This was our third trip of the year to White Acres - but we know we are going to have a good time so why not?
After a few nice pleasure sessions on Pollawyn, Jenny's and Bolingey it was soon time for the Thursday rover - I drew number 24 (out of 132) so I was able to get on the high bank of Pollawyn and chose peg 18 as I'd fished there on Saturday and bagged-up (though there were only 4 or 5 of us on the whole lake that day).
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| Some of the new Preston pellet wagglers |
As this match is effectively a 'winner takes all' sort of match (everybody who weighs in gets a prize, but there is no section money) I knew I had to fish positively and risk a blow-out in order to get my name in the Angling Times! As a result I only set-up a pellet waggler and a straight lead rod at the beginning - I was using one of the new Preston pellet wagglers and I have to say those little plastic disks attached above the weights really do stop the float diving as it hits the water!
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| Pellet waggler rig components |
The pellet waggler in question was attached to the line using a Preston pellet waggler attachment kit (which consist of 4 float stops and a snap link swivel) - mainline was 6lb Daiwa Sensor and the hooklength 25cm of 0.19 Reflo Power into a size 16 Guru Pellet Waggler hook with a hair-rigged 3.2mm Gardener latex bait band.
The pegs on the high bank of Pollawyn are fairly deep (8-10') and it is common to catch carp 'deep shallow' so I mainly set my pellet waggler between 3 and 5 feet deep. Unfortunately the fish hadn't read the script and even though I bagged-up with such a set-up on Saturday I only had one carp on it all match!!!
Luckily the straight lead was more effective and I took 4 carp in total on this rod, fished under where I was constantly feeding to try and catch on the waggler.
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| I seem to spend more and more time fishing bright pop-ups |
After it had become apparent I wasn't going to catch enough on the pellet waggler or straight lead I set-up another rod with a 30g small Preston pellet feeder to fish with an 8mm pop-up tight to the island. I really didn't think it would work - but that just goes to show what I know! This proved to be my most productive line and I caught 7 or 8 good carp, some nice skimmers and a barbel on it!!!
This line eventually died and I effectively wasted between 1400 and 1500 fishing like a gnome and putting nothing in the net during what should've been the best part of the match. When I finally came to my senses I decided to set-up a pole rig to bash-out some roach and perch down the edge with a fairly light rig on a top kit plus 1 - after a few nice perch I was soon attached to something that pulled back and I was soon looking at a 10lb ghostie staring back at me from my landing net!!!
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| Part of my winnings! |
The whistle went and Rob was soon along doing the weighing - my fish totalled 71-15-0, enough for a bag of groundbait, a bag of pellets and the final money prize as I'd managed 8th overall. That wasted hour had really cost me as another 12lb or so and I would've been second - but if it was as easy as that we'd all be winning every week!
Congratulations to Tom Bainbridge who won the match with 104-7-0 on the long pole from peg 29 on Pollawyn - he caught 'deep shallow' pinging 8mm pellets and admitted to winning despite having a massive hang-over! Kevin Wingfield (who is also a regular on the festival now sponsored by Old English Cider) did well to finish third with 82-3-0, just 5 ounces behind Mick Longshaw who was second.
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