27 April 2014

23/04/14 Fishomania Qualifier Gold Valley

This was my last bite at the Fisho cherry and due to the distance from my house and the fact that I have fished there before I decided that I would just turn up on the morning and chance my arm, I met up with Ian fresh from his win the day before at Maccy D’s and after a quick chat we travelled down to the fishery.
The car parks were overflowing when we got there and there was a great buzz going around the fishery, the general consensus was that a the middle of Gold lake, a corner on Middle or Syndicate were the places to be. So when I drew peg 14 on Gold I was more than happy as it was smack bang in the middle of the lake and there were fish cruising in front of me all the time as I was setting up.



So with that amount of fish up in the water, that was where I was going to target them, Rig 1: Dobbing on the pole, 16m of pole, 3m of line, a small dibber and a 0.16mm hooklength to a 16 PR36 and a quick stop. This rig was for dropping a bit of meat in front of any fish that I see cruising close to me and I also used it to try and mug one for the first 5 minutes, it didn’t work so enough of that.
I then had 2 pellet waggler rods set up for my short line, one with a loaded float and one with a float with shot, these were both on 4lb mainline, 0.20mm hooklengths and I had a 14 on the loaded float and a 16 on the shotted float.
The rigs for the long line, next to the rope was a method feeder and a large loaded pellet wag, again big hooks and strong hooklengths were the name of the game.
My bait tray was pretty sparse with a couple of bags of 11mm pellet for feed and a few 8mm and robin reds for change baits, I also dampened off half a pint of 2mm for around the method and I was ready for the all in.
I walked the bank for a little while trying to see if I could glean any tips and also trying to give the fish somewhere to hide in front of my swim, it worked as they moved in and milled around until the keepnets went in…grrrr.  Also on my wanders I ended up going a quid with Ian and Ray Hayward so that would be interesting and a reason to stay.
As the hooter went I shipped out on the pole and slapped the dobbing rig around a bit to see if any carp were still close in, the answer was no as shed loads of bait was getting thrashed in at around 20-25m and all the carp started running away to the middle of the lake. I started pinging in a few pellets further out than the guys either side of me helped along by the light breeze off our backs, however the fish had obviously backed right off to the middle of the lake as I managed one missed bite in the first hour and a half and fish were head and shouldering further out. So out went the big wag, in the next 30 minutes I landed 1 hooked in the mouth, one foul hooker and lost a further 2 foul hookers before they moved to the other side of the rope. So it was back to working hard on the shorter line.
This finally paid off with 2 more bites coming over the last 3 hours both on the shorter line and both hooked in the mouth, so that was it the match was over and all I could do at the end was chuckle at how hard the section had been.  The guy top my left had 2 small carp and a couple of skimmers on the method, he had to wait 33 minutes for his fist bite and 36 for his second??!! The guy to my right blanked, in fact the only indications he got was when he cast into my swim… Yes I had noticed but the pegs were a bit tight and I was feeding to one side so that I could give the fish somewhere to hide within an easy cast, it kind of worked. It did seem as though the fish did not want a lot of feed and did not appreciate big loaded wags on their heads as both of my short line fish came on the shotted pellet wag, I might explain the rigs one day, but not today.
Will Raison was weighing us in so I went up to see how Ray had done, 46lb saw me losing a quid so I quickly got back to my peg as loads of people were not weighing in, I had 4 (of the smallest gold lake) carp for 21lb and due to the fact that no-one else weighed in this won me the section. The big test was if I had beaten Ian though and the answer was no as his 40lb+ was enough to win his section as well, so a hard earnt section win for the pair of us.

Well that was my last chance at Fisho this year, but I may have a pop at a couple of Maver Match This events in the locality, I will just have to see if I am feeling lucky closer to the time.

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