22 May 2015, Bolingey (White Acres)

Being just a four day festival, the Garbolino Spring Classic leaves the Friday free and that can only mean one thing – Bolingey!!!

  

All the gear ...

  

Today’s weather was a combination of thick mist and fog – not ideal, but at least that cold north-easterly wind has dropped at last!

  

Peg 11 today!

  

 

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

   

My draw saw me on peg 11 – a nice peg on the lake at the rear of the venue with a nice chuck to one of the points of the central island. As a result a pellet feeder up to the far margin would be my main focus and given the size of the fish in this venue I’d definitely be using my heavier hooklengths of 10cm of 0.22 Guru N-Gauge into a size 14 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band. 6mm White Acres pellets would be the main hookbaits, though in fact these are somewhere between a standard 6mm and a standard 8mm – something like a 7mm I guess you could say! As well as the pellet feeder I also geared-up a straight lead rig for fishing into open water at 20-25m slightly to the left and a margin pole rig for fishing towards the vacant peg 12 next door.

 

Off to a good start on the pellet feeder

   

My match started well and at the end of the first hour I’d clicked-up to 33lb of pellet feeder caught carp. The second hour was somewhat slower with nothing on the pellet feeder – however lots of fizzing on my 20-25m line saw me try the bomb. This failed to produce any bites, but a hastily assembled waggler (fished at mid-depth) saw me snare a big F1 and a 4lb carp to move my total along to about 39lb.

  

Looking across to pegs 25 & 26

  

The third hour was spent mainly on the pellet feeder and sport was reasonable with 2 good carp and an F1 making their way to the net. Hour 4 was also OK with 3 more carp on the pellet feeder moving me on to about seventy pounds going into that all important final hour.

  

The vacant platform of peg 12

  

This season has seen a significant change in the rules at Bolingey – basically you are now no longer allowed to use one of my most productive tactics, groundbait down the edge!!! As a result I had to replace my usual edge mix with micro pellets and dead red maggots, but to cut a long story short I didn’t manage a single bite from the margins – I’m not sure if this was down to my choice of feed or whether the fish just didn’t fancy the area I was in, but those along the far side of the lake to my left all bagged-up from their margins in the final hour!

  

Back on the pellet feeder

  

Unfortunately I could only manage 2 carp on the pellet feeder to the island in the final 60 minutes, giving me a total of 84-7-0, a decent enough bag but just behind a string of low to mid 90lb weights to my left, that final hour having really cost me at the final reckoning.

  

The all important pay-out

  

In the end there were a handful of 100lb weights, though nothing over 120lb. Well done to good friends Mike Halstead for coming second overall and Jon Cook for beating me off the next peg to win the section.

  

Until next time …

  

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21 May 2015, Trewaters (White Acres)

So in the blink of an eye it's soon onto the final day of the 2015 Garbolino Spring Classic festival at White Acres, the top lake at Trewaters being my home for the day.

  

All the usual pre-match excitement!!!

  

Today's dip into the bag of dreams provided peg 33 - a swim facing one of the points of the central island, effectively in the corner of the lake formed by the causeway (between the top and bottom lakes) and far banks of the pond.

  

Looking beyond the point of the island

  

  

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  

This peg does provide a long margin to the right - however (rightly or wrongly) I initially chose to ignore it today as a close inspection revealed fairly clear water and lots of Canadian pond weed/bull rushes so I decided to focus on the pellet feeder to the island, especially as peg 34 won the lake yesterday with seventy plus pounds on that tactic.

  

All the gear ...

   

As a result setting-up didn't take long as I just rigged-up one tip rod with the usual 8lb Daiwa Sensor mainline, 30g small Preston pellet feeder, 0.22 bottom and a size 16 QM1 with a hair-rigged pellet band.

  

A rare sight!

  

The match started slowly with just one small carp, one F1 and 2 four ounce blades for about 4 pounds after the hour mark. With nothing to lose I stepped-down my hooklength slightly to 0.19 (not something I like doing on any carp venue) - this did see 2 F1s hooked, but both fell-off on the retrieve so I decided to swap to a 24g Guru X-Safe pellet feeder (the elasticated version that is now allowed at White Acres) and put an F1 in the bag first chuck!

  

The long margin to the right

  

This however was a false dawn and a couple of chucks on the feeder along the margin past the rushes led to a couple of pulls but only two more lost F1s due to the weed.

  

Looking down the lake to the left

  

Luckily things did pick-up in the second half of the match with a total of 10 carp of various sizes falling to the pellet feeder to the island. As a result I managed to put 36-8-0 on the scales - beaten fairly and squarely by peg 34's 50 odd pounds, but only just behind peg 35's 41lb for third in section, somehow giving me a £20 pick-up for a double default section win!

  

The first pick-up of the week!

  

Today's result saw me finish the festival with a total of 13 points and 106-8-0 in weight - a very disappointing 40th out of 72 and a world away from last year's podium finish. However congratulations must go to this year's top three who all finished on 23 points and had to be divided by total weight - Harry Billing coming-out top again followed by Reece Hearn and good friend Danny Edwards.

  

Your top three

  

Final top 10 overall:

1. Harry Billing, 23 points, 275-14-0
2. Reece Hearn, 23 points, 241-4-0
3. Danny Edwards, 23 points, 207-8-0
4. Steve Evans, 22 points, 208-2-0
5. Matt Bunting, 22 points, 176-4-0
6. Roy Penkethman, 21 points, 359-3-0
7. Adam Playford, 21 points, 185-12-0
8. Mick Kinton, 20 points, 195-9-0
9. Simon Gould, 20 points, 188-4-0
10. Mike Halstead, 20 points, 185-15-0

So the festival is over but there is still one more match to go - c'mon Bolingey!

  

Until tomorrow ...

  

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20 May 2015, Twin Oaks (White Acres)

Regular readers will know that my recent drawing form on the lower numbered Twin Oaks has been rather good - so good in fact that my two most recent visits to this lake have seen me on the 'best peg in the country' (16 of course)!!! Therefore when peg 6 stuck to my mitt it just about summed-up how my week has been going!!!

   

Make or break time

   

In all fairness peg 6 is a good draw in this festival as it is part of a section that covers 1-6, so I'd effectively be fishing a different match to those in the big weight section (13-18).

   

Lights, camera, action!

    

   

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

   

As I knew I'd be fishing for somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds for good section points (not that this really matters after yesterday) I decided to cover a few options, namely: my usual pellet feeder rod for tight over to the far margin; 3 rigs for the long pole shallow (2 jiggas and a swinger); a rig for skimmers at top kit plus two (0.15 mainline, 4x14 KC Carpa Force, 0.13 hooklength, size 16 LWG, bulk and one dropper, blue Hydro); and a margin rig just in case some munters turned-up under my feet.

   

Looking left towards peg 1

   

On the whistle I had two minutes dobbing about on my margin rig looking for an early mug fish - as per usual this tactic failed so I was soon onto the pellet feeder and into a 10 ounce roach (!) and a 3lb carp before this line died on the third cast!

   

In for a penny, ...

   

This saw a switch to the 5m line and after feeding six balls of Old Ghost Green Alga I managed to winkle-out two nice skimmers on dead maggots leaving me on 7lb after the first hour - hardly flying but better than yesterday!

   

A skimmer from the 5m line

   

The second hour however was pretty slow with just one or two skimmers from the 5m line, though I did spend a fruitless 30 minutes on the long pole shallow trying to get into some F1s - this was rather disappointing as I'd hoped this would've been a productive tactic now that the wind had finally died-off. The third hour was OK with a decent F1 out of the blue on the pellet feeder and four reasonable skimmers on the pole at 5m moving me on to 18 pounds or so.

   

The view to the right

   

Unfortunately the next hour and fifty minutes were a disaster with nothing but 3 of the world's smallest roach going into the net - the 5m line basically died and I spent a lot of time fishing into the deeper water this side of the bottom of the far shelf into 'no man's land' (so-called by Simon Gould who caught a lot of fish on this line yesterday from peg 12). Part of the problem was that I hooked and eventually lost a very, very big fish on this line first cast, so I stuck on it longer that I should have - having said that I think this could be a very useful tactic to explore in the future as basically nobody seems to fish beyond 14.5m from the near bank or further than 2m from the far bank, leaving a massive safe zone in between!

   

Back on the pellet feeder

   

Luckily the final ten minutes saw two pulls and two good carp tight over on the pellet feeder, giving me a reasonable 29-0-0 - a reasonable weight until peg 1 weighed in 50-8-0 and I was then proceeded to be beaten by 32-13-0, 31-8-0 and 30-0-0, only managing to beat 28-6-0 for 2 points once again!

   

Bagger on the high numbered Twin Oaks

   

Overall top 10 after day 3:

1. Roy Penkethman, 17 points, 326-13-0
2. Harry Billing, 17 points, 221-12-0
3. Reece Hearn, 17 points, 162-10-0
4. Danny Edwards, 17 points, 161-6-0
5. Adam Playford, 17 points, 155-11-0
6. Matt Bunting, 17 points, 139-2-0
7. Steve Evans, 16 points, 153-7-0
8. Mike Halstead, 16 points, 143-13-0
9. Ricky Dennis, 16 points, 127-6-0
10. Simon Smith, 16 points, 112-9-0

  

So going into tomorrow's final day we have six anglers tied at the top on 17 points - whilst personally I languish in 45th place!!!

  
Until tomorrow ...

   

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19 May 2015, Trewaters (White Acres)

After yesterday's lucky escape it was off to the bottom lake at Trewaters today. Over the years I've had my fair share of success at this venue so I was hoping for a section win to move me into the top ten overall places in this year's Garbolino Spring Classic festival - how wrong could I be!!!

   

The usual pre-match excitement

   

The day started fairly well (if you exclude the soaking I received loading-up the car) when I drew peg 38 - not normally a flyer (and one that Simon Gould could only manage 15lb from yesterday) but I'd have the 'not drawn peg' to my left as 37 was left in the bag today. (Ideally this festival would've had 72 anglers, but due to last minute drop-outs there are only 70, meaning that two sections have 17 rather than 18 anglers.) I had hoped this would make a big difference as otherwise every peg was taken and I had the luxury of lots of room to my left into the bottom corner of the lake.

   

Peg 38 on the bottom lake at Trewaters

   

   

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

   

Before the start I decided to leave the pole in the bag and just set-up two identical pellet feeder rods with the same gear as yesterday - one clipped-up for fishing directly across to the island, the other for fishing further along the island towards where the angler on 37 would have been looking to cast.

   

Off to a slow start on the pellet feeder

   

Things started slowly once again - by the end of the second hour I'd only managed a 2lb F1 and two more 6 ounce samples, and I was already miles behind the chap to my right on peg 39 (Danny Mason) who had been catching fairly well on the tip from the off. Sport didn't improve through the third hour so with nothing to lose I set-up a top kit rig to fish for silvers with loose-fed maggots - this approach didn't add much to my total but at least I had the satisfaction of getting a few bites!!!

Looking along the bank to the right into the 40s

During this third hour I also set-up a margin rig for fishing tight to the bank to my left at top kit plus one - despite initially feeding with dead red maggots then several pots of my Old Ghost margin mix I could only induce a few swirls but no proper bites despite trying the line regularly until the end.

Unfortunately the feeder lines didn't come to life either and all I could muster before the end of the match were two carp out of the blue from along the island in front of peg 37 for a very disappointing 10-2-0 and fifth out of six in section, meaning I'm now down to 40th out of 72 overall and effectively now fishing open matches for the rest of the week!!!

Overall top 10 after day 2:

1. Roy Penkethman, 12 points, 174-4-0
2. Mike Halstead, 12 points, 128-0-0
3. Adam Playford, 12 points, 119-9-0
4. Andrew Salcome, 12 points, 59-6-0
5. Harry Billing, 11 points, 161-6-0
6. Kevin Howard, 11 points, 147-10-0
7. Steve Evans, 11 points, 110-4-0
8. Reece Hearn, 11 points, 105-0-0
9. Brian Loader, 11 points, 96-0-0
10. Matt Bunting, 11 points, 90-8-0

 
Until tomorrow ...
 

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18 May 2015, Twin Oaks (White Acres)

Well this year's Garbolino Spring Classic festival at White Acres has started as last year's ended - with a trip to the high numbered Twin Oaks and a right old soaking from some of Cornwall's finest liquid sunshine!!!

   

Bring me sunshine ...

   

This year I've been randomly drawn into C section and as a result my rotation will be: Twin Oaks (high numbers) today, Trewaters (bottom lake) Tuesday, Twin Oaks (low numbers) Wednesday and finally Trewaters (top lake) on Thursday. Of course all of these lakes are pretty similar (in the sense that they all have a far bank to cast to and are well stocked with carp and F1s), so I'm not sure the section rotation makes much of a difference - though looking at the list of names I at least managed to avoid the other two anglers that filled last year's frame (Harry Billing and Bradley Hancock).

   

Yes, that's my hand!

    

    

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

  

My draw today put me on peg 27 - pretty much in the middle of the lake and pretty much in the middle of my sub-section. (In this festival every peg is used on every lake (each has 18 pegs) and the Twin Oaks high numbered lake is split 19-24, 25-30 and 31-36.) A great deal of work has been performed by the White Acres fishery staff over the winter on Twin Oaks - this work was very necessary and done to help protect the badly undercut banks from collapse. However it has left the low numbered Twin Oaks (where I'll be on Wednesday) looking a little bare, though the main work on the high numbered Twin Oaks seems to have been reserved for the parallel bank to the left of peg 36.

   

The view to the left from peg 27

  

I had planned to cover the option of the long pole shallow today, but given the bitterly cold and strong left to right wind I kept most of the pole in the bag and set-up two margin rigs (both with red Hydro and SconeZone V6 0.2g floats, but one with 0.19 Guru N-Gauge straight through to a size 14 MWG hook for fishing bunches of dead red maggots and the other also on 0.19 but into an 0.17 hooklength featuring a size 16 MWG with a hair-rigged pellet band for fishing 8mm pellets), a rig for on the deck at top kit plus two (black Hydro, 0.19 mainline, 4x14 KC Carpa Force, 0.15 hooklength, size 16 LWG, hair-rigged pellet band) and my usual pellet feeder set-up consisting of 8lb Daiwa Sensor reel line, 30g small Preston Innovations pellet feeder, 10cm 0.22 hooklength, size 16 QM1 and a hair-rigged pellet band.

   

All the gear ...

   

As per usual I started my match by trying and failing to catch an early edge munter on the pole so I was soon on the pellet feeder across to the margin of the far bank - the first hour was pretty slow with just 3 F1s and a skimmer to show for my efforts, and to make matters worse two other fish (probably F1s) fell-off for no good reason at all!

   

A rare sight today

   

The second hour was even worse though - just an eight ounce skimmer on the pole (at top kit plus two on a 6mm pellet) and another lost fish on the pellet feeder. By this time I only had about 12lb - luckily three carp and a skimmer (all on the pellet feeder) in the third hour boosted me up to about 22lb after 180 minutes, hardly pulling up trees, but in touch with most in the section if somewhat behind James Wilkinson to my right on peg 26.

   

Groundbait down the edge didn't work today

   

Ultimately the final two hours were also hard work with just an F1 and two carp on the feeder and nothing in the margins - despite initially feeding little and often with pellets then looking for a big hit with dead red maggots over four cups of my Old Ghost edge mix.

   

Spot the seagull

   

In the end my fish weighed 30-14-0, miles behind James Wilkinson's 60lb plus, but just enough for second in section ahead of Dale Hancock (29-0-0), Paul Pleasant (28-2-0) and Keith Vaughan (24-4-0) - talk about close weights!!! As a result I'm 23rd out of 72 after day one (but with the same points as 14th) so it's all to play for going into day two.

  

Gratuitous (self taken) action shot

   

Overall top 10 after day 1:

1. Nick Willis, 6 points, 132-0-0
2. Roy Penkethman, 6 points, 109-2-0
3. Claire Hollis, 6 points, 61-2-0
4. James Wilkinson, 6 points, 60-10-0
5. Brian Loader, 6 points, 59-8-0
6. Danny Edwards, 6 points, 57-4-0
7. Steve Evans, 6 points, 55-6-0
8. Adam Playford, 6 points, 51-2-0
9. Mike Halstead, 6 points, 48-6-0
10. Steven Bee, 6 points, 42-6-0

   

Well done to our own Claire 'Bagger' Hollis - currently third overall after a first day section win from Twin Oaks 12!!!

   

Until tomorrow ...

   

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04 May 2015, Syndicate Lake (Gold Valley)

Today was my final opportunity to fish until heading-off to White Acres for the 2015 Garbolino Spring Classic in twelve days time - so where better to challenge my brittle confidence than a bank holiday open match at Gold Valley against the likes of Paul Holland, Perry Stone and Tommy Hiller?

  

All the gear ...

  

Gold Valley is no doubt one of the top match venues in the south of England (you can tell this from the numbers of anglers attending the matches run five times each week) - however it does have it's idiosyncrasies, the main one being the close proximity of one peg to the next and the insistence on not pegging matches so that each anger has a decent amount of room (by using every other peg or peg one, miss one).

Looking right from 109

 

 

The View from my Peg (YouTube)

   

Today's dip into the bag of dreams threw-up peg 109, a swim pretty much in the middle of the near side of Syndicate Lake. Like most of the pegs at Gold Valley, 109 is quite featureless - there is a dividing rope at about 40 yards but other than that it is simply open water. For company I had one of the co-inventors of Hydrolastic (Mickey Hughes) to my left and multi Fish'O'Mania and Maver Mega Match This finalist to my right.

A first chance to use the pellet waggler this year

      

Prior to the all-in I put together three set-ups: a 6g Preston Innovations loaded pellet waggler on 6lb Daiwa Sensor main line to a 25cm hooklength of 0.19 N-Gauge to a size 16 MWG and a hair-rigged pellet band; a tip rod for swapping between a 24g Guru pellet feeder and a one ounce Guru in-line lead; and a pole rig for fishing on the deck at 5m that I didn't actually pick-up during the match so I won't bother describing!

The view to the left

       

I started my match on the straight lead at 25m with loose fed 8mm pellets and by the end of the first 5 minutes I was already 15lb behind as Perry Stone snared a munter first cast on the pellet waggler - which took a detour through both mine and Mickey's pegs!!!

  

Despite this initial excitement the fishing turned-out to be pretty tough for most - Perry continued to pick-up the odd fish on the pellet waggler and bomb, but after 4 hours I'd only managed two below average sized carp and a skimmer - personally I was going nowhere fast!

PVA bags didn't work for me today

       

With hindsight, during the first 4 hours I'd been fishing quite crudely - relatively heavy leads (one ounce) and thick lines (0.22 N-Gauge hooklengths), plus pretty noisey pellet wagglers (as good as the Preston Dura wagglers are under the right conditions). So with an hour to go I decided to scale-down my tip gear and swapped-in a much light one third of an ounce bomb and an 0.19 hooklength (as strong as 0.22 N-Gauge is it can be quite wiry, whereas the 0.19 is still strong but much more supple) and guess what? Two carp in the first two casts and two more before the end, basically doubling my haul from the first 4 hours!!!

        

The scores on the doors

     
Clearly this late burst was never going to do be enough to do any damage to the leaderboard, but at least I'd been able to keep pace with Perry in the final hour and managed to put a face saving 42lb onto the scales.
      

Top 3 overall:

1. L Vallance, 106-0-0
2. T Moretti, 94-8-0
3. P Stone, 89-0-0

(At this stage it is worth noting that Malcolm Bond should've won this match, but he was disqualified for falling foul of the script keepnet limits involved at Gold Valley - though that limit is a very generous 80lb!!!)
   

Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

  
Conclusions: once again an interesting match where a learned a fair bit, mainly that it might be a little early in the year yet for super crude hauling tactics! It also drove home the value of being in tune with a venue (as the Gold Valley regulars are) - ultimately I've convinced myself that I could compete at Gold Valley, but I'd need to take-up residence before I can expect any brown envelopes!!!

  

Until next time ...

  

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