30 December 2015, Gold Lake (Gold Valley)

I normally suffer the misfortune of having to work from Monday to Friday so I very rarely get the opportunity to fish mid-week matches - however being the week between Christmas and New Year I was able to get out on the bank today and made my way back to Gold Valley for one of the Wednesday opens.

  

Looking left from peg 25 on Gold Lake

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  

On Monday's silver fish only event local legend and Barney's Worms head honcho Dave Carter had suffered to the misfortune of hooking carp after carp from peg 4 of the same lake we were fishing today (Gold Lake) so naturally I was looking to draw in this area - so of course I drew peg 25, literally at the other end of the pond!!! Still this peg was apparently in a good area as it appears to be at the crease where the deeper main body of the lake really shallows-up as it approaches the parallel bank that is furthest from the clubhouse.

  

PVA and hard pellets today

  

As today's match was an open (where carp definitely counted) I went for a simple, one rod approach that is pretty much the norm at Gold Valley at this time of year. As it seemed like a near 50m chuck to the central dividing rope I decided to make things easy for myself an left my usual 10' tip rod in the bag an instead dug out a 12' Preston Innovations Carbonactive that I carry for such situations - such longer rods can seem a little unwieldy when you are used to fishing with 10' models, but I find the extra casting ability is well worth it.

   

I also stepped-down my usual 8lb mainline in favour of a lower diameter 6lb breaking strain of my usual brand (Daiwa Sensor), with 3' of 10lb Drennan flurocarbon added loop-to-loop to the end of the mainline ready to take either a 1 ounce Guru inline lead or a 36g small Guru Hybrid feeder (both fitted a with long X-Safe stems with black Hydro). Hooklengths were 30cm of 0.19 N-Gauge with a size 12 QM1 and a hair-rigged pellet band for the lead and 10cm of 0.22 (same hook) for the Hybrid feeder.

  

Shhhh - new top secret hookbaits!

   

Even though it has been really rather warm for the time of year (double-figure temperatures today) I decided that I'd feel my way into the match and not actually feed anything during the first hour. This plan seemed to work pretty well as in the first hour I managed to hook two carp in three casts just short of the central rope on the straight lead with a Ringers chocolate orange wafter - unfortunately though only one ended-up in the net as the first one snagged me on an underwater obstacle just 5m or so from the bank and I had to pull for a break. (Both bites came after the rig had been in the water for at least 15 minutes.)

      

A 36g small Guru Hybrid feeder with PVA bag attached

  

  

Underwater Footage of PVA Hybrid Feeder (YouTube)

  

Going into the second hour the match I decided to risk feeding a little bit of bait and switched to a 36g small Guru Hybrid feeder loaded with a PVA bag of 4 and 6mm hard pellets held in place by a simple loop of black Hydro. This change worked really well and by the end of the first half of the match I was sitting pretty with a tidy total of six carp in the net - again most bites came after 15 minutes or so, but one or two came pretty quickly (just 3 or 4 minutes), and all bites came to the Ringers chocolate orange wafter.

 

Patiently waiting for the rod to fold in half

  

Unfortunately the second half of my match so nowhere near as good as the first - a fish that was hooked on the straight lead and an 11mm pellet hookbait fell-off on the way in (though it did give a very funny bite and was probably foul-hooked), and my final carp of the day came at 14:15 (this one fell to the Hybrid feeder arrangement).

  

Nice to end the year with an envelope

  

In the end my seven carp went 53-12-0, enough for second in the match behind Gold Valley open match regular (and reigning Garbolino Club Angler of the Year) Stefan Gent who put seventy plus pounds on the scales from a peg towards the middle of the lake. So a good end to 2015 and hopefully a sign of things to come in 2016!!!

  
Until next time ...
  

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28 December 2015, Gold Lake (Gold Valley)

After a self-imposed match fishing hiatus lasting for nearly two months it was finally time to get back into the fray today – and what better way to do so than with the belated Apollo Guildford Match Group Christmas match at Gold Valley?
  

Red sky in the morning!!!

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  
Today’s event was held on the Canal Bank of Gold Lake at Gold Valley and saw a decent turn-out of 19 anglers trying desperately not to catch the resident carp that are the usual target – no, not a bout of collective insanity, but as this match was a silverfish only event catching carp can be rather annoying as they don’t count!!!
  
My dip into the bag of dreams meant I would be stationed on peg 22 for the day – I was told that this was a pretty decent draw, but as Gold Lake is essentially a large rectangle with just two or three small islands (none of which are anywhere near peg 22) my view was that the recent weather conditions would probably dictate where the best pegs on the day would be as the fish would no doubt be influenced by the wind as much as anything.
  

Red, white and green

  
As today’s match was silvers only my bait selection was focused mainly on maggots and Old Ghost Green Alga groundbait, with a small smattering of micro and 4mm expander pellets. In terms of tactics I gave myself four options: a light pole rig for fishing down the edge to my right (towards some dead rushes) with maggots for roach and perch; a rig for fishing the pole with groundbait and pellets at 13m for skimmers; a free-running cage feeder for fishing at 25m (halfway to the central rope); and finally a rod for fishing either a small Guru Method or Hybrid feeder at the same distance as the cage feeder set-up (but in a slightly more positive/modern way).
  

Waiting for a pull

  
On the whistle I fed six decent balls of Green Alga on my 13m line (which with hindsight was a massive mistake), followed by half an hour spent fishing the cage feeder – the set-up here consisted of one of my Daiwa Tournament 10/11 tip rods fished at 11’ (for some reason these rods have softer actions at the longer length, plus casting light feeders becomes easier), 4lb Daiwa Sensor main line (again to aid casting), a 15g Drennan cage feeder attached via a Preston Innovations feeder bead link (which gives a free-running paternoster arrangement), finished-off with 30cm of 0.13 N-Gauge to a size 18 Guru LWG hook. Unfortunately this didn’t lead to any bites – a bit of a worry as I saw this approach as something of a banker!!!
  
A switch to the margins (where I’d been feeding live maggots by hand since the off) at least saw a few bites and two dumpy roach in the net to get me off the mark – before this line inexplicably died and I couldn’t get another bite from it all day!
  

Guru Method and Hybrid feeders

  
A switch back to the 25m line, though this time swapping between a small 24g Guru Method feeder or a small 24g Guru Hybrid feeder loaded with soaked 2mm pellets and a little groundbait, saw four proper pulls and three skimmers in the net – as a result I ended the first half of the match with about 4lb and at least in touch with those around me as nobody really seemed to be bagging-up. (Hooklengths used on the Method/Hybrid feeder were all 10cm of 0.17 N-Gauge to a size 16 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band. A 6mm hard pellet was the only hookbait used. I was once again using the Guru X-Safe system, though as I was targeting skimmers I used a short stem fitted with white Hydro.)
  

Damn - silvers only!!!

  
After putting those skimmers in the net is fairly quick succession I had assumed that I'd stumbled on the right approach and a few fish, and would go on to win the match in fine style - so obviously the second half of the match turned into a complete disaster with the only bite I could muster coming from a 6lb carp that I had to slip back!!! I did try the 13m pole line a number of times - there was lots of fizzing, but clearly my opening gambit of six balls of groundbait was way, way too much as I couldn't manage a single bite from this line. (With hindsight I would've fed this line with a tiny ball of micro pellets every half an hour and tried to just catch one fish at a time.)
  

Ready and waiting for the scales

  
In the end my two roach and three skimmers went 4-5-0, a reasonable weight on the day, but nowhere near a prize! Overall results:

1. Shaun Sylvester, peg 16, 21-15-0
2. Lee Simmons, peg 25, 12-5-0
3. Paul Williamson, peg 21, 11-9-0

   
Section winners:

• Paul Taylor, peg 24, 10-5-0
• Pete Franklin, peg 15, 10-8-0

   
Until next time ...
  

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01 November 2015, Match Lake (Sumners Ponds)

It seems to me that every time you fish a match you have to learn something you can take into the next one. Sometimes you learn loads by sacking-up, destroying the opposition and winning the match by a country mile; other times you learn loads by making a pig’s ear of things – try and guess which one I’m going to be talking about following today’s match at Sumners Ponds!!!
  

Foggy again!!!

  
Prior to today’s match I’d only fished three competitions on the Match Lake at Sumners Ponds, though each had been a successful in yielding weights of 76lb, 97lb and a personal best 189lb. However most of those matches had been held in the summer, and with the recent cooling of temperatures pre-match talk was that the fishing might be a little trickier than most were expecting. I had been hoping to draw one of the favoured pegs in the wider part of the lake either side of the sunken island or failing that a nice end peg with a bit of room – so of course I was rather disappointed to draw one of the narrowest pegs on the lake, in the middle of a long row of anglers with every peg taken!
  

The view to the right

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  
The peg itself (I’m not sure what the permanent peg number would’ve been) was towards the carp park end of the furthest island and was only 16m wide. As the far bank was in range I decided to forgo my usual rod & line tactics and went pole only – a rig for the far bank consisting of a white Hydro top kit, 0.19 main line, a 0.4g Drennan Crystal Dibber (shotted with a 0.5g Drennan in-line olivette (that sunk the float to the orange tip perfectly)) and a 15cm hooklength consisting of 0.15 N-Gauge with a size 16 LWG and a hair-rigged pellet band, complemented with a similar rig (but featuring a 4x12 Malman Roob) for fishing on the deck at 5m.
  

Drennan Crystal Dibbers

  
My intended approach was very simple – to be patient and try and catch some of the resident carp that run to twenty pounds plus. Having said that I was almost certainly too patient during the first two hours as things were very, very slow and in fact I never had a bite! I spent this time mainly fishing to far bank, feeding 3 or 4 White Acres (over-sized) 6mm pellets at a time in a very frugal fashion (I probably only fed 20 in total) and flicking the rig in each and every interesting looking nook and cranny of the island. I also spent some time fishing the 5m line, and in fact I eventually moved the line to 13m as I felt the narrowness of the peg and the tightness of the pegging would see any carp very reluctant to come close to the near bank (though I managed as many bites at 13m as I did at 5m – none).
  

Lightish gear for silvers

  
By twenty past twelve I eventually decided to rig-up a silvers set-up to appease the boredom and avoid the dreaded blank – this set-up consisted of the pole fished at top kit plus 1 with yellow Hydro, 0.13 main line, a 4x12 SconeZone V8 and a hooklength if 0.10 into a size 20 Tubertini 808. This move was something of a success and I caught fairly well even though I only had micro pellets and dead red maggots as feed (with hindsight I clearly should’ve brought live maggots or worms/casters). I had mainly small roach, but also a bonus crucian and a nice twelve ounce roach to boost my weight significantly.
  

All the gear ...

  
However after an hour I decided to go back to fishing for carp to the island – this was because in my mind I had the wrong baits to target silver fish successfully, I had started too late to build a decent weight of silvers (and was hence was behind Dave Woolgar to my left and the Woking angler to my right who were doing the same), plus Godalming rod Ian Covey was catching carp from the margin of the end peg in my section, so catching carp from the island was the only way I could see of catching-up and getting into the money places. During the final ninety minutes I: tried to dob a cruising carp that completely ignored the pellet dropped right in front of its face, saw a large bow wave from island (whilst I was fishing at 13m) and was shocked when a massive carp jumped out of the water between Dave and myself – but had no bites!!!
  

Bagger in the money again!

  
In the end my hour of catching silvers got me 5-14-0, an interesting weight when you consider that 23-7-0 won the section and 26-7-0 was third overall – especially as 5-14-0 multiplied by five is 29-6-0!!! (Though of course fishing isn’t as simple as this, especially when fishing a venue such as Sumners Ponds that is full of big carp.) Well done to Woking match secretary Stuart Kendall for winning the match with 53-5-0 from the end peg in front of the sunken island (exactly where I’d hoped to draw) and our own Bagger for finishing third overall and taking a pound from local legend Dave Johnson!!!
  
Until next time …
  

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02 October 2015, Bolingey (White Acres)

The 2015 Maver has been my ninth festival at White Acres – however the previous eight have all been smaller, 4 day affairs so today was to be my first fifth day, and what better venue to spend it at than Bolingey?
  

Looking left from peg 11

  
Despite the venue boasting 50 pegs I’ve only actually fished five different spots as I’ve now drawn the same peg twice twice (no that’s not a typo) in seven matches – back in June I drew 40 for the second time and today I’ve drawn peg 11 for the second time this year!!!
  

Bolingey pegging

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  
Number 11 is certainly a nice looking peg and gives a number of options – there is a nice chuck to the corner of an island, the platform of peg 12 (which isn’t normally pegged) is within range of a top two plus two and of course there is open water to go at on the short and/or long pole.
  

Top two and two gear

  
I decided to cover three of these options – island, short pole and peg 12’s platform. In order to do so I set-up: one of my 10’ tip rods with 8lb reel line, a free-running 24g mini Guru hybrid feeder with a 10cm hooklength of 0.22 N-Gauge to a size 14 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band; for the top two plus two line at the bottom of the near shelf (which was deeper than a top two by a foot) I rigged-up a black Hydro top kit with 0.17 main line, a 0.2g SconeZone V8 and a 15cm trace of 0.15 to a size 18 LWG eyed hook (attached with a Palomar knot) – this was quite a delicate rig given the depth of water and the potential stamp of fish, but given Tuesday’s partial success at Trewaters with 6mm expander pellets on the hook this seemed to be the right way to go; finally I set-up a couple of rigs for fishing to peg 12’s platform (though I won’t go into too much detail, as without giving too much away I only had one (missed) bite from this line).
  

Looking towards the point of the island

  
To say the first hour the match went badly would be a massive understatement – by the time it had ended I’d completely lost the plot as in this time I’d only managed two carp on the hybrid feeder whilst the angler on peg 10 (Tom Cole) had put six or seven big carp in his net using bomb and bread (a bait that didn’t even feature on my side tray)!!!
  

The view to the right

  
In order to try and at least do something similar I (eventually) hastily rigged-up my second tip rod with a free-running two thirds of an ounce Guru square bomb, a large Guru float stop (that kicks the hooklength away from the bomb nicely), 12 inches of 0.19 and a size 14 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band – hookbaits were to be bright yellow, orange and red Ringers Allsorts. Unfortunately this change of tactics didn’t really work but by the end of the second hour I’d at least added two more carp on the hybrid feeder.
  

The Drennan Shorty

  
Halfway through the third hour proved to be the turning point in my match – by this time I’d only added one more carp via a 6mm expander on the top kit plus two pole line, so with nothing to lose I decided to set-up a pellet waggler rod to chuck towards the island. To be honest didn’t think it was going to work but with two carp in the net after just the first three chucks I was certainly wrong and back in the game with a slight glimmer of hope! (Tackle here was 6lb Daiwa Sensor main line, a 5g Drennan Shorty and a 25cm trace of 0.19 to a size 16 MWG with a hair-rigged pellet band – total depth of about 18”.)
  

Game over!

  
The final two hours went by in something of a blur but I think I managed one more (plus one lost) from the top two and two line, nothing but one missed bite from peg 12’s platform and probably seven more on the pellet waggler (plus three lost, two definitely foul-hooked). This gave me a total of 79-14-0, beaten by a 190lb weight from the famous bridge peg (27), an 81lb from peg 16 and an 80lb from peg 10 (who I managed to slowly but surely edge closer to after that runaway start), giving me a fourth in section and six points.
  

The final reckoning

  
So today’s match brought my 2015 Maver festival to a close – across the five days I’ve managed to score 27 points (out of a possible 45) and weighed a total of 161-0-0; being a five day festival though it’s the best four results that count and hence I’ve scored 24 points (dropping 3) and had a weight of 138-8-0. This has left me in 79th position – behind 78 anglers but ahead of 101, so not too shabby for a first attempt!!!

Roll-on May 2016 and the Milo festival …
  

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01 October 2015, Porth Reservoir (White Acres)

Having not previously fished one of the 180 peg White Acres festivals before I’ve never had the chance to fish the infamous Porth Reservoir before, so over recent weeks I’ve been doing some ‘intensive’ research – if you can call looking at the White Acres website and re-watching Preston Innovations Winning Pegs 3 on YouTube that is!!!
  

Explorer 106

  
This research showed that Porth Reservoir is a big venue (as confirmed by Ordnance Survey Explorer 106), formed by flooding a valley via a huge dam wall at the western end. It also seemed that the dominant tactics involve either fishing for a bag of small roach/skimmers on the pole or waggler or to fish the increasingly popular tactic of the long range method feeder for proper bream.
  

Porth Reservoir pegging

  

     

The View from my Peg (YouTube) 

  
Ironically I’d written-off my day on Porth Reservoir before arriving in Cornwall as tiddler bashing and long range fishing are amongst my least favourite forms of fishing – however if you read on you’ll see why you should fish every match with an open mind!!!
  

Porth Reservoir

  
As already mentioned, Porth Reservoir is a large venue and for most of the year it only sees specimen carp anglers. Given the size of the place there are some long walks and half of the pegs are on the far (north) bank of the lake and involve loading your gear on to a boat!!! My draw (peg 79) saw me on this far bank and no doubt like every Porth Reservoir virgin I loaded my kit onto the boat with a nervous smile – however I’d no need to worry as my stuff arrived safely and the rod bag that was lost overboard wasn’t mine!!! (I jest of course.)
  

Very picturesque!

  
My home for the day was the end peg in the 71-79 sub-section, though in reality it is in the middle of the bank as the adjacent sub-section runs from 81-89. However you’ll notice that peg 80 isn’t in – this gave me a spare peg to my left and the added bonus of a short walk as this is where the boat moors-up!
  

Didn't need those waders after all!

  
Despite bringing my waders and the legs for my platform barrow I didn’t need to use them as peg 79 has a nice wooden staging to fish from – it also has a nice overhanging tree to the left that extends out into the water about 5m, though there is another tree overhead that makes it a bit of a birdcage and the fencing behind makes the long pole a bit tricky.
  

Light gear for small fish

  
With these factors in mind I set-up three rigs before the all-in: an 11’ feeder rod with 6lb Daiwa Sensor main line on the attached reel (a longer rod and slightly lighter line than usual to help with casting) and a 30g Preston Innovations pellet feeder – this would be my bream rod and was clipped-up at about 50m; a 10’ feeder rod with 4lb reel line, a 15g cage feeder and an 18” hooklength of 0.13 to a size 20 Guru LWG – this would be my roach/skimmers rod and was clipped-up at 18-20m; finally a top two plus two pole rig consisting of 0.13 main line, a 4x12 Chianti and a 15cm trace of 0.10 to a size 20 Gamakatsu Black for fishing next to the tree for small fish.
  

I started on the close-range feeder

  
My thinking last night was that I’d target bream all day on the pellet feeder – however just after the draw I bumped into Kirsty (who used to work in the fishing lodge) who revealed that Richie Hull had done just that from the same peg yesterday and weighed only 10 ounces for last in section! Coupled with the sunny, flat conditions I had a change of heart and decided to give the small fish a go to see if fishing for them was to be a viable option.
  

Fish not pounds this time!

  
On the whistle I fed a few maggots and chopped worms next to the tree and picked-up my short range feeder rod. After 20 minutes I had 7 small roach in the net and was already on the way to overtaking Richie Hull’s weight, though I didn’t feel that I was catching big enough fish to do any good come 5 o’clock. As a result I nearly went for the bream rod but instead I thought I’d give the pole a quick try first – this proved to be a good move as by the end of the match I’d added a further 146 fish and had won the section by 6 ounces with 10-7-0!!!
  

Not quite enough to retire on!

  
In the end I didn’t even pick-up the pellet feeder rod and only gave the other tip rod another brief try at the start of the fifth hour when the pole line slowed right down – otherwise my catch rate was pretty consistent and I only lost two fish to pike, a good run in the last twenty minutes getting me a nice envelope!!!
  

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30 September 2015, Twin Oaks (White Acres)

On Friday a good friend said that I was ‘only five bunghole draws’ away from winning the 2015 Maver festival. Of course he was correct – the only problem has been that so far I’ve drawn three very average pegs, today’s selection (Twin Oaks 21, wind blowing down towards the opposite end of the lake, last in section yesterday) being a prime example!
  

All the gear ...

  
As all you White Acres regulars will know, Twin Oaks is in fact two similar lakes – the ‘low numbers’ lake runs from peg 1 (nearest to the car park) to peg 18 and includes the infamous peg 16 that has won many, many matches; the ‘high numbers’ lake includes pegs 19 to 36 and is slightly less prolific as it is stocked with more F1s and less proper carp than the ‘low numbers’.
  

Twin Oaks and Trelawney pegging

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

   

Like all venues there are some pegs that are better than others – on the ‘high numbers’ the chaps you see in the magazines normally draw the pegs in the middle of the lake where the F1s hang-out and the mere mortals like myself tend to draw the less than average pegs like number 21 – two away from the far end peg (19) and one that seems to be sat back from the water as over the year the bank seems to have moved forwards! However the peg is quite wide and has a nice cut-out margin to the right, plus some interesting looking overhanging rushes to the left.
  

Gettin' jiggy with it!

  
Before the all-in I knew it was going to be hard as I set-up loads of gear: a 10’ tip rod with a 24g mini Guru hybrid feeder for fishing tight over; shallow (2 feet) and deep (4 feet) jiggas for fishing up in the water at 13m; a margin rig for fishing down to the right; and finally a scratching rig (yellow Hydro, 0.13 main line, 4x12 Chianti, 0.10 hooklength, size 20 Tubertini 808) for fishing at top kit plus one next to the overhanging rushes with maggots for anything that swam.
  

Trying for an early edge dweller

  
As per usual I started by trying to bag an early margin munter – no bites but I definitely saw the tail of a very, very big carp under my feet so it was well worth a try!!! Three chucks to the far bank didn’t lead to as much as a liner so it was soon on to the scratching rig under the rushes. This led to a run of small fish (roach, rudd, perch) followed by that sinking feeling you get when you lose four or five foul-hooked F1s (I’m guessing) in a row – gutted is not the word!!!
  

Stepped-up hooklength components

  
After this disaster I set-up a new rig on a white Hydro top kit consisting of 0.13 main line, a 0.2g SconeZone v8, 0.11 hooklength into a size 18 Guru LWG (spade-end) hook. By doing this I at least managed to land 3 F1s – though two were hooked just outside of the mouth and one was well and truly hooked in the tail!!!
  

A little bit of success at last

  
The main problem (with the foul-hooking) as I saw it was where exactly in the swim I was fishing – I felt I needed to fish to the far edge of he rushes so I could attract F1s from the main body of the lake, but where I was fishing was two and a half to three feet deep and as I wasn’t fishing tight to the bank the fish could approach from any angle. In order to fix this I re-plumbed closer in but tight to the rushes – this led to two cleanly hooked F1s in a row, then nothing for the rest of my match, confirming my theory that I needed to be fishing towards the open water!
  

Not exactly a flyer

  
A couple of carp on the tip in the last hour boosted my weight a little, but nothing from the margin swim to the right meant I was stuck on 22-8-0 and 3 points (seventh out of 9 in the sub-section) – hardly a day to remember!!!
  

Looking towards end peg 19

  
Today’s result means I’m now on a running total of 12 points (from a maximum of 27) though I’ll be hoping to drop today’s result from my final score (which are made-up of each angler’s best four results out of the five days), and I’m currently 117th overall with a nice trip to Porth Reservoir tomorrow …
  

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29 September 2015, Trewaters (White Acres)

Following yesterday’s first day of the 2015 Maver festival at White Acres, myself and the other 179 contestants were soon onto day two and once again looking for a flyer – as I am in A section day two meant either a match on Jenny’s or an offsite visit to Trewaters. Personally I would’ve been happy with either venue – Trewaters has in all fairness been pretty kind over the years (though most successes have been on the pellet feeder to the island, a tactic that seems much less reliable these days) and a day on Jenny’s would mean I could pop back to the lodge if the fishing was hard and I wanted a cup of tea!!!

A moody looking Trewaters!!!

  
As fate wold have it I was handed a second mediocre draw in a row – peg 39 on the bottom lake at Trewaters, a peg that only yielded a middle of the road 5 points yesterday and one that was increasingly unlikely to respond to my favoured pellet feeder tactics as every ounce of foliage has been trimmed from the island since my last visit in May!

B section pegging

   

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

   
My match started well with a small carp first cast on the hybrid feeder – however this was something of a false dawn as by the end of the first two hours I’d only added two more small carp and a tiny F1 (the F1 and one of the carp on the hybrid feeder, the other carp on the bomb) for a total of 8lb or so – though from what I could tell I wasn’t in fact that far behind the other anglers on my lake (and hence in my sub-section) as nobody was bagging and I was at most ten pounds behind.

A rare sight!

  
With nothing to lose I quickly set-up two jigga rigs for fishing shallow at 13m – however this was a complete waste of time as after no more than ten minutes I had to concede that the wind blowing at an angle of 90 degrees from the right was much too strong for me to be able to hold the pole without being blown in!!!

Sensible margin gear

  
A switch back to the bomb eventually led to another small carp from the island – however a quick dabble on a scratching rig with maggots at top kit plus one to my left in front of some reeds saw a few bits and a rogue F1 hit the net. Luckily this F1 was the start of a bit of a comeback as the final 90 minutes saw a decent run of F1s and carp from a bit further along the left margin on 6mm expanders over lose-fed 4mm hard pellets.

   

Three and nine, 39

One of the challenges I’ve never really been able to overcome previously at Trewaters is fishing the margins on what seems like a 45 degree slope that starts at water-level tight to the bank and keeps going until the bottom levels-out just before top kit plus two range. As I couldn’t find anything like a flat spot I simply set my float to a reasonable depth (15 inches) and plumbed-up so that on a tight line only half of the body of the float was visible above the water – this put me a couple of feet from the bank, hardly ideal but the best I could do.
 

The calm after the storm ...

 
My island and margin caught fished combined to give me a total of 33-3-0, mid-way in the section – beating four, but also being beaten by four, for five points. As a result I now have 9 points (out of a possible 18) in total – I’m not totally sure where that puts me on the leader board, but presumably somewhere near the halfway point. Twin Oaks or Trelawney tomorrow …
  

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28 September 2015, Pollaywn (White Acres)

Regular readers of this blog will know that Bagger and myself are regular visitors to White Acres and we’ve lost count of how many years we’ve been going for (though it is probably somewhere between ten and twelve). During this time we’ve both fished numerous festivals, though so far they’ve all been the smaller (seventy to eighty angler), four day affairs with the 2012 Olde English Cider festival and the 2014 Garbolino Spring Classic being personal highlights. However, following a frustrating 2015 Garbolino Spring Classic (where every peg on both lakes at Twin Oaks and Trewaters were used on each day) I decided to have a go at one of the main (180 angler) festivals, so when a space became available on the 2015 Maver festival I didn’t hesitate to book on!

Draw time!!!

  
Before I knew it it was soon time for the first day draw and like all of the other 35 anglers in the queue for A section I was looking for a nice bunghole to get my festival off to a flying start – so peg 2 on Pollawyn really wasn’t the match winning peg I was looking for!!! (The draw for the 180 peg festivals are held in the clubhouse near to the entrance of the White Acres site and there are 5 separate draw queues (one for each section/rotation, which themselves are drawn on the Friday before the festival and published on the White Acres website) – the main point to note is that the whole process is very efficient and well organised.)

Pollawyn pegging

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube) 

  
Pollawyn (sometimes known as the Match Lake) is an unusually shaped venue formed from a main oval section with a central island, with 3 relatively narrow arms (each with their own island) attached to the oval section – take a look at the photo above (or better still have a view on Google Earth) and hopefully you’ll see what I mean!!!

The view to the right

Peg 2 is down one such arm and whilst there can be red letter days when some carp do move into the arms they generally favour the High Bank and/or the more open water pegs (sub-section C), meaning a match on a peg down one of the arms will often be a scratching affair with roach, rudd, perch and (to a certain extent) skimmers being the main targets.

Softly, softly ...

  
With this is mind I set-up rigs accordingly: a 10’ tip rod with a 24g Guru X-Safe mini hybrid feeder and a 10cm hooklength of 0.22 N-Gauge to a 14 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band (heavy gear I know, but on the very slim chance that I did hook a carp it would be a huge bonus and I really wanted to get it out); a 4x14 Chianti on 0.13 into an 0.10 trace and a size 18 Tubertini 808 for fishing 6mm meat on a top kit plus 2 for skimmers; a 0.3g SconeZone v8 on 0.15 into 0.13 and a size 18 LWG (spade-end) for fishing next to some brambles on my right hand margin for big perch; and finally a scratching (catch all) rig consisting of a 4x10 Chianti on 0.13 into 0.10 and a size 20 808 with yellow Hydro for fishing on the drop at either top kit or top kit plus 1 along the left hand margin for anything that would take a maggot!

The Guru hybrid feeder

   
On the whistle I started on the hybrid feeder to the island and after 2 fruitless casts I already knew I was highly unlikely to see a carp all day as deep down inside I thought that my best chance was to effectively mug one at the very start of the match – or to not get one at all as it was unlikely that a carp would move from the main bowl into my peg once that match had started (given the pressure that 36 anglers would place on the venue).
   

All the gear ...

  
As a result I was soon I feeding my right margin with chopped worm, picking-up my scratching rig and feeding maggots to the left with a view to building a weight of silver fish – to cut a long story short I followed this pattern for the rest of the day to end-up with exactly 15lb of perch and the odd roach. (I didn’t catch anything on the hybrid feeder or at top kit plus 2 on 6mm meat, all fish fell to either the scratching rig or to the sturdier margin rig with worms.)

Light, but balanced

  
I was fairly pleased with this weight as the narrow pegs on Pollawyn can be notoriously hard – however, this was only good enough for 4 points (out of nine) as I was beaten by most of the pegs in my sub-section on the other side of the island, plus I was beaten by the angler on peg 1 who landed a 6lb carp on the whistle to do me by 2lb!!! Anyway at least I wasn’t miles behind and last in section (I’m currently 115th out of 180 overall at the moment) – plus of course there are still 4 days to go with a nice day on either Trewaters or Jenny’s to look forward to tomorrow …
  

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