Sunday 30 March 2014

Bait Tech Festival 2014, Whiteacres.



It hardly seems like a year since I last loaded up the car and headed off to Cornwall, to chance my arm at the Bait Tech festival.  After the weather last year, I’m glad I now have a van to chuck all the wet, soggy gear in. We upgraded to a lodge again this year, much more room, but I think that Whiteacres have cottoned on to the upgrades being more frequently used, as it was another £80 on top of last year’s upgrade cost.
The weather wasn’t the best when we arrived, so after a look round the lakes we retired to the warmth of the bar to discuss tactics and catch up with a few folk we hadn’t seen for 12 months.

Sunday dawned and I was determined to get out on the bank, unless the weather was a raging storm, we plumped for Trewaters and fished 4 pegs in a line on the top lake, all trying out different baits and methods.  I caught initially on bread across to the island on a bomb, but this didn’t last long.  Meat down the track at about 6 or 7m produced F1’s, but no matter how I altered the shotting or the way I put the rig in, I couldn’t hit more than 1 in 5 bites from them.

I had also been feeding maggot short and caught skimmers, decent roach and F1’s on this line, the F1’s were easier to catch on maggot. Harry  Billing came for a walk round and was heartened to see the float going under so many times, I’m sure he knew how to increase that 1in5 bites hit ratio.

Going into the draw saw me in the ‘section of death’ with Des Shipp, Alan Scotthorne, Sandra Scotthorne, Lee Kerry, Jason Lebosquet and many more top quality anglers.

Day One and Monday’s home was peg 27 on Pollawyn, I draw I couldn’t complain about, except that just about everyone confirmed it was the wrong day to draw it, strong winds and persistent heavy rain coming at me through the gap in the island and having Alan Scotthorne on the next peg didn’t help.  I set up a straight lead to fish bread to the island, I rather optimistically set up a waggler to fish to the island and 3 pole rigs, one for the margin, one to fish meat at 8m (8m was the most pole anyone one on the high bank had out of their holdall, the wind was just to strong) and another for caster at 5m.

I had what was a dream start, I had two fish for 18lb in the net in the first 20 minutes, these came on the popped up bread, with the odd liner giving me hope that there were a few sat out there. I then had an F1 and a small Barbel which signalled the end of the bites and liners.  The match turned from a dream into a nightmare, as whatever I did, failed to produce a bite, or on the meat line meant waiting 20 minutes or more for a bite, which resulted in a palm sized skimmer.  No point in catching three of them an hour, so back onto the lead and I managed a couple more carp on punched meat, ending the day with 40.06 for a dismal last but one in section, only beating the angler immediately to my left.  Alan Scotthorne had made his meat line work, not catching at a fantastic rate, but he landed some better fish, weighing 67lb – that’s why I’m not a 5 times world champion…….

Day Two and it was to be Jenny’s or Trewaters , having had a few fish on Sunday, I quite fancied Trewaters, so obviously drew Jenny’s  - peg 2.  Only one ‘star’ name in the section today, Phil Ringer, even so, not an easy task.  I was advised to set up a waggler and that the island was too shallow to catch consistently, but I did set up a lead for bread.  Pole rigs for meat at 5m, caster and groundbait topkit or topkit+1 and a rig to fish at 14m – bait to be decided as the match progressed.  Once again the bread proved a worthwhile opener, just giving it 15 minutes put a 3lb carp and a 1lbish F1 in the net straight away.  The meat line was very slow with just the odd crucian to show for my efforts, so a look on the short line with groundbait and caster was necessary, this was producing skimmers, crucians and F1’s, not as fast as I’d like, but no one that I could see was really bagging. 

 That soon changed as Phil Ringer switched from a groundbait feeder to a meat feeder and was soon catching F1’s and the odd carp at a decent rate. This prompted me to try a meat feeder to the left of the island, but all that did was waste half an hour, as it didn’t produce a fish.  Phil was catching tight to the aerator post, if he did have a wayward cast (a rare sight….) he didn’t get a bite.  So for me it was back on the short line and increasing the groundbait fed brought a decent run of fish, with the line getting stronger and stronger towards the end.  My decision to go on the feeder cost me a point and a section pick up by default, as Phil won the lake with 76lb, Vince Brown was second in the section with 57lb and I weighed just under 53lb for 3rd in section, an extra half hour on the short line would have seen me nick that point from Vince.

 Day Three,  Twin Oaks and Trelawny, Twin Oaks always seem to win the lake money, so I get peg 20 on Trelawny.  It’s a narrow peg with the island easily reachable with 14.5m, so my first rig set up was a short MW float to fish up the shelf and I spent some considerable time plumbing that line to try and find a flat area to fish.  Next was a rig for meat at 6m, then a margin rig and finally one to fish worm and groundbait at topkit or topkit+1.   As there was loads of time, I set up a waggler to have a cast around the peg and down towards the end bank to see if there were any shelves of deep areas and finally, as it had been a good starting point the other two days, straight lead for bread.

The bread/lead didn’t produce a bite anywhere in the peg, Lee Kerry was on the next peg (22)and he was trying the same tactic, also without any success.   The island seemed to be the obvious place to catch, in about 18”-2’ of water, but on meat or caster the only bites I could get were from roach.  By now Lee had told me there were carp being caught round the corner from us along the pegs 24-32 and he feared that there were no carp in the area we were in.  By now I was on the groundbait short and catching skimmers up to 2lb, but the problem was there were so many skimmers there, that I was foul hooking and losing fish, cutting back on the groundbait meant I waited longer for a bite, but a least I wasn’t foul hooking them.  Something tore off after I lifted into it, it felt like a decent fish, I played it for a few minutes before it became a dead weight and a large sunken branch surfaced, what ever it was had managed to transfer the hook into this unseen snag.

During the day I pulled a few more branches and large twigs from the peg, I guess they end up in the narrow bit before becoming water logged and sinking.  About ¾ of an hour after losing the fish, I hooked another, this one made it into the net, a Barbel of around 3lb, judging by the fight, I think this is what I lost.  I then managed to lose a bream which I put at 4-5lb, hook pulled as it surfaced and opened its mouth.  I did manage one carp taken on virtually the last put in of the day, but whilst I had been pushing if not beating Lee into the last half an hour, he managed 5 carp down the edge, (back towards 24) which gave him a weigh of 42lb and a carp weigh of 46 for 88lb.  My hard won 52lb of which 40lb was skimmers was only enough for 4th in section, as the F1’s and carp had fed on the pegs round the corner.

Day Four, Porth.  I had been regaled with tales of nets of roach from Porth, but the daily results sheets showed just how hard it was fishing, with blanks and ounces appearing on them.  I decided that my pole was staying in the lodge, two feeder rods were the order of the day, as the best way for me to beat the quality field was fish a tidy match on the feeder and hope for 3 or 4 proper pull rounds.  Speaking to Phil Ringer, that was exactly his plan too.  I was disappointed to draw peg 39, I was hoping for one in the 70’s, I drew 40 last year and it had been a hard section, getting better as you went down the section into the deeper water.
So a long trudge to my peg, the waders and platform were put to use and the feeder rods set up, a 11’ Daiwa Tournament Pro for 25 turns and a 13’ Maver Reactorlite for 55 turns.  Plenty of ground bait made up, without too much feed in it. On the all in I spent 20 minutes casting and retrieving the big feeder at 55 turns and then left it to settle whilst I had a look on the 25 turn line with the same groundbait mix and fluoro  maggot.  Nothing until ¾ of an hour in when I missed a bite (wish I had spooled up some braid) next cast I had a small skimmer, followed by two more in consecutive casts, this was a false dawn , as nothing else showed in the next 20 minutes.

I switched to the 55 turn line and with 2 hair rigged worms settled back for a wait, but a movement on the tip had me striking and missing a bite, next put in a proper pull round and the solid feel of a big slab, with my heart now racing, as not much was being caught I eased the fish in and after about 15 turns it shook its head and dislodged the hook……..  I suppose it could have been a big perch, or even  a pike, but it felt like a bream and I was pretty pissed off.

No more bites after that for ½ an hour. So back on the short line and a couple of roach and another small skimmer went into the net over the next  hour.   The guy next to me on 38 was blanking, I couldn’t see peg 40 properly, but had a feeling he was struggling,  Down on 36 I could hear Alan Scotthorne having some banter and all the feedback I could hear was that everyone was struggling.  That made my decision to abandon the 25 turn line and concentrate on the 55 turn line, this produced a skimmer and a roach to double worm, hair rigged corn didn’t bring a bite, so back onto worm.  I was feeling tired after concentrating on a tip that hadn’t moved much, when with 10 minutes to go, it pulled round again, as I reached for the handle to strike I knew it was a bream and I played it nervously to the net. With only 5 minutes left the dream of another didn’t materialise, but I thought it would be a decent weight.  As it turned out Jason Lebosquet on the section end peg 32 had 7lb of skimmers, Alan Sotthorne had 5lb 7oz and I ended up with 5lb 2oz, so an expensive lost fish.  

Day Five, Bolingey.  No need to over complicate things for this match, two baits, bread and meat. Peg 11 was staring back at me when I drew, an island chuck and in the area where the fish were the day before.  Nothing fancy nor finesse today, a lead rod with 8lb Shimano Technium to a 0,20 hook length and a 14 QM1.  A waggler rod  and 3 pole rigs complete the set up, a 6m rig for meat, a 12m rig for meat and a margin rig.

Starting on the bread saw a fish on the net second cast, but I coukd see that the fish were further along the island in front of 15, 16 and 17, I dro[[ed short into the deeper water and experimented with the height of the pop up and had a couple of fish at 4’ off bottom.  But as they weren’t there in any great numbers. I came in and had a look on the two pole lines, nothing at 12m, but the 6m line produced a fish approaching 15lb first put in.  A long wait for bites  saw another 3 fish netted from the 6m line, a look down the margin was a pointless exercise and the fish had started to come round the point of the island with 2 hours to go.  I would have fancied catching them on the waggler, but whilst the wind wasn’t overly strong, it did put a nasty L to R skim across my peg.  I shortened the bread hooklength back to 12” and caught steadily on that for the last 1 3/4 hours.  I weighed 118lb which was enough for second on the day, well behind Des who had 190lb+ on peg 39, again om meat and bread.

So, my aim was to better last year’s position and I failed, 49th, although another 2 points would have made it look a lot more respectable and the time wasted on the feeder on Jennys and my total inability to catch on the pole on 27 Pollawyn scuppered me.  Lee Kerry was good enough to show me his rigs for F1 fishing and to explain my missed bite problem was almost 100% down to feeding.

Another good week though, thanks to Lodge and fishing mates, Paul and Glen, Paul took Lodge honours coming 42nd, beating me by one point, Glen was 69th and only a couple of points behind. A few beers, some laughs and some shared frustrations at wrong or late decisions and changes. I did scoop the Gudgeon trophy though, with two on Jenny’s, one to defend next year!

Special thanks to our ‘Lodge Maid’ Chips Rafferty, breakfast cooker, washer up and all round nice guy.

Roll on next March…………

Sunday 16 March 2014

Landsend Open, Sunday 16th March 2014

I fished Ivy House on Wednesday,  Andy Lloyd and Karen are working hard up there, I think this will    become a popular venue on the open match circuit.  Sadly my day amounted to 4 bites, which resulted in 2 stockies and a 9lber.

Back to today and after being chauffered to the cafe and venue by aimiable tackle dealer Tony Rixon, there were 16 fishing so we had the Match lake and part of Lake three.  I took the first peg from the bucket and wasn't too chuffed when I saw peg 1 staring back at me, its been hard on this peg all winter and today it was one of the most wind affected pegs, which would affect presentation and my ability to get to the island which is a full 16m away.

I set up 4 rigs, one to fish meat at 5m, two rigs to fish pellet at full depth, one 0.3g and one 0.6g - hoping that one or the other would pick up any tow against the wind. Finally a rig to fish banded pellet across to the island should the conditions allow, the same rig would suffice to fish down the end bank.

I had forgotten to bring any meat so we stopped in Wedmore, more in hope than expectation that a village shop would have any, they did, Princes brand, which I discovered is very soft, if nuisance fish were a problem, I doubt if it would survive their attention very long.  Paul Elmes kindly put it through his meat cutter, to save me doing it by hand with a knife.

On the all in, I fed a couple of cubes of meat at 5m and some 4mm pellet at 11m.  Starting over the pellet with soft pellet I had an F1, then small hybrid, before the wind was making it difficult to present.  A switch to the meat line brought an instant response, with a 5lb carp , which was soon followed by another.  It was a false dawn and no more bites were forthcoming from this line.  I went down the end bank with 16m, not one of my better decicions, I had a couple of bites before the wind caught the pole, blew it into the trees that line the end bank, damaging it in two places.

With no choice but to come short again, I had a look over a caster line I'd been feeding short to my left, this was a non starter.  Trying at 10m along the end bank brought a quick burst of 4 or 5 fish on banded pellet, but this was shortlived, I'm sure the fish backed off, but I couldn't follow them without risk of more pole damage or rigs blowing ito the bankside trees.

Neither rig set up to fish the pellet picked up any trip, in fact any trip seemed to be with the wind, it seemed as if the trip was going clockwise round the islands, rather than back against the wind, so those on the opposite bank had the benefit of the trip and the lack of trip just made the presentation more difficult.

With an hour to go I wemt back over the pellet line, which I had now refed shorter at 7m to try and better presentation, that, and as always seems to happen as the match draws to a close, the wind dropped, and I had a run of fish on pellet. The last 15 minutes produced two carp, including the biggest of the day over the 5m meat line, but it was too little to late, as the venue fished extremely well and my 88.10 was not enough to feature in the frame today amd the lowest weight was 63lb, seems like the fish are waking up from their winter dormancy.

1) Martin Lenaghan 155.01 peg 21
2) Martin Rayett 131.03 peg 42
3) Tony Rixon 125.09 peg 19
4) Shaun Townsend 115.05 peg 11
5) Adrian Jeffery  113.02 peg 15
6) Chris Davis 97.03 peg 41

Silvers
1) Shaun Townsend  32.04 peg 11

Monday 3 March 2014

Viaduct Winter League, Round 4. Sunday 2nd march 2014



Guesting once more, for MFS in this well supported league.  Standing in for Fred Roberts, that somehow meant the team wanted me to take on his drawing responsibility, I did try to warn them and even posted this on MFS on 24/2 after some banter on the subject.

“In all seriousness, if you want me to do the draw, what draw will give everyone except the poor sod on Campbell a flyer, cos that’s what I’ll draw”

The poor sod on Campbell was me and my prophecy was fairly well borne out by the draw slip presented to me by Paul Greenwood after drawing.

Chris Fox – Campbell  113
Mike Walker – Cary 79
Ken Rayner – Lodge 73
Rich Wyatt – Match/Spring 3
Martin Fisher – Spring 9

I had spent all week using PMA, imagining myself sat on 115, 116, 124 or 125, I’m not convinced this PMA stuff works, as if I expect to get a shit draw I do and if I concentrate hard on a decent draw, I still get a shit one…..

So onto the fishing, it transpires that the fish have started to move around a little, as some weights have been coming from the top end of Campbell, so without being too convinced, I tackled up determined to give it a go.  For those that don’t know Campbell, 113 is set back in a small bay, putting you 8-10m behind 112 and 114, its often left out in matches, but on all the big matches, necessity sees it in the hat.  In the summer the carp do frequent the margins and will come into the bay on a meat line, this was pretty unlikely today.
The first two things set up were a waggler rod to fish caster as far as I could catapult it, then another waggler rod to fish meat past the caster and out to the middle, last rod was a 10’ Daiwa Tournament I recently bought secondhand and had yet to catch a fish on, this was set up with a straight lead and initially a 0.16 hooklength, as I feared it would be tough going.

I set up two pole rigs, one to fish caster over groundbait, but that was always going to be a real long shot, done more in extreme hope, rather than any sort of sensible plan, the other to fish down to a tree dangling in the water to my left, again I wasn’t too sure they’d come in that close but needed a couple of options.
On the all in my lead joined in the volley of leads heading towards the centre of the lake and within seconds Matt Parsons on 112 was playing a carp and then so was Bob Gullick on 114, by this time 115 had had two fish!!  Popped up bread didn’t work, neither did meat and for about 15 minutes after the all in I had a couple of little twtches and two liners on the tip, before it fell motionless.  As often seems to happen, the carp in this area move down into the wider part of the lake, as soon as angling pressure starts.

It had gone quiet for those around and opposite me and Bob Gullick fished a tidy match catching small skimmers, with the odd better stamp fish (and ended with one 11lb carp and 19lb silvers), whilst I had two small roach on the waggler and caster, nothing on the waggler and meat.  I tried down the edge where I had been very sparingly feeding dead maggot and the odd caster, a small carp took a liking to the 3 maggots on the hook and then proceeded to get the rig tangled up in a submerged branch.  Much cursing and  gentle nursing later, I managed to net the carp and temporarily repair the broken float.  The edge produced a couple of roach, a perch and another, better carp, before the bites dried up completely.

A try over the groundbait line at 14m produced two small roach to double caster, the waggler lines were devoid of action and that was a similar picture for Matt to my left and those opposite, for a lake so full of fish, it’s hard to believe that this area is so consistently hard during the winter.
A switch back to the lead and a increase in bait size to double 10mm punched meat saw carp No3 netted and not too long after No4, but that was it, no more bites from any of the lines.  I will admit to being more than a little pissed off watching the guys on 115 and 116 bagging, whilst a few of us struggled to get a bite.

I ended the match with my four carp and 4 or 5 small silvers going 21.05, which was well short of the needed target, although nearly doubling the best weight from the peg do far this series, giving me 7 points, the middle section of the lake fished hard again, I managed to beat two pegs to my left and those opposite, I’m not sure there was much more to be had from the peg.

The rest of the team fared somewhat better, with Mike Walker on Cary weighing 18.08 for 11 points, Ken on Lodge with 74.09 for 16 points, Rich on Match/Spring with 35.14 for 14 points and  Martin on Spring had 15.07 for 9 points.

And we haven't seen the last of the rain, it certainly came down at the end, so a shit day and everything soaked through (except me, thanks to Halkon Hunt Goretex, what would we do without it).
Roll on the summer……..

Overall
1)      Chris Sandford 166.08 peg 115
2)      Mark Williams 160.00 peg 116
3)      Dave Romain 113.02 peg 64
4)      Tony Rixon 101.11 peg 58
5)       Adrian Jefferies 101.02 peg 86
6)      Dick Bull 93.08 peg 80

Silvers
1)      Clint Wojtyle 25.06 peg 12
2)      John Harvey 24.09 peg 11