Well it was back to Gold Valley for the second part of a rare ‘fishing double’ on Sunday, this time for an open match on the prolific Bat Lake. (There was also another open match on Syndicate Lake and it seems that going forward Gold Valley are going to be offering parallel open matches on weekends so you can choose between big carp and F1 fishing.)
 |
| All the gear ... |
My draw landed me on (temporary) peg 4, a nice peg on the carpark side of the lake, one to the right of where I won the final round of the 2018 Rushmoor league and one to the left of where I fished on the recent WC Group Coaching day, so pretty much spot-on!!! However, the pegging was pretty tight and full of quality – I had Anthony Flint to my left, Nigel Smith, Dan Carey and Jason Morgan in a row to my right and Luke Sheriff directly opposite – so I knew I’d have my work cut-out from the off.
 |
| The view to the right |
Unfortunately things started slowly – I couldn’t get a bite on my short line and by the time I eventually got my first fish at 13m (after half an hour) I was already 10 pounds behind Jason (who’d snared a big carp first drop) and Luke who was literally getting ‘one a bung’ on his short line. I eventually got my act together and with half an hour to go I’d got to 72 F1s, all taken from 2 different swims at 13m on pellet.
 |
| The usual suspects |
Unfortunately I made some bad choices in the final 30 minutes – with my second 13m line fading I decided to try and revive my initial 13m line and to try and catch down the edge to my left where I’d been feeding maggots by hand for an hour. Neither came to much and I think I only put 4 fish in the net (3 from 13m and 1 from the margins (plus 2 lost in the brambles)) – this gave me a total of 76 F1s for 64-13-0, miles behind Luke’s terrific 89-15-0 and agonisingly close to Jason’s hard-fought 65-10-0, leaving me ‘one out of the money’ by a mere 13 ounces!!! (With hindsight I was never going to catch Luke but if in that last 30 minutes I’d have opened a new swim at 14.5m I’m sure I could’ve snuck second – that’s fishing I guess!!!)
 |
| Some F1s and me! |
Until next time ...
No comments:
Post a Comment