A mere 219 days after the conclusion of the 2015 Maver festival I once again found myself at White Acres, this time unbelievably excited for the start of the 2016 Milo. The 2015 Maver was my first 180 peg White Acres festival and I was pleased to finish in the top half (79th to be precise) with a total score of 24 points (dropping 3). (The scoring went 4-5-3-9-6.) In order to create some form of progression I have two aims for this week’s festival – to score a minimum of 5 points each and every day and to grab a place in the top 50. Will I achieve these aims? Only time will tell!!!
Here we go again!!!
Friday’s random draw placed Bagger and myself into section/rotation B – as a result we will be fishing the following lakes in the following order: Twin Oaks/Trelawney, Trewaters/Acorn/Canal, Porth Reservoir, Bolingey and finally Pollawyn (also known as the Match Lake). Our rotation is full of top anglers but two stand out as real superstars – the formidable James Dent (Barnsley Blacks) and long-serving Daiwa Dorking caption Steve Sanders.
Despite praying for Twin Oaks 16 (the best peg in the country) my first dip into the bag of dreams of the week put me on Trelawney – this is a lake I’ve not match fished for nearly two years but is one I was fortunate enough to win a residents gold match from in June 2014 with 87-12-0 of carp and F1s on pellet feeder and jigga (not that I’m living-off past glories or anything).
Day one pegging
My peg (20) wasn’t one that I’d fished before but certainly looked an interesting one – even though Trelawney has pegs all around its perimeter, peg 20 is effectively an end peg as it sits at the end of an elbow with a large bay to the right. All of the pegs on Trelawney provide access to the central island but as peg 20 is relatively narrow and it is unusual in that I could reach the point of the island with 14.5m of pole.
45 degrees
Given the large bay I decided to set-up my box at an angle of 45 degrees to the right (as opposed to facing the island directly) – this allowed me to fish to the reeds along the near bank on the tip and made fishing the long (11.5m) margin easier. I also rigged-up for lines tight to the island and a shallow rig into the open water to the right of the point of the island.
It’s worth noting at this point that the wind was blowing the right way (from the tackle shop end and around the corner into my peg) and before the start there were lots of fishing moving in the margins (though with hindsight these fish were probably spawning bream and not the big carp I thought they were).
One of the F1s that fell to bomb & bread
I started my match swapping between the bomb & bread to the rushes to my right and the long margin (also to my right) on the pole – the first hour saw lots of knocks on the float from that margin line but the only proper indications came to the bomb & bread in the form of two decent F1s.
If that first hour wasn’t bad enough then second and third were frankly terrible – I literally couldn’t buy a proper bite anywhere in the peg and I can’t remember catching anything of note at all, a couple of 4 ounce skimmers from the 14.5m island line probably being the only fish caught.
I spent too much time doing this today!!!
In a vain attempt to salvage a few points I finally decided to set-up a scratching rig at the start of the fourth hour – this rig was for fishing at top kit plus 1 into the deeper water and consisted of a 0.2g SconeZone V8 on 0.13 N-Gauge into a 15cm hooklength of 0.11 and a size 20 LWG. The intention was to catch whatever I could (roach, rudd, skimmers) on casters and at least see out the match with a few bites – but I couldn’t even do that!!! It was as if the lake was devoid of the silver fish that are normally everywhere and all I caught in the end were 3 decent F1s (which in all fairness probably weighed more than the bag of silvers I was targeting).
Good work Bagger!!!
In the end my five F1s and assorted bits and bobs weighed a disappointing 17-1-0, enough for 2 points as I at least beat the peg that wasn’t drawn!!! (My old mate Chris Couch was in the same section and couldn’t help a huge grin when his fish went 23lb odd – well done mate.) On the plus side Bagger was also in the same section and put a terrific 69-2-0 of margin caught carp on the scales from peg 28 for a fantastic third in section (7 points) – well done!!!
In hindsight I got my match all wrong. I fished far too heavily (in terms of line diameter and hook size) and fed too aggressively from the start as I thought I was going to bag-up on big carp – instead I should’ve eased my way into the match, fished a lot lighter (for F1s) and generally responded to the way the fish were reacting on the day. So after day one I’ve already failed in my aim of gaining five or more points each and every day, and my aim of a top fifty finish is also looking unlikely as I’m currently in 152nd place!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment