He who dares Rodney, he who dares!!! Porth Reservoir today, fished for the bream all day and came last in section!!!
So that’s another White Acres festival done and dusted, unfortunately my fishing performances were generally below par but the drinking and the banter were good so who cares!!!
Right lake, nearly the right peg!!! Though it did only score 2 points yesterday ...
Peg 12 it is
Twin Oaks peg 12 today. Had a mid-match meltdown and never had a fish between 14:30 and 16:00 as I was chasing shadows trying to catch the carp I could see swirling and tailing-up over my secret deep margin line at the bottom of the marginal shelf!!!
Looking left
Other than that the first part of the match was OK as I managed a few on the hybrid feeder and the latter part of the match was OK once I started fishing the proper (tight to the bank) margin and the 5m line.
All the gear ...
I was never going to compete with pegs 16 and 18 (and the awesome Roy Penkethmen who caught 120lb from peg 8) but was disappointed that my 67lb was just four pounds behind peg 10 and five pounds behind the mighty Paul Holland on peg 4, that wasted 90 minutes really costing me!!!
4 points only I'm afraid, Porth Reservoir tomorrow ...
White Acres Maver festival day three today and Trewaters 49 was to be my home for 5 hours of fun and excitement ...
Nice photo of a tree
I started the match by fishing the secret deep margin rig at top kit plus 1 to the right in 3 feet of water – the float dipped under almost immediately, though after a spirited battle (lasting what seemed like a lifetime) something of a beast came off at the net!!! To say I was annoyed would be something of an understatement!!!
Looking towards the central island
A switch to the pellet feeder to the island only lasted 3 chucks so the next few hours saw me rotating between the deep margin and a 5m line, potting few 6mm pellets as I went. This was fairly productive and I caught steadily, often getting one when returning to a rested swim.
The corner to the left
Towards the end I fed the left margin (at TK + 1) with micros/riddled meat then maggots but could only generate a poor response (lost a small carp, landed odd skimmer) so I switched to fishing the deep margin rig at 11.5m into the corner – this got me a few more carp but I then lost a foul-hooker which seemed to upset things somewhat. I eventually went right under the bush in the corner at 13m with 15 minutes to go – I caught 3 carp doing this but I also lost 2 rigs in the gorse!!!
60lb on the nose for fourth in section and six points was the result – ohh and I beat Steve Sanders off the next peg so that was nice!
Today was day two of the 2016 Maver festival and after yesterday’s good start I was looking for another flyer in order to keep the momentum going. Being drawn into E section for this festival meant that I’d be staying onsite today as I’d be fishing Pollawyn – over recent seasons the fishing on this lake seems to have gotten trickier and trickier, making that dip into the bag of dreams even more vital ...
The pegs to draw on Pollawyn normally include those on the infamous High Bank – these face onto the widest part of the lake and are typically home to the big old carp that have been swimming about in this lake since the initial stocking way back when. However my home for the day was to be peg 45 – this isn’t on the High Bank but is often considered to be something of a flyer as you can flick a swinger rig with 16m of pole and a 2m lash into the far-bank rushes, as demonstrated by Lee Edwards in the Preston Innovations Winning Pegs 6 DVD.
Looking left
So with the far-bank rushes being the obvious feature this formed the basis of my pre-match attack, the rig in question being mounted on a black Hydrolastic top kit and consisting of 0.17 Guru N-Gauge mainline, a 0.6g Drennan Inline Crystal Dibber and a 15cm hooklength of 0.13 into a size 16 Guru LWG hook with a hair-rigged pellet band. As a back-up I also set-up a rig for fishing for perch and other silverfish along the left-hand margin, as well as a rig for catching anything and everything at top kit plus two sections slightly to the right.
Looking right
Unfortunately the match itself didn’t really go to plan! I spent a great deal of the match (far too long in hindsight) flicking my rig towards the far-bank rushes, only hooking 6 carp and only managing to land 3. (I did however manage to hook the rushes many, many times and I did manage to get through loads and loads of hooklengths!) When I finally got around to trying my other lines I couldn’t buy a bite from the left-hand margin (even on single maggot) and the 5m line only produced a few perch and barbel (I have a sneaky feeling that there aren’t as many skimmers in this lake as there used to be).
Cosy!
In the end my 3 carp and associated bits and bobs went 19-0-0, only good enough for 4 points (sixth in section). This means that I’ve dropped from twenty-fourth to sixtieth and looking for a better result tomorrow on Jenny’s Lake or Trewaters!
So after a nice sunny day at Boligney on Friday it was back to the same venue today for the first day of the five day 2016 Maver festival, though unfortunately the weather was somewhat different! Whilst Friday was a lovely warm, sunny day the weather forecast for today was basically for rain all day and unfortunately on this occasion Michael Fish’s prediction was 100% correct!!!
Roll-up, roll-up!
However, just like Friday I did manage to draw another good peg, this time number 10 – this is also on the back lake but is on the narrower, left-hand side, next door to peg 11 where Claire ‘Bagger’ Hollis smashed-out a section winning 130lb in the Milo festival back in May.
Tom Cole next door on 11
I started with a small feeder to the island (same gear as Friday) again and despite a late switch to the bomb and bread I finished the first hour fishless and biteless – not the flying start to the festival I was hoping for! There must’ve been fish in the area as Tom Cole next door on peg 11 was picking-off the odd fish on the bomb and bread, but concluding that either I wasn’t doing it right or that the fish were happier around the point of the island in front of Tom a switch to the pole was in order. (Funnily enough Tom and I drew next to each other in last year’s Maver festival on Bolingey, Tom sitting on 10 with myself on 11.)
Not much sun today!
I started on the 5m (top kit plus two) line and had a feeling it was going to be tricky as it was over 8’ deep here, a depth that in my experience makes foul-hookers all too common. This turned-out to be the case as I hooked 4 carp here but only landed 2, neither of which had the hook in the right place! However a line at the top of the near shelf in about 3’ was much better – in total I landed 5 good fish (including one of 16lb that looked much bigger) from this spot and only lost 2, neither of which felt obviously foul-hooked.
The right-hand margin
The rest of my catch came from the right-hand margin – as I was fishing at Bolingey it seemed rude not to fish the margins at some point, though in fairness I probably caught more from the 3’ line. In the end my fished weighed 105-11-0 putting me second in section and a mighty twenty-fourth out of 180 heading into day two …
I’m sure we’d all agree that at times match fishing can be a frustrating mistress. There are days when you draw the only peg in the bag with no chance whatsoever of doing any good. Then there are the days when it is cold and wet or there is the tail-end of a hurricane wreaking havoc across the country, breaking pole sections for fun. And then of course there are the days when we get our tactics wrong, turning a pre-match flyer to dust! However every now and again everything comes together and suddenly everything is right with the world …
So with it being a Friday at White Acres it could mean it was time for only one thing – Bolingey o’clock! Things started well with the best bacon roll in Cornwall and a dolly of a draw in peg 18, a cracking looking peg on the far side of the back lake with the point of the central island directly in front at about 25m and a superb looking margin to the left, with what I can only describe as a ‘pointy out bit of banking’ at about top kit plus 3.
Nice day for it
The first two hours of the match were fairly steady with approximately 45lb of small carp falling to a small feeder cast to the island – as all legering devices at Bolingey need to be totally free running the rig itself consisted of a 24g mini Guru hybrid feeder on 8lb Daiwa Sensor stopped by a Drennan quick change bead. The hooklength was made-up of 10cm of 0.19 Guru N-Gauge with a size 14 QM1 and an 8mm hair – just right for a slightly trimmed-down piece of 8mm wafter. (The feeder itself was loaded with soaked White Acres 2mm pellets with a little Mainline Cell liquid for added stickiness.)
When a bite came it would come within a few seconds of the feeder landing, leaving the feeder in the water for any length of time literally being a complete waste of time. Bites came at fairly regular intervals from the start until about 2 o’clock – right up until the point I was thinking that things were going pretty well, when like a switch the fish seemed to completely disappear and I couldn’t buy a bite on feeder, bomb or waggler for the next hour!!!
The lovely looking left margin
Slightly earlier than I’d intended it was by now 3 o’clock and time to attack the margin – as soon as I did I wished I’d done so earlier as it was solid! The fish weren’t massive (6-10lb) but there were plenty of them and they were well up for a munch with about 90lb of them gracing my net before the all-out was called at 5 o’clock.
Rude not to!
In the end my three nets went 135-12-0, good enough for third overall (in all fairness only a mere ten ounces ahead of fourth), but agonisingly close to first and second (148lb and 146lb), that wasted hour between 2 and 3pm really costing me. Anyway Monday is the first day of the Maver festival and we are back on Bolingey so I will be looking for another dolly of a draw and a section or lake win – if only it was that easy!!!
Yet another White Acres Thursday rover match today and with a hundred plus on it a low (or really high) draw and good peg selection would be as essential as ever. My plan was to get on the low numbered Twin Oaks, as close to 16 as possible - thanks to an average draw (29, so not really low and not really high) and pleasure anglers taking the best pegs I could only go as high as peg 6, not the best peg in the world but not a bad choice as come three thirty the winner would come from peg 5!!!
Ignoring the lessons learned from Monday I started on the feeder to the far bank and failed to catch anything until I switched to the waggler and somehow hooked a lone carp that took pity on me – as mentioned above the angler on peg 5 to my left would go on to win the match and he caught steadily on the feeder from beginning to end to secure victory with 78lb. Having discussed matters after the match the difference between our pegs was obvious – peg 5 had some nice tufts of grass lining the far margin whereas peg 6 just had bare banking. We concluded that the grass itself wasn’t holding the fish, but rather the grass was holding-up the bank giving a reasonable depth tight over whereas my bare bank had basically collapsed giving no depth (and no carp) whatsoever!
Looking left
A switch to the short pole lead to something best described by one word: ‘carnage’!!! The first five fish hooked all came off, presumably foul-hooked due to the wrong feeding pattern or poor presentation (or both). (Personally I find this terribly annoying, I’d much rather not hook anything than have to suffer that sinking feeling when you know you’re going to lose one.) I did though eventually manage to land an F1 and two double-figure carp, one of the carp being firmly hooked in the tail!!!
Looking right
Just as things got going a cormorant arrived and swam up and down right in front of me and the two pleasure anglers to my right packed-up, making loads of noise in the process – happy days! Having learned something from Monday I decided not to fish the normal margin today as it plumbed-up all wrong – instead I fished a secret 2.5' line 5-6' from the bank, catching two further lumps giving me a total of six fish for 45-0-0, 16th overall and only 10lb short of the frame, those lost fish (nearly 50%) really costing me a decent result as a 100% bite-to-fish ratio may have been enough – if only it was that easy!!!
Today was the first match of our third visit to White Acres this year – this time we’ll be staying for two weeks, the first being more of a holiday week before moving on to the Maver festival next Monday. Today’s match was one of the regular Monday residents’ matches with the anglers spread across Twin Oaks, Acorn, Canal and Trelawney – like most people in the queue for the draw I was hoping to see Twin Oaks 16 in the palm of my hand, and I thought I had when Twin Oaks 11 flashed before my eyes!
So I was on the right lake but as most of you will know the pegs around the famous number 16 on the low numbered Twin Oaks tend to dominate with the early pegs only really being any good if the wind is blasting the wrong way (i.e. from the right into peg 1). Putting that to one side there was still a lot of play for as I was in a section with the other pegs in the middle of the lake (importantly not 14-18) and today would prove a good practice for next week’s Maver festival should I draw on this lake again.
Spot the seagull
As per usual I seemed to have next to no time to set-up (the 90 minutes between draw and all-in on these matches seems minuscule when compared to the two and a half hours you get on the festivals) and by ten thirty I only had a single tip rod ready so I started on that! Unfortunately by midday I’d only managed three carp (two on the method feeder and one on the straight lead) so it was time to get off my arse and set-up a pole rig for the 5m line and another for the right-hand margin.
All the gear ..
The margin line proved to be something of a waste of time (literally) as despite seeing lot of swirls over my riddled meat and micros I never had a bite from a carp – perhaps it was too shallow (12"), too early in the day or the topography wasn't right (there was a massive undercut and as the platforms are set back it was hard to get tight to the bank) – but luckily the 5m line proved to be pretty decent as I caught the balance of my 60-10-0 from this approach, just enough to secure a fortunate section win by a couple of pounds. As it turned-out I only needed another 17lb to make the frame and with hindsight not wasting half of my match on the feeder/margins and focussing solely on the 5m line would probably have got me to 100lb plus – if only it was as easy as that!!!
