29 July 2012, Lake 1 (Monk Lakes)

Today was the annual Godalming AS match at Monk Lakes in Kent - it's a bit of a trek but it is usually well worth it as the fishing is so prolific. The weather was a real mixed bag - mainly bright sunshine combined with two really heavy downpours that made it feel more like early April than late July!!!

Excerpt from Russ Evans Commercial Barbel DVD on YouTube

(As I don't have any of my own photos from Monk Lakes I've include a link to some footage from a Russ Evans DVD filmed on Lake 2 at Monk Lakes to give an impression of the venue above.)

This time we were on Lake 1, which didn't seem as well stocked as Lake 2 or Lake 3 as the winning weight was only 41lb and I was second with 39-4-0.

Lines fished today

I think it is fair to say that I started on plan A and ended-up on plan Z, but my hard work paid-off and one more fish would've won it! Here is a summary of the methods I worked through today:

1) On the deck at 11.5m with worm over 6mm pellet (1 tiny perch)
2) Heavy rig with an 8mm pellet shallow at 11.5m (nothing)

3) Light rig with a 6mm pellet shallow at 11.5m (nothing)

4) Left margin with meat over meat and hemp (3 carp)

5) Worm over pellet at 5m (nothing)

6) Banded 8mm pellet on the deck at 5m (2 carp)

7) Straight lead with 8mm pellet at 25m (1 carp)

8) Right margin worm or dead maggot over groundbait and dead maggot (nothing)

9) Method feeder with groundbait and a fluro pop-up or 6mm pellet at 25m (8 carp)

Unfortunately I didn't set-up the method until 2 hours to go, and my pre-match intention of fishing it was so low I didn't even bring any 2mm pellets!

With hindsight Lake 1 is much less prolific that the lakes we've fished at Monk Lakes before so I should've adjusted my approach accordingly - the fish certainly didn't respond to big piles of bait and it was certainly far too windy to fish the pole at 11.5m. In addition the fact that others on the far bank weren't catching on the pole should've pushed me onto the tip much earlier - the method being a banker on most commercial venues when the weather is poor and the fishing tough.

However my hard work in swapping approaches turned a potential blow-out into a frame position - the advantage of fishing well stocked venues in the summer is that when you do get things right you are normally rewarded with a bite immediately!!!

Monk Lakes website

22 July 2012, Broadwater (Godalming AS)

Broadwater is a 10 acre lake set in a public park and is home to numerous big carp to in excess of 30lb. Summer matches on this venue always yield big winning weights, but as you are fishing for specimen carp (the average must be 12-15lb) many of the Godalming AS regulars spurn these matches as standard match gear really isn't up to the job.

Link to Broadwater section on Godalming AS website

Much of this lake is very shallow (no more than 3 feet deep) and notoriously silty - in fact as I understand it the central island was constructed from silt dredged from the lake a few years back!

Broadwater schematic



In keeping with many specimen lakes certain pegs at Broadwater have names - I was fortunate enough to draw a peg called The Point today and this is a peg that has won many matches over the years. As you've probably guessed this peg on the inside of a bend in the bank and is on the far side of the lake from the car park near to the out of bounds area.

Thanks to the way the pegs are positioned being on a point means that you normally command a larger area of water than if you are on a straight section of bank and this was true for me today as I had a large expanse of open water to the left of the central island to work in.

Strong gear and big leads

It seems to me that the carp in Broadwater move around a great deal and bites normally come after your bait has been in the water between 60 seconds and 3 minutes, with noise definitely playing a part. As a result I settled on a two pronged attack today - a straight lead line constantly fed with 8mm pellets at 25m and a PVA bag of 6mm pellets cast around the swim with a 10mm boilie. (Given the deep silt the method feeder isn't really viable as it can literally disappear into the bottom, so straight leads with 12" hooklengths are much more effective.)

At the start I could see a number of fish moving over the 25m pellet line so I stuck with this for the first 30 minutes or so - however this proved to be a big mistake as I never had a bite during this time, and as soon as I switched to the longer line dropping my PVA bag around the swim at 50-75m I was straight into fish!

In the end I had 8 or 9 carp for 117-9-0 which was only good enough for fourth place behind 150lb, 130lb and 125lb weights. All of the fish bar one fell to the PVA bag approach - however the one fish that I caught on the 25m line went 20-4-0!!!

15 July 2012, Pond 4 (MBK Coloured Ponds)

After quite a few days of rain it was nice to have a dry sunny day - this time on lakes 3 and 4 on the MBK Coloured Ponds complex in Rake, West Sussex. I drew on the far side of lake 4, one peg from the south east corner - as the lakes at Coloured Ponds are essentially rectangles with pegs on the two long banks the corner pegs really do dominate, so like everybody else I was really hoping to draw one (so near yet so far)!

Pole floats used today

As it is probably 50m from bank to bank I only set-up the pole at the start, five rigs in all:

1) On the deck at 13m with a 4x14 KC Carpa Chimp on 0.17 Reflo Power into 0.13 and a size 18 B911

2) Shallow with a 4x10 KC Carpa Shelf on 0.13 Reflo Power into 0.13 and a size 18 B911 (eyed with a pellet band)

3) On the deck at 5m with a 4x12 KC Carpa Chimp on 0.17 Reflo Power into 0.15 an a size 14 B911 (eyed)

4) Right margin with a 4x10 Preston Durafloat Plus 6 on 0.19 straight through to a size 14 Guru MWG hook

5) Left margin as number 4 above

I started with rig number 1 on the deck at 13m but could only catch tiny (2 ounce) skimmers and micro perch on chopped worm and caster, so I soon switched to rig number 2 in order to try and catch shallow with pellets at 14.5m. Despite seeing plenty of cruising carp I never had a bite on it! Next up was meat on the 5m line - with the same result!!!

Straight lead gear

As a result after 2 hours I had about 2lb in the net and was going nowhere fast so I decided to set-up a straight lead rod and started flicking 8mm pellets in groups of 4 to about 20m. This turned-out to be a great move as I caught on it steadily through to the end of the match, and with the exception of one carp caught on the pellet waggler I had the majority of my weight on it.

Meat and corn for the edge

Unfortunately despite feeding heavily to the right margin with meat & corn and to the left with 2 kilos of Sonubaits krill groundbait I had no margin munters today!

In the end my 46-10-0 was enough for second on the lake and fourth overall. Well done to Brian Stevens who every time I looked-up (he was pegged virtually opposite me) was playing a big carp hooked from his left margin and won the match by miles!

Link to MBK Leisures website

08 July 2012, Harris Lake (Marsh Farm)

After a week back at work following the Old English Cider festival at White Acres this match was a bit of an anticlimax for many reasons - despite my one tench on the method feeder and a few roach on the pole for 5-7-0 being good enough for a surprising section win in this Godalming AS club match!

29 June 2012, Trewaters (White Acres)

To cut a long story short I drew the same peg as Tuesday, only set-up two matching 30g pellet feeder rods and won the match with 60-2-0 - when you're on a roll you're on a roll!!!

28 June 2012, Acorn (White Acres)

If you’ve been reading the preceding 2 or 3 blog entries you’ll know that I started this match at the top of the leaderboard of this year’s Old English Cider festival – tied on points with Chris Haywood and Mo Brown but ahead on overall weight. I’m going to admit that as a result I was properly nervous for the first time ever about fishing a match – after all would I ever get the opportunity again to start a match knowing that all I had to do was win a five peg section to win a White Acres festival (albeit one that is not as significant as the 180 spring and autumn versions)?

Acorn*

Link to the Acorn page on White Acres website

The rotation saw my section move onto Acorn and Canal today – 2 sections and 10 anglers on each. Clint held the bag and in went my left hand (with my left foot off the ground) – well it had worked all week so why risk not doing it again? Out came Acorn peg 11 – I was happy with this as I’d fished Acorn in numerous pleasure sessions over the years and had in fact fished the very same peg in a Rover during a week Bagger and myself had had at the end of May. (That day I weighed 53-0-0 – the majority of which came in the first two hours down the edge.)

I’d learned a lot that day – but I knew that I’d have to catch a great deal more than 50 odd pounds to beat venue expert Ricky Lale (who was in my sub-section and sat two pegs to my left on peg 9). Past experience had shown me that catching down the edge would be crucial – however as with many venues things don’t normally kick-off properly in the margins on Acorn until the last 90 minutes or so. As a result my main line attack of initially would be tight to the central island and I once again set-up two rods with matching 30g Preston pellet feeders to fish with 8mm pop-ups or 6mm hard pellets over softened 2mm White Acres fishery pellets.

Pole floats used today



Plan B was the margin and I set-up similar rigs to yesterday – a 0.1g Mo Brown Rio for fishing under my feet and two 4x10 Preston Dura Plus 6s for fishing left and right at top kit plus one section. (All rigs were tied on 0.19 Reflo Power straight through to a size 14 Guru MWG for fishing double worm on the hook.) Pegs 9, 10 and 11 are actually quite wide and there is a reasonable amount of water between the island and the bank – as a result plan C would be the long pole shallow at 13m. I set-up two rigs with 4x10 KC Carpa Shelf floats – one a lighter version with 0.13 mainline into a hooklength of the same with a size 18 Kamasan B911, the other a heavier version with 0.17 mainline into a hooklength of 0.15 into a size 16 B911.

I started on the pellet feeder and I was into a fish no longer than 10 seconds after the hooter had blown – I could see all of the other anglers in my section and for the first three hours I’m sure I was ahead by at least 2 or 3 fish as the fish kept on coming on the pellet feeder.

At around this point the island line started to dry-up dramatically so it was time for the long pole shallow – I wasn’t sure it was going to work but after a few minutes of feeding 6mm pellets and slapping my float on the surface of the water I was soon into a few fish. In total I caught four carp and four good F1s – enough to maintain a section winning position with an hour of the festival to go.

Ricky Lale in action on Acorn from a previous year*

Unfortunately this is the point in what had been a glorious week that the wheels came off – the island line had died, the long pole shallow had dried-up and I simply could not get a bite in the margins (I’d fed a good amount of Sonubait’s Supercrush green to the left at around 1400 and I’d been frequently loose feeding 6mm pellets to my right since the same point). At times I could see good carp over both lines but for one reason or another they wouldn’t take my hookbait. Out of desperation I employed a strict 2 minute rotation between the feeder to the far side, the left margin then the right margin – but I could see Ricky bagging from his left margin and every fish he caught hammered another nail into the coffin of my attempt to secure the title!

By the time the hooter went for the ‘all out’ and Steve appeared with the scales I knew Ricky had beaten me fairly and squarely – and in all fairness no quarter had been asked for and no quarter had been given! (On reflection I was more than happy with my own performance and I couldn’t have tried any harder – I was simply beaten by a better angler on the day!)

Ricky was first to weigh and tipped 77-14-0 onto the scales – my two weighs were close but not good enough as they only pulled the needle around to 70-8-0. News soon filtered through that Chris Haywood had clinched his fourth section win in a row and hence had clinched the festival with a perfect 20 point score. Mo Brown could only produce a third in section dropping him down to a still very credible fifth allowing yours truly to take second, Ramzi King third and Andy Poole fourth.

Ramzi King, Chris Haywood and yours truly!*

The final top ten is:

1. Chris Haywood (20 points, 185-10-0)
2. Phil Morris (yours turly) (19 points, 319-17-0)
3. Ramzi King  (19 points, 145-11-0)
4. Andy Poole (19 points, 137-1-0)
5. Mo Brown (18 points, 256-14-0)
6. Ricky Lale (18 points, 214-10-0)
7. Kevin Sims (18 points, 178-13-0)
8. Les Hills (18 points, 140-10-0)
9. Will Sweeney (17 points, 200-2-0)
10. Kevin Wingfield (17 points, 175-9-0)

Link to official results from White Acres website

All-in-all I was more than pleased with my second placing – especially as I’d managed 3 sections wins, 3 lake wins and a second, plus the highest individual weight of the week prize!!! Congratulations to Chris who was a very worthy winner – and well done to the rest of the field who have no doubt already started thinking about their plan of attack for next year’s festival already (I know I have)!!!

The White Acres Team*

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Clint, Kirsty, Steve, Karl and Rob for once again organising a great festival – how anybody can even consider moaning about any element of a holiday at White Acres is beyond me! (I would thank Ricky but he was fishing the festival as opposed to running it.)

Roll on next June!!!

Why not follow me on Twitter? @philip_r_morris

*Photos courtesy of facebook and the White Acres website

27 June 2012, Twin Oaks (White Acres)

Well what can I say? Today saw my section rotated onto Twin Oaks (with 2 sections/10 anglers on each of the two lakes) – and I’ve only gone and drawn peg 16!!! (For those of you that don’t follow the results from White Acres peg 16 is the most prolific peg on the most prolific lake on one of the most prolific venues in the country!)



Twin Oaks*



Link to the Twin Oaks page on White Acres website

As you can guess from the name Twin Oaks are actually two lakes – the lake that has pegs 1-18 is often referred to as the ‘low numbers’ and the other (with pegs 19-36) as the ‘high numbers’. Both lakes are essentially 25m wide rectangles with the pegs on one side and a far margin (with overhanging foliage and typically an undercut bank) to cast to on the other. The slight exception to this is that the low numbers has a dog leg with peg 16 effectively on a point and pegs 17 and 18 at a right angle to pegs 1-15.



A very old photo of Twin Oaks pegs 16 and 17 from the far bank*



Having drawn peg 16 I can now see why it is such a good peg – the bend in the lake gives the angler on it twice as much water to fish than any other peg on the lake and it creates a large bay on the far bank where the fish seem to like to congregate on the back of the prevailing south westerly wind. Funnily enough the wind was blowing the ‘wrong’ way today – rather than blowing along the lake from peg 1 towards peg 16 it was mainly blowing the other way, though there was a strong element blowing from peg 18 into peg 16 (from right to left as I looked at it).

Pellet waggler and straight lead gear

On recent matches on Twin Oaks I’d struggled to catch on the method feeder so my initial decision was to fish with the straight lead and pellet waggler to the far bank in conjunction with 8mm pellets fed via a catapult. (My thinking was driven by the fact that these pegs are literally fished every day of the year and the fish are hammered by the method feeder they are starting to become wary of it.) The pellet waggler was a 4SSG Gold Valley model fixed in place by two double SSG weights and an extra AAA – whenever I’m fishing tight to a feature with a pellet waggler I prefer to use a heavy model so that the float doesn’t bounce back towards you when it hits the clip. Main line was 6lb Daiwa Sensor and the hook length was 0.19 Reflo Power with a size 16 Guru Pellet Waggler hook. The straight lead gear consisted of a two thirds of an ounce Guru square lead with a hook length of 0.19 into a size 14 Guru QM1. Both featured a hair rigged pellet band.

Pole rig components

In addition I set-up a rod with a 30g pellet feeder and two pole rigs – the first a 0.1g Mo Brown Rio to fish literally 6 inches from my left foot next to the concrete platform to the side of my keepnets, the second a 4x10 Preston Dura Plus 6 for tight to the bank on my left at top kit plus one section. Both rigs were on 0.19 Reflo Power straight through to a size 14 Guru MWG. (This is as heavy as I go on the pole but I was looking to catch big (8-10lb) carp on double worm over groundbait in heavily coloured water so durability really was the key!)

On the whistle I fed a large handful of 6mm pellets next to the concrete platform under my feet and started on the pellet waggler (but without feeding anything). Despite a dozen surprisingly accurate casts to the far bank I was still biteless after 10 minutes when I saw a large tail waving at me from the side of my keepnet – so I quickly picked-up my top kit with the Rio rig, attached two large dendrabenas and dropped-in next to the platform. After no less than 3 seconds I was attached to a double figure carp that was quickly tamed on Preston 15h Hollo elastic!

Pellet feeder gear



I fed some more pellets at my feet then picked-up my straight lead rod, cast to the far bank and started loose feeding 8mm pellets. However it quickly became apparent that the increasingly strong wind was going to make loose feeding via a catapult almost impossible so it was over to the pellet feeder rod with an 8mm white pop-up. This was the turning point in my match and before I could sink my line I was attached to an angry carp! This pattern continued for the best part of the next three and a half hours – I’d cast out my pellet feeder (intentionally two or three feet from the far bank as opposed to really tight to the grass) and if I was going to get a bite I’d do so as I sunk my line.

Things did eventually slow down at around 1400 – but by this point I was confident of having over a hundred pounds in the net and enough to win the section – so I went for broke and fed a good amount of Sonubait’s Supercrush green groundbait on my left hand margin line and returned to the tip to allow the swim to settle. First drop in on this margin line (double worm again) saw another double figure fish in the net and I probably caught another 5 or 6 good fish from this swim before the ‘all out’ was called.

Rob was soon ‘round with the scales and my three nets eventually went 153-9-0 – far and away my biggest match weight ever and proof (as if it was needed) that Twin Oaks 16 really is a titanic peg!!!

My catch was indeed enough for a third section and lake win in a row so I’m going into the fourth and final day of the festival at the top of the leader board and as one of the three anglers on maximum points! (The other section winners in my rotation were Dave Parkinson (85-4-0), Kevin Sims (84-0-0) and Andy Leamon (50-2-0).)

The current top five is:

1. Phil Morris (yours truly) (15 points, 249-7-0)
2. Mo Brown (15 points, 228-8-0)
3. Chris Haywood (15 points, 146-5-0)
4. Kevin Sims (14 points, 146-5-0)
5. Danny Edwards (14 points, 133-14-0)

Why not follow me on Twitter? @philip_r_morris

*Photo courtesy of White Acres facebook page