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’.
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 …
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!
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 …
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 (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 …
