Day two of the 2017 Milo festival at White Acres today with Pollawyn (also known as the Match Lake) being our destination. Historically this used to be one of the most consistent and prolific lakes in the country but over recent years it has become pretty tough and really rather peggy – as a result a good draw was once again the order of the day!
Fortunately luck was on my side and I managed to draw the very same peg that I drew in last year’s Milo festival – peg 48. In my opinion this is a very good peg – it may not be part of the infamous High Bank but that’s no bad thing these days! Peg 48 offers two important things – a far bank with a couple of nice looking spots within range of 14.5/16m of pole and plenty of room (there is always a spare peg to the left and three spare pegs to the right in these festivals).
Nice and cosy on the point to my left
Now that the draw time has been brought forward to 9 o’clock I had plenty of time to get ready and set-up loads of rigs to cover loads of options but in the end I only actually caught on two and these featured the same components: black Nick Gilbert Amber Core elastic, 0.17 Guru N-Gauge mainline, a 0.4g Drennan Crystal Margin float and a 10cm hooklength of 0.13 into a size 16 LWG (spade-end). (I had two rigs set-up as 14.5m straight in front against the mud was 18” deep and 16m slightly to the right in front of some rushes was nearly 2’.)
The view to the right
The match itself was quite a simple one – I wasted the first fifteen minutes dobbing along the far bank but as soon as I started feeding and fishing a spot directly in front (mushy meat in a medium Guru pole-mounted pot for feed, an inch of worm on the hook) I was into fish. Most of these fish were the immaculate 1-2lb carp that had been recently stocked, but there were some of the bigger (older) carp mixed in – towards the end I also managed a couple of 3lb barbel that were as strong as anything I’ve ever encountered and went absolutely ballistic! (When things on this line went quiet I had a look at the 16m line to the right in front of the rushes but surprisingly this area was nowhere near as good as the bare bank and I’d say I only caught 10% of my weight from here.)
Never have so many drawbags been seen in the same place at the same time!
In the end my hard work double-shipping all day got me 60-10-0 and second in section (8 points) – quite a way behind James Stones on peg 36 (78-4-0) and only just ahead of Steve Conway (peg 43, 60-0-0), but good enough for fifth overall on the lake and a cheeky default section winner’s envelope!
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