Back to Gold Valley 31st October

The Hopeful Match Fisher

Three times a week the guys at Gold Valley run a 'cost cutter' match for £15.  I ran along today for the Friday match, which was on Syndicate Lake.  

With the clocks back for GMT the draw was at 8:30am for a 10:00am whistle.  The day was very fair; a little wind from the south put the temperature up to 18deg and the sun was out all day.  Sixteen hands went into the pot and I pulled out 141, which is an end peg.  Strangely, the last match I fished on Syndicate had me on the end peg at the other end!  John Raison, the owner, had assured me that the same peg at produce 117lb to win the just two days before.

Recent matches on Syndicate have been dominated by feeder tactics, supplemented by lead and margins.  I didn't expect it to be any different today, so I set up accordingly.  Bait-wise I've done quite well lately with Krill flavourings, so I brought along some pellets and flavoured meat.  Half a pint of dead maggots and some ready mixed paste completed the side tray.   Then I made a mistake.  

In my garage I have a crate full of groundbaits from which I pulled a bag of Dynamite Baits Red Krill, a favourite of mine.  It's quite a fine mix so I added in half a bag of Sonubaits Match Method in order to make it a bit more compliant for a method feeder.  At the whistle I went in for a chuck to the centre rope, but found that I couldn't keep the mix on the feeder too well.  Adding in a bit of pellet binder it settled down for a while but it soon became rather sticky and wouldn't come neatly out of the method mold.  I realised I'd messed up the mix just because I want to use my favourite groundbait - which isn't designed for the method feeder!  Idiot.  I switched to a cage feeder, but felt like a bit of a twit.

As a second swim I kept a few 8mm pellets dropping into the far left margin to try and stir up a bit of interest.  It's tactic that's worked well on end pegs for me before.  The usual margin setup completed the set. I honestly felt happy and confident.

The first hour was very quite, which is another way of saying that it was completely dead.  The guy to my left had about the same level of excitement.  Undaunted, I kept on making various tweaks and tunings.  There was a few pleasure anglers opposite who had a few fish, so I was not too concerned.  Well into the second hour I had yet to see a proper bite, and the guy on the next door peg came over to compare notes.  He toddled off down the lake to see what was happening further along.  The news was that it was all about the first two or three pegs at the far end and little else for the other anglers.  Into the second half of the match not much else happened as I began to feed the margins.  

Into the last 90 minutes I saw a tell-tale fish tail following a few cubes of meat I'd plopped in.  I dropped in with some paste and had a firm bite within ten minutes.  A decent fish fish ran off and struggled for a couple of minutes before the hooked pulled.  On such a quiet day I didn't need that.  Frustratingly that set the tone, as I failed to connect to at least three other decent bites.  That is a problem I need to look into.  As a final throw of the dice I dropped a method feeder into the near margin and almost instantly had a solid pull-round and a 6lb carp in the net.  It was to be the only fish of the day.  

At the weigh-in there were plenty of dry nets, and silvers made a significant difference for most of the lake.  I think 100lb-odd won it from one of the end pegs.  We all know that fish move around, but for them all to go off the feed or congregate in one place seems unusual on such a well stocked lake.

So to pick the bones out of the day there are a couple of points I think:

1. Use a method mix for a method feeder!
2. Find out why I was connecting so badly with fish in the margins.

I was never on the fish, but it was nice to be out anyway.

Until next time!