightly bigger so I edged the section with 25-12-0 to Geoff’s 24-8-0!!! The team also did brilliantly again to win on the day with 52 points, the mighty Daiwa Dorking just behind on 50.
Until next time ...
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