White Acres regulars will know all about the Thursday ‘Rover’ match, but for those that haven’t experienced one I’ll give a brief explanation. Essentially each angler in the match draws a number from the bag and this defines the order in which each person can select their peg from those available – number 1 gets first choice, number 2 second, etc., etc. All of the non-specimen lakes are included (this means that 13 lakes and about 300 pegs are available) but it is worth noting that White Acres residents not in the match can choose to pleasure fish on any peg as long as they are in place by 0830 (when the fishery staff do a circuit of the complex noting which pegs have been taken). This normally means that large swathes of Jenny’s Lake are already taken and can sometimes mean that the flyers on Twin Oaks and the High Bank of Pollawyn have gone before the draw begins.
The conventional wisdom is that a draw within either the top or bottom 5 is best – being in the first five to choose normally guarantees an out-and-out flyer and being one of the final anglers to draw means you can select a peg with lots of room safe in the knowledge others aren’t going to fill-in the swims around you.
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| Pre-draw excitement … |
There were 108 anglers fishing today, but to accommodate late comers there were 130 numbers in the bag – considering what I’ve just written above you won’t be surprised to read that I drew 64, absolutely slap bang in the middle!
Prior to the draw I’d decided to try and get a peg on the furthest bank of Acorn (the area we pleasure fished on Saturday) – ideally peg 11, but realistically anywhere between 9 and 12. These aren’t normally the best pegs on the complex, but they are decent pegs and can sometimes offer a bit of room – unlike the hot-spots around Twin Oaks 16 and Pollawyn’s High Bank that can suffer badly from having every peg within a hundred yards taken!!!
By the time it was my turn to select a peg Acorn 11 had gone but 9, 10 and 12 were still available so having fished peg 10 on Saturday and having learned a few lessons I decided to plump for it again. (Incidentally Bagger drew number 119/130 but was still able to squeeze onto Acorn 12.)
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| An aerial view of 4 of the lakes at White Acres from Google Earth |
I’ve included a bird’s eye view of Twin Oaks, Canal and Acorn courtesy of Google Earth above – the two lakes that form Twin Oaks are the long thin lakes at the top of the shot, Canal is the lake below on the left (the pegs are on the central island so the fishing is from the inside out) and Acorn can be seen in the bottom right. Peg 10 is in the middle of the bank on the far right – to give an idea of scale the chuck to the margin of the central island is less than about 25m.
As we got to our pegs with only about 45 minutes to go before the ‘all-in’ I settled on a simple plan consisting of catching on a small pellet feeder cast tight to the far bank for as long as I could before switching to the margins later on. (In all fairness if I’d have had 3 hours to set-up I’d have gone with the same plan as in my experience the match winning carp live tight to either bank, and I’ve never had any real success on the short or long pole.)
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| Sonubaits 50:50 for the edge |
Personally I’ve always found the White Acres rule book to be a very fair and sensible one, and many fisheries have adopted rules initiated here – for example the idea of leaving keepnets drying on the bank until 15 minutes before the start of a match is one that I first encountered at White Acres but has since spread to venues I fish at home.
One of the main rules centres on your bait allowance, which (outside of 2 kilos of groundbait, a kilo of worms and a tub of boilies) is a maximum of 8 pints (in total) of pellets, corn, meat, hemp casters and maggots. Some people may disagree but to me this is tonnes of bait and more often that not I only end-up using 2 or 3 pints. For this match my allowance was made-up of:
- 2mm pellets (2 pints)
- 6mm pellets (2 pints)
- 8mm pellets (1 pint)
- Corn (1 pint)
- Red maggots (live) (1 pint)
- Worms
- Boilies
- Sonubaits 50:50 groundbait
The eagle eyed among you will notice I’ve only used 7 of the 8 pint limit – this is intentional as if checked I want to be 100% I’m within the maximum. The 2mm pellets are for the feeder; the 6mms are for feeder hookbaits and in case I need to fish the long pole shallow; the largest pellets cover the options of the straight lead and pellet waggler; the corn is for the edge and the maggots are for if I’m in real trouble and need to winkle-out some silvers to keep things ticking over. Regular readers will know I’m a big fan of worms over groundbait down the edge and hence the Sounbaits 50:50 – which I reckon is great value at £6 for a full 2 kilo bag (don’t forget many ‘standard’ bags of groundbait are £4 for only 900 grams).
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| Acorn peg 10 (again!) |
The first three and a half hours of the match (from 1030 to 1400) went amazingly well with a constant stream of proper carp falling to the pellet feeder – tackle was my usual 8lb Daiwa Sensor mainline, a small 30g Preston Innovations pellet feeder with 10cm hooklengths of 0.19 Guru N-Gauge to either a size 16 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band (for 6mm pellet hookbaits) or a size 14 QM1 with a hair-rigged bayonet (for 8mm pop-up fluro boilies).
In order to keep the fish coming I alternated between two different spots on the far bank – however one of the biggest influences was the way the anglers around me fished. On the day pegs 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 were all taken – though fortunately only Bagger on peg 12 chose to fish the feeder extensively, meaning I had the pick of the fish next to the island.
Best hookbait on the day was certainly a 6mm hard pellet – I had a few on pop-ups but I’d say the use of a 6mm pellet led to a quicker bite. Pellets for the feeder were simply prepared by pouring half a pint of pellets into a tub and covering with lake water without draining – I find this approach yields nice spongy pellets which are ideal for the pellet feeder. (Unlike yesterday the addition of Tutti Frutti Goo made zero difference and if anything put the fish off – funny, eh?)
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| My standard summer bagging edge gear |
The weather forecast for today was for heavy rain (also known as ‘liquid sunshine’ in Cornwall) in the morning but clearing-up in the afternoon. However it can be seen from the video embedded above (which was taken around noon) that the first part of the day was dry and still – however at about 1 o’clock the heavens opened and believe me all 108 anglers fishing this match were given a right old soaking until about 1600!!!
At around 2 o’clock things on the tip had started to slow somewhat so as a plan B I fed 4 full pots of groundbait into my right margin at top kit plus one tight to the bank. I had intended to leave this to settle for a little while, but 10 seconds after re-casting my feeder to the far bank I was frantically reeling-in and reaching for my top kit as the bottom was clearly being ripped-up by hungry carp!!!
I had three good carp (including a Barney Rubble) from this initial feed on double dendrabena (gear was my usual heavy set-up of 0.19 Reflo Power straight through to a size 12 Guru MWG, the float was a 4x10 Durafloat 10 and elastic Preston Innovations 17 Hollo). However re-feeding didn’t have much of an impact and ‘only’ led to a further small carp and a 3lb perch hooked in the tail (hence the quotes around only!!!).
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| Looking left towards pegs 8 and 9 |
With an hour to go I re-fed the right margin again and opened two new margin lines – tight to the bank to my left at top kit plus one with groundbait and another area really close to the platform next to a clump of overhanging grass slightly to my left with rain soaked 2mm pellets and corn.
Of these three margin lines the only further fish came from the swim closest to my feet – the advantage of such a spot is that you can clearly see when a fish moves in as more often than not you’ll get a nice tail waving at you!!!
Fortunately during this final 60 minute period the fished returned to the margin of the central island and I was able to keep catching steadily through to the end of the match.
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| Beer tokens!!! |
Eventually the final whistle blew and Ricky Dennis and my good friend Dave Woolgar (who had been press ganged into helping with the board) were soon ‘round with the scales. Despite using a clicker my first net exceeded the limit by about a pound so was knocked back to a level 60lb – there was no such problem with the second however leaving me with a stonking 112-5-0!!! This was by far my best weight of the year so far and only my second tonne at White Acres (where I’ve visited 2 or 3 times a year for about 10 years).
Despite (or because of) the stormy conditions the lakes had fished very well and my weight was only one of four 100lb plus weights on the day – however it was good enough for second overall, an amazing result considering my rather awkward draw of 64/130!
Overall results:
- Ian Fisk (Complete Angler), Trelawney 29, 120-0-0
- Phil Morris (Godalming AS), Acorn 10, 112-5-0
- Ian Sutton (Iffers), Eery 12, 101-14-0
- Tony Corbet (Wytharll Legers), Twin Oaks 30, 100-6-0
- Andy Fentom (Matlock AC), Eery 11, 97-12-0
- Dave Thompson (Kerfoot), Canal 12, 96-1-0
Looking at the top 6 pegs on the day it is interesting to see some unfancied lakes featuring – did Eery 11 and 12 cancel each other out? Well done to Ian Fisk on winning his second White Acres residents match of the week – don’t forget he won Monday’s match with nearly 140lb!!!
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| A nice addition to my non-existent trophy cabinet!!! |
Conclusions: well what can I say? Today was one of those days when my very simple approach worked brilliantly and I was able to fish a peg and methods that suit my strengths as an angler. Ultimately this is why the Thursday Rover is so popular – and why you see so many people walking ‘round the lakes on a Wednesday with pen and paper in hand making a list of the pegs they’d like to fish!!!
Until tomorrow’s match at Bolingey …
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