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!!!
Well it was our last visit to Willinghurst for a while today - two non-fishing weekends followed by two weeks at White Acres means we won't be back until October. Luckily things went well and after endless 'one out of the monies' I finally managed to sneak into the frame with a third place from peg 8 on John's Lake.
This lake has been fishing really well lately with Luke Sheriff setting a new record with 199lb earlier in the week. My draw saw me on peg 8 a pretty standard pitch with one exception - apparently during the week Paul 'Tippy' Taylor had done some serious gardening, making peg 7's platform nicely accessible with 11.5m of pole. In all fairness peg 7 was solid - I saw loads of fish in front of the platform before the match had even started!!! In the end I managed one small (1lb) carp on the short pole and the rest from peg 7's platform to finish with a nice 130-2-0.
Another trip to Willinghurst today - due to club bookings the open match was limited to New Lake and Pittance Lake so having never even seen Pittance I was hoping for a draw on New Lake (I know what I like and I like what I know and all that). As a result I drew on Pittance - peg 16 (normally a good omen), a nice looking end peg with a nice corner to chuck into and with the wind blowing in there too I was confident of getting a few pulls.
However it wasn't to be and I could only manage one small carp on the feeder and a succession of crayfish on the 5m line - though I can't decide if the highlight of the day was watching Kris Fields spending an hour up a tree cutting down branches or seeing Claire 'Bagger' Hollis fishing opposite Stevie Gardener and beating him 39lb to 23!!!
Another match at Willinghurst today – this time I drew peg 10 on Top Lake, the first time I’ve drawn on the main bowl of this lake. For company I had a full house of superstars – England match fishing legend Steve Gardener to my left, woman of the moment Claire ‘Bagger’ Hollis directly opposite, Gold Valley nomad Stefan Gent to Claire’s left and venue experts Jason Morgan and Ben Cooke to my right. Summer open matches at Willinghurst are six and a half hour affairs running from 1030 to 1700 and things often start slowly – however I didn’t think it would take me over three hours to catch my first fish and I didn’t think it would be a 2 ounce perch!!! (There were plenty of carp cruising through my pellet waggler line but could I get a bite? Could I heck!)
The action eventually got going after 2 o’clock – by this time I was fishing my right margin in front of a fishy looking reed bed. I hooked seven fish here – one fell-off at the net and three others ran me through those rushes, turning my 0.19 into candy floss!!! Even though there were clearly plenty of fish there I decided I really couldn’t be bothered tying a new rig every second bite so I switched to fishing to the left, occasionally to the platform at 14.5m but mainly tight to the bank at top kit plus 4. So whilst there were less fish on this side every proper bite led to a fish in the net, boosting my halfway score of 0-2-0 to 69-0-0 by the end. Ultimately that slow start really cost me as I finished-up third in section, 17lb behind Steve and 23lb behind Jason – one out of the money of course!
An interesting day at Willinghurst again today, my draw putting me on peg 22 on the back spit of Top Lake – this is quite a narrow peg (16m of pole will easily reach the far bank) and there is a bridge to the right that crosses the link between the back spit and the infamous Bung Hole. For immediate company I had venue experts Paul ‘Tippy’ Taylor on 25 and John Radford on 24 to my left, plus I had Paul Holland over my right shoulder on peg 2 in the Bung Hole, so I knew I had my work cut-out from the beginning!
I started my match by fishing to the far bank next to the bridge – things started slowly but I eventually managed a few carp on corn and meat hookbaits, though these fish were very small (less than a pound) and one of the biggest carp was actually a tench! Just as things were slowing down Don Garnish on peg 1 had his pole dragged in by a rogue carp and led to him running backwards and forwards across the bridge like a madman before jumping into Paul Holland's peg via the back of mine! Funnily enough this didn’t seem to stop Paul from catching but I didn’t have another bite for nearly 3 hours!!! Luckily the fish returned in the final hour and I added about 30lb to my score (51-0-0), leaving me just short of John (59-0-0) and Tippy (58-8-0) but miles behind Paul Holland (120lb+).
