Venue: Larford lakes speci lake
Peg: 80
Weather: freezing cold, rain and wind!
Result: 6th with 12lb 1 place out of qualifiers
Well I've already blogged on my recent woes at Larford. To cut a long story short they continued on my recent outing to the speci lake on a classic qualifier. I was feeling a little more confident this week and pinned my hopes on catching on a groundbait feeder and maggot.
I had been keeping an eye on the results from the silvers festival held on speci during the week and groundbait feeder and pole and pellet was coming up in many winning results. This tied with the strong winds meant that this approach may win over pole tactics. I was always going to set up the obligatory method feeder as well.
Onto the day and the weather was abhorant, temperature had dropped 10*C in 2 days, so was going to make the fishig tough. Banter was as usual about my drawing hand and once again it didn't disappoint, peg 80, end peg flier which was also the golden peg.
The match didn't go my way until the last hour where I extracted 11lb of skimmers from my 13m pole and pellet line. Not a sign of a carp down the edge despite 2 being caught opposite me from down there. Also not a bite on groundbait feeder. I had a F1 and a skimmer on the method and lost a carp to a snag. That cost me.
I have learnt some lessons the hard way unfortunately. I knew the pole line would best be plundered in the last 2 hours. However I should have chucked the method all day as fish were not settling over feed during the day because of the cold conditions. All that was needed was one carp from the method to have qualified or to have framed!! Chucking the method throughout the day would leave a small feeding area for fish to settle over in last hour when they feed hard. The method is also an area I would say is a strength rather than a groundbait feeder approach do I should have fished to strengths. I also spent an hour down the edge looking for a carp, I managed 1 perch on this line.
So to take a few points forward:
- listen to what's working but make that work to my strengths
- do not have a Pre-determined plan in winter conditions
- just chuck the method and leave it
