Friday 11th July. Goldenpeg.com Qualifier. Colemans Cottage. 25 Pegs

There has been lots of discussion in the papers and forums about this new event. The jist of it being 24 qualifiers at 3 different venues around the country, with the winner of each qualifier collecting £1,000 and going forward to fish a grand final at Colemans Cottage fishery on New Years Eve for a cool £50,000. The entrants for each qualifier are selected via a raffle system in which winning tickets are drawn at random. Applicants can buy as many tickets as they want and if they are drawn to fish a qualifier will walk away with at least 50 quid. That's right folks 50 quid for just turning up.

Despite initially being sceptical of the maths behind the event I decided to apply for tickets at Colemans. This is my local fishery and if I had to win a 25 pegger I would have as good a chance as here as anywhere. I applied for 5 tickets and to my surprise had a phone call from organiser Conrad Gomes stating I had been successful. My travelling partner Danny Grimsey also applied for 5 and got a ticket. We decided that to give us more chance of winning some money we would split 70:30, obviously whoever won the money would get the 70% share!

With big money being at stake it was announced at the draw they would be checking rod licences and also peoples bait at random. The draw proceeded from a tombola type machine and there was actually a draw to determine the sequence in which anglers went up to draw making it the most random draw ever! There was a draw for the right to fish the match, then a draw to determine the order of the draw and then a draw to actually draw. There were a few anglers with glazed expressions when they finally went to pick their pegs!

If I could have picked a peg I would have chosen peg 1 or 39. This is due to the strong southerly wind blowing towards that end of the lake all week. I felt it could be rammed, consequently I wanted to avoid pegs at the top end of the lake without wind (17-24). After cranking the handle of the tombola I was given peg 37. Now this peg is an absolute boss peg in the middle of winter because it is wide and deep. Obviously with it being the middle of summer this wasn't ideal, but I felt fairly happy as I knew there would be fish in the area as it was at the windward end of the lake. Grimsey drew after me and was tombollered peg 10. Now this peg had some recent form after Chris Vandervleit (spelling?) had won a summer league team match from it, also in the last open Johnny Bell had caught 100lb in the last 3 hours down the edge. We both had reasonable pegs and had a chance.


Bait & Tactics


After a quick walk to my peg it was time to select my bait after thinking about tactics. Due to it being 17.5 metres to the nearest island and the presence of a strong southerly wind I decided on a 3 pronged attack. If I was gonna win I felt that I had to catch shallow on the long pole. From experience I knew that the fish didn't really like to come far away from the island when up in the water fishing, therefore 16 metres was to be my starting distance which would be more than tricky in the wind. Also, I decided at the start I would fish at least 30 minutes on the pellet feeder, whilst feeding up in water. I would also have 2 edge lines left and right where I was hoping to have a storming finish. Incidentally, I felt that at least 120lb would be needed to win in 5 hours and this would be my target weight.

Now I had decided my tactics I could select my bait, which had to consist of no more than 8 pints of particles (hemp, pellets castor, maggots, worms). On top of this a maximum of three tins of meat and four tins of corn were allowed. I opted to take 3 pints of 6mm hard pellets for feeding shallow. 2 pints of soaked 6mm and 4mm for the pellet feeder, half a pint of assorted size and colour hooker hard pellets and two pints of hemp for the edge lines. I would also bring 3 tins of meat cut into 8mm cubes using a meat cutter, again for the edge. I had carefully selected my bait so as not to break the rules, unfortunately the same could not be said about all my fellow competitors. Of the 3 anglers checked unbelievably 1 was found to be over the bait limit, this goes to show that some people are not even put off by the threat of bait checks!! In my opinion he should have been disqualified, but despite his clear intention to cheat he had the excess bait confiscated and was allowed to fish.


Rigs


As all summer carp rigs should be these were strong but uncomplicated. I set up 3 rigs for up int water, one being a Preston PB4 (I think) dibber set at 12 inches, the 2nd was a 4x10 KC Carpa Chimp set at 18 inches and finally another 4x10 chimp was assembled but set at 2 feet. My edge rig was a 4x 12 KC Carpa 2 to be fished in three feet of water against near side foilage. All of these rigs had their eyes tied and superglued in to prevent damage after hook pulls. The line on all was 0.16 Browning Cenitan tied to an 18 eyed Kamasan Aninmal for the up in the water rigs. I would hair rig and band the pellet on all of these. The edge rig featured a Kamasan B911 in size 16. My feeder rig was a simple running rig incorporating a small Drennan open end feeder and an 8 inch hooklenth tied to a 16 Kamasan Animal.


At the all in I pinged in 8 6mm pellets at 16 metre range before cupping in 3/4 pot of hemp and 1/2 pot of meat on each of the edge lines. Before casting the feeder in between two islands at 2 0'clock to my right on a shallow bar. An 8mm pellet was banded on a hair and the feeder was filled with a mixture of 4 and 6mm pellets. Not many people fish the feeder at Colemans but on a wide peg I felt it could be a potentially match winning method as that tip could just fly round all day. It was really a throw away line as it allowed me to feed my up in the water line for 1/2 an hour to hopefully get some fish queuing up with confidence. Whilst continually pinging 6 6mm pellets on the long line I was also very regularly feeding 4 to 6 pieces of meat on the edge lines.


Unfortunately the feeder did not prove to be a match winning method on the day and didn't give me the flying start I wanted, as only three fish succumbed in the first thirty minutes. Mind you this was not due to a lack of fish in the peg as I could see various backs and tails out of the water and often when this was happening I didn't even get a liner! You cannot underestimate how clever some of these fish are in commercials these days. It makes you wonder that on some of those days when you think there are no fish in your peg its probably solid, but you just cannot catch them!


So now it was time to plunder my main line, however the reality didn't match the theory to begin with. I began on the 2 feet deep rig and didn't get an indication for 10 minutes, despite constantly pinging pellets. To make matters worse the wind was a real pain and at times I had to let my pole go with the wind, this was also affecting my ability to feed accurately. I did manage to start to get some bites after a short while though and a few pound to two pound carp made their way to my net. The guy opposite me was now pinging pellets in a similar direction to where I was fishing and I felt this was causing the fish to split, with an hour gone I decided to make a decision as it was clear I wasn't catching enough to win the match.


I continued to loosefeed but started another line at about 2 metres further to my right about a metre off an island. I hoped I could draw the fish away from his loosefeed and keep the majority in my peg by feeding more regularly than him. After 15 or so minutes my swim took a positive turn and I began to get a run of fish, most of which took the bait almost as soon as it hit the water, prompting me to change to my shallowest rig, the dibber. Looking around me the only person who appeared to be catching fairly consistently was Graham Dack on peg 6, but I felt I was up with him so it was heads down time and plunder the swim. Things were looking up now as the wind was now dropping off and I could concentrate my efforts on feeding and striking, without having my arms ripped out of their sockets!


Halfway through the match I estimated I had about 45lb in the net which I felt meant I still had a chance especially as I was still catching. Unfortunately though in the next half an hour things started to slow a little and it soon became obvious why. Whilst loosefeeding, odd pellets were overspraying and landing close to the island, I could now see odd swirls and backs out of the water where fish were climbing the bank for pellets, consequently they seemed to have backed off my shallow line as bites had slowed considerably. I decided to come off that line and to cease feeding. I then gave it 10 minutes before commencing feeding hoping this would allow me to start again from scratch. I was now conscious of feeding shorter rather than longer as I didn't want a repeat performance.


In the meantime it was time to have a look on the edge lines, which i had been priming for about 3 hours. My left hand line proved to be lifeless, however the right hand line provided an instant response, as I had 2 carp of about 4lb in consecutive drops on a single cube of luncheon meat. I was now strapped in to empty the swim for the remainder of the match. Frustratingly, despite trying both left and right hand lines for the next 15 minutes all I could catch were skimmers. Consequently a large potful of meat and hemp went on both lines and I would now continue to feed in the hope of them being solid in the final hour.


So it was back out to long pole up in the water and I felt that I was now behind Graham Dack who had continued to fish shallow whilst I had mucked about down the edge and was catching consistently. I knew I was in the last chance casino if I was to get anywhere near my target weight and luckily things began to improve. The fish were no longer boiling up the island and as soon as I dropped my dibber in the rubber shot out of the pole and I was into a carp. Things continued like this for the next 3/4 of an hour and I got into a nice routine of feeding, shipping out laying the rig in hooking a fish, feeding and landing a fish. Again I felt I was up with Graham Dack and could have a chance, despite not being able to see the rest of the lake. With 1/2 an hour to go I was contemplating coming down the edge and my mind was made up to do so as my long line began to slow. I'd calculated I had about 90lb in the net and to get up to the 120/130lb mark to win I needed some munters and quick.


My last 1/2 an hour was incredibly frustrating as I only managed 2 more carp and my peg just seemed to become infested with skimmers. I also lost 2 carp at the net on hook pulls which compounded the frustration further. Salt was rubbed into my wounds further as Dacky caught some big fish late down the edge which made me realise I definitely hadn't won.


At the end of the match I was quickly on the phone to Danny and it seemed he had done rather well and it looked like he had saved the day as most people thought he had won!. He reckoned he'd caught 40lb down the edge in the last 45 minutes and couldn't get in quick enough as his blow by blow account illustrated. Of course if I couldn't win I definitely wanted Danny to win not only because hes my mate but also as it would be worth 300 quid to me!


I don't like to criticise match organisers but the weigh in was slightly farcical. Conrad used a set of digital scales to weigh everyone in,unfortunately he obviously didn't read the instructions as how to obtain an average weight reading. Therefore when the fish were put on the scales the reading lurched between a margin of 20lbs and were called at random somewhere between this point. Not good enough when 50 grand is at stake. Luckily it wasn't that close in the end and Danny had done the business with a weight of 137lb. Graham Dack was second with 120lb and I think I was fourth with 109lb.

Unfortunately, about a week after the match things turned sour as Conrad had to pull the whole Golden Peg competition. I believe there were a number of reasons, but ultimately I think he realised he could be seriously out of pocket by the end of the event. The concept was great, but I think he needed to advertise the event for longer to gain much more interest and also he could have saved some money by not giving away the 50 quids for just turning up as getting a ticket is reward enough. Hopefully there will be more big individual events around in the future as something will need to replace team match fishing which is dying on its ass.

I felt especially sorry for Danny who rightly thought he had a shot at 50k on a water he knows very well. However, we both can't complain as we both made a few quid out of the match and Danny will go down as the one and only winner of a golden peg match!