Following yesterday’s final match of the Olde English Cider festival it was eventually time for the last match of our 2013 White Acres odyssey – and what better way to finish than with another Friday residents match at bagging water Bolingey?
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| Welcome to Bolingey!!! |
My draw today saw me on the lake furthest from the car park – peg 40 to be precise. This is apparently a pretty average peg with the only obvious feature being the aerator (not switched on) moored in front of overgrown peg 39 to the right. In fact fishery owner Andy Dare described the peg as being ‘disappointing’ and set me an ambitious target weight of just 80lb!!!
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| Looking left towards the famous Bridge swim |
As ever the first thing I do when I get to my peg is sit on my box and come-up with a pre-match plan. Today’s intended approach was very simple – spend the first part of the match (anything up to 4 hours) catching on the straight lead towards the aerator (feeding and fishing 8mm pellets) and on the pole at top kit plus two on the deck (with 6 and 8mm pellets), then empty it down the edge in the last hour with worm over groundbait!!!
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| Looking across to Chris Haywood on peg 36 |
Unfortunately these were to be the only fish that fell to this line all match and the second and third hours were even more disappointing as I could only manage three further carp and an F1 on the bomb – despite the constant pinging of pellets and experiments with PVA bags and Goo! (To make matters worse two additional carp that were hooked on the straight lead fell-off for no good reason – not what you need when bites are hard to come by!)
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| Familiar gear for the edge |
Fortunately things started to pick-up in the fourth hour with three commons and my first ever grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) falling to the tip. (When I first caught sight of the grass carp I actually thought it was some kind of weird looking chub – however on closer inspection the torpedo shaped body, huge mouth and beady little eyes clearly marked it out as a grass carp.)
As ever I’d been holding back on feeding or fishing my margin line for as long as possible, but with an hour an a quarter to go it was time for four full cups of Sonubaits 50:50 groundbait to be deposited at top kit plus two tight to the wall of foliage overhanging my left margin. (As there was a small bush tight to the left of my platform I had to stand-up to be able to access this swim – however I actually quite like doing this as it seems to improve reaction times when striking at bites.)
This final spell resulted in four good (8 to 10lb) fish on double dendrabena – though as ever I managed to foul-hook and lose two further carp! (This is even more annoying than normal as each missed opportunity at Bolingey can see double-figures making its way out of the swim never to be seen again.)
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| Some were more interested in Bagger’s weight than others!!! |
As a little experiment I’d kept the straight lead and margin fish in separate nets – those from the first 3 and three quarter hours went 42lb and those from the final hour and a quarter tallied 35lb, once again highlighting the importance of those final hour edge fish.
This gave me a total of 77-4-0 – not quite the 80lb target I’d been set but incredibly this was exactly the same weight as the 2012 Olde English Cider festival champion Chris Haywood who had been fishing on the peg directly opposite!!! Ultimately, as a result of two 80lb plus weights, this left us joint third overall.
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| Nice to finish on a high! |
All-in-all this was a great way to finish-off an amazing fortnight in Cornwall – I think I’d struggle to fish five times a week all year ‘round, but personally I can’t think of a better way to spend two weeks holiday. In total I fished 9 matches, picked-up money in 7, finished eighth in a festival, broke the 100lb barrier for only the second time at White Acres, framed in a 100 peg match and won at Trewaters – but most importantly I only managed to lose one pellet feeder in the far bank bushes all holiday!!!Until next year …
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