The Christmas Match at Gold Valley - 20th December

The Hopeful Match Fisher

Back to Gold Valley today and hoping for a better result than last week (a blank)!  It was a coldish day with some sun, but a fairly blustery west wind.  

The Christmas match at Gold Valley is a jolly affair with 81 anglers this year.  There are no fees but you need to provide a raffle gift (in my case three bag of groundbait :)  With that many anglers the pegs were from Syndicate, Middle and Gold.  I knew it would be all about the draw so my hand went in to grab peg 53, which I was an unknown quantity.  I've hardly fished Gold lake this year, so it nice to throw the line into a different spot.

Considering the wind and the swim itself there was little option than to work the method or bomb.  As it turned out it was all bomb, which didn't really surprise me.  Now peg 53 is near the clubhouse end and the lake is quite wide at that point.  A chuck-out to the centre rope is possible but I saw no reason to concentrate only on that line.  Personally I recon it's better to cast around and try various spots to seek where the fish might be.  Recently I've taken to timing my casts and bite, and I've found that 10-15 minutes is about right before casting onto a new patch.

I began on the pellet feeder because I can control the amount of bait much better than with a straight method.  I used my trusty old Dynamite Betaine Green micros, with a 8mm pellet on the PR36 hair.  Forty-five minutes  in I'd had a few liners, so the fish were there, and the guy in the next peg was getting the same treatment. I switched onto a pop-up and that got more liners, but just after the hour I got a reasonable pull-round and took a carp of around 7lb.  The next chuck-in followed up with similar fish, and so I was pleased to be two carp up after 90 minutes.

I'd been feeding a short line, about 20m out, with pellets but I didn't want to switch onto it too early so threw out a pellet on a bomb with a small PVA bag attached.  After an hour or so that I got pretty good wack-round and another carp of about 3lb.  As time went on seemed that the carp had just switched-off.  Other anglers who had been having a few were also now looking bored on their boxes.  Now the short line came into play, and it gave a decent response quite quickly.  A 12oz skimmer, another carp and another 12oz skimmer were added to the weight.  Beyond that a final hour was completely dead, almost as if the fish had just switched-off.  

At the whistle I had 26lb to put against my name, which got me 11th from the 81 who fished - not too bad and I feeling happy enough.  Someone on middle lake had 80lb to weigh-in, so I was not in the frame on anything like that.

Learning points are that I think I need to refine down my terminal tackle a bit more.  I'm going to try a lighter pattern of hook (PR434 or 456 with a hair) and better ways to attached leads.  It all just feels a bit too heavy.  Anyway I'll see.

So that's me signing off another year, what with a week away in Devon after Christmas I'll not be on the bank again  for a few weekends.

Hopeful