04/05/12 - Gold Valley - Gold Lake

Weight – 11lb 0oz
Catch – 4 Bream, 3 Perch, 1 Crucian, 1 Roach
Weather – Mostly cloudy, cold northerly breeze
Match – Garbolino Club Angler

Today was the southern qualifier for the club angler competition, where the top 15 would go through to the final at Lindholme. 69 anglers booked in, split 40 on Gold and 29 on Middle, with only 6 no shows.

Following last weeks practice match, I was feeling confident that given a decent draw I could qualify, so when I found myself on peg 12 on the canal bank of Gold Lake, I was initially quite pleased, particularly when I had 2 space pegs to my left.

Darren Cox from Garbolino came round to see all the anglers and suggested that I was in a good area for skimmers, which was pleasing to here and was more helpful than Will Raisons response of “you will catch on everything”.

On the all in I cupped in caster and 2mm pellet at 13m. After spending an hour on the feeder, I was bored with only 1 liner to show for my efforts. A couple of fish had been caught to my right, but generally it was slow going.

I’m not sure the cold northerly breeze was helping me and I had to put my second fleece on. A look over the 13m line produced a crucian, then a small perch. Looking around I thought that if I could get a net of silvers I could then get a few carp late on.

However best laid plans and all that, meant I struggled badly. I kept topping up the 13m, confident the skimmers would arrive, but other than a couple of skimmers and a few perch those fish were reluctant to feed.

I had been feeding 8mm pellet, 30m out hoping the fish would eventually turn up, but despite feeding all match, I only had 1 skimmer and qualification was becoming a distant dream.

As the match progressed and the need for snookers, it was now a case of feeding a lot of caster and meat at 6m and down the left hand margin. When I had a big bream (4lb 12oz) at 6m on meat I thought I got a chance, but that was the only fish from this line. The margin didn’t produce a single bite on caster or meat.

I didn’t hang around for the results, but have since found out that only 36-38lb was required to qualify. I don’t think anyone qualified from my area of the lake, with the angler to my left only landing 1 carp, on what is considered a good peg opposite the island. The most anyone had to my right was 4 carp.

In hindsight may be I should have just sat on the feeder all day, but it doesn’t suit my style of fishing and I didn’t have any confidence in it after that first hour, but with such a low qualifing weight I feel vindicated for feeding really positively in the last 2hrs to pull in some carp, since you can easily have 2 or 3 carp for 30-40lb