Wow – that was really cold!!! Nice and sunny but a savage easterly wind blowing along the length of Middle Lake at Gold Valley made for some of the coldest conditions I’ve fished in for a long, long time. (Saying that there were 32 hardly souls lining the banks of Middle and Bat Lakes for a keenly contested open match – apparently there was a waiting list too.)
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| Middle Lake, peg 65 |
I think it is fair to say that everyone in the queue for the draw wanted a dolly peg on Bat Lake – I know I certainly did! However, as luck would have it I dropped onto Middle Lake 65, a peg I haven’t fished before but one that can be good in the summer as there is a shallow bar at 13m. It’s quite a narrow swim and today it featured a floating island – normally this would be a nice feature but today it turned-out to be something of a nightmare as it kept spinning and moving around in the wind!
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| Maggot feeder |
Given the wind I decided to leave the pole in the bag – not only was it rather strong and blowing at right angles to where I’d be pointing to my pole, it was also freezing cold so holding the long pole would’ve been very difficult. As a result, I went with just a single tip rod and just a pint of maggots, the intention being to simply focus on the maggot feeder all day long.
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| Complex bait tray today |
With three hours gone and nothing in the net I was pretty sure I was going to blank, so winkling-out four F1s for 4-14-0 in the final two hours was something of a minor victory and actually put me third in section, though miles behind Gareth Phillips who won the section with 15lb odd, with Dan Carey winning the lake by an ounce from Kris Fields (18-10-0 versus 18-9-0). Over on Bat Lake Gavin Millis did the business to win the match with 54-2-0, Giovanni Barbato just behind with 48-14-0.
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| Praying for a pull |
Let’s hope conditions improve for Saturday’s big money section winners final across the same lakes!!!
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