After qualifying for the Preston Festival at Whiteacres, I
decided to give it a go, Sue Faiers was looking for a week of respite, as she
sent her husband along to keep me company.
This would be the first time I had fished the lakes when pellet and
method feeders were allowed, as the Bait Tech which I usually fish is a ‘natural’
bait festival.
I had to get everything ready the week before, as I was away
in Gran Canaria not getting back until after midnight on the Saturday, this
involved buying some of the Guru X-Safefeeders, which are the only elasticated
feeders allowed at Whiteacres, as well as tying rigs hooks and generally (with
hindsight) packing too much gear and bait.
Leaving Paul to collect the fresh bait from Veals on the
Saturday, I was ready before I jetted off and within 7 hours of landing back in
Bristol I was packing up the van to head to Nailsea and collect Paul. On our arrival we decided to fish on Sunday
afternoon, a few hours on Pollawyn, where we caught fish, but it wasn’t hectic
sport, a sign of things to come…..
We had opted to be in the same section, to make it easier
for travelling and I wasn’t disappointed to be on Bolingey for day one, I have
picked up money on my last two visits to the lake, so was fairly
confident. That confidence was short
lived when I pulled out 21 – the coldest peg in Cornwall – it really is a poor
draw and was true to form. I started on
bread tight across to the island and had a carp, which gave me false hope, the
next bite was a drop back and that was a 8oz roach, that was the end of the
island action. The information we had
been told from the Maver festival the week before, was very frugal feeding was
the way to go, so I had put 2-3 bits of meat in on the 5m line every 10 minutes
and some 4mm pellet at 14m.
The peg seemed devoid
of fish until I upped the pellet feed with the catty and had a Carussio, then
two Carp in fairly quick succession before that line died a very final and
total death. The 5m meat line didn’t
produce as much as a quiver on the float bristle and my final three fish came
from the margins, one from the RH side down to the pallet of 20 and 2 from the
deeper margin to my left. My 39lb and 4
points was the best of the peg all week, it really did live up to its poor
reputation. Paul had peg 44, a peg we
have both drawn in the past and got good points from, but the fish came from
the other side of the lake, so he didn’t have a bright start either. We did keep up the tradition of having an after
match pint in the Bolingey Arms, but it appears we are mere shadows of our hard
drinking days in the 80’s.
Day two and it was Pollawyn, my luck had obviously changed
as peg 13, which is a flyer section peg, found its way into my hand, Paul had
29, so neither of us were too disappointed. I like Pollawyn and have had a
couple of second in sections on there, but the pressure was on not to bugger up
this flyer. I set up a waggler to cast
to the island, whilst doing this, I was looking to my right and could see carp
porpoising in front of the island pegs, about 2/3 the way across, not much
activity in front of me, by not much, I mean none!! The wagglers only venture into the water was
before the all-in, so no more about that. I set up two lead rods, one for
popped up bread and one for pellet, the pellet one had the same fate as the
waggler, the bread didn’t produce as much as a liner.
I set up 6 topkits, more than I would normally, but with
Pollawyn being deep, you need to cover the different levels that the fish might
be at. One topkit to fish caster down the RH edge, not a bite on that, one to
fish over GB, worm and caster just up the near shelf off to the RH side, a meat
rig to fish off to the LH side and 3 rigs set at full depth, half depth and 2’
to fish at 14m. As mentioned, the bread
didn’t produce anything, I had been flicking a few bits of 6mm meat on the LH
5m line and dropped in on that, a quick response and a 4lb carp in the net, no
other bites there, so I had a look on the 14m line, I could get bites on 6mm
meat, but it was small fish and I find fishing the long pole for small fish
pretty tedious, so swapped to the worm and GB line. This produced the expected
skimmers, but they were up in the water, I couldn’t get them to take a bait off
the bottom, but liners and foulers were a problem whilst waiting for a
bite. Its not an uncommon problem now on
commercials, I am sure the skimmers don’t want to be near the silt, which is
probably unpleasant stuff.
It was fairly slow going, I did try the other lines regularly
and had a skimmer from the meat line, but the only way to guarantee bites was
to stick on the worm and caster line. I had kept pinging a few bits of 6mm meat
out to 14m and with 90 minutes to go had a couple of liners on the full depth
rig, so picked up the half depth rig, liners again, so in with the 2’ rig and I
managed 3 more carp and a couple of skimmers on this, sticking with it to the
end of the match. The scales registered
40lb odd and a section win, 8lb ahead of peg 1.
Paul had the pegs with the porpoising carp in his section and whilst
they were too far to my right, they were too far to his left and he struggled in
his section.
Onto day three and I had some optimism before the draw,
today was split between Trelawny and Twin Oaks, I had been dreaming positive
dreams and will peg 16 Twin Oaks into my hand, but somehow I managed to pull
peg 6 Trelawny, another poor draw. Paul had 29 on Twin Oaks – in the right area
for the big F1’s. The waggler rod stayed in the bag, two lead rods, one for
bread and one with a method on, 4 topkits today, one to fish banded pellet at
14m, one to fish meat at 5m, one to fish worm/caster either side and straight
in front short and an edge rig. Nothing,
not even a liner on the bread, not sure that boded well for the method, so I
didn’t chuck it out, they tried it either side and didn’t catch on it, so I
think I was right.
I concentrated on the L and RH sides short, one side fed
with GB one with just caster, these were fairly unproductive, so I stuck
another section on and started a fresh line at 5 sections, this fed with GB,
worm and caster. Same problem as the day
before, skimmers in the peg, but they were up in the water and causing me
liners and foulers, I was getting frustrated by the amount that were jumping ad
coming off, but I think they were virtually all either foul hooked or not hooked
at all. I couldn’t see too many pegs, but peg 2 had a couple of carp down the
edge and I could see the pegs either side were struggling. Peg 8 then started catching the odd bigger F1
from his margins and I made the mistake of following him, I did not have an
indication of any kind from my margins and he beat me by about 6oz, which
wouldn’t have been the case had I stuck with the skimmers, although it was of
little consequence seeing as, as expected pegs 4, 6 and 8 were the bottom 3 in
the section. 4 weighed 18lb, me on 6
24.12 and peg 8 weighed 25.03. Paul had an F1 lesson on Twin Oaks and learnt a
lot, whilst being beaten by some good F1 anglers, they are so different than
what we usually fish for…..
We had been walking to the nearby Piran holiday park for the
evening meal, its much, much better than the food in the Whiteacres restaurant.
But tonight we risked fish and chips from the Whiteacres chippy, that was
pretty good.
So onto day 4 and we drew next to each other on Trewaters,
Paul on 39 and me on 41, which isn’t a bad draw, but probably not the flyer I
needed with Des, Johnny Arthur and Andy Leathers also in our section. The peg is about 20m wide so no need to consider
the pole to the island, the usual bread/lead rod set up, a small method feeder
and a pole rigs to fish 14m banded pellet, 5m meat and rig to fish caster short
and a margin rig for both sides, there was a nice flat area just my side of the
pallet of peg 40, I was confident I’d get fish in there.
First chuck into the far bank indentation which looked the
obvious place to fish, with bread and within seconds I had a carp about 3lb.
Nothing else on bread, but a switch to the method and a 6mm pellet brought two
more fish to the net within the first 15 minutes, then it went dead. I swapped
the bread hooklength for a banded hooklength and tried this over, but nothing,
the fish had gone.
To cut a long boring day short, it fished hard, I set up
another rig to fish 16m and 5m of line to swing to the far bank, I could get
bites on this, not sure if it was shit fish or F1’s, but whatever it was I didn’t
hit a single bite. I had one skimmer and
a small tench on the caster line and what I thought would be a good margin
produced nothing. The guy on 43 had one small carp with 45 minutes to go, but
he managed 3 more from his RH margin which had some cover, which seemed
necessary to catch, where mine were bare. I managed 11lb, which wasn’t last on
the lake, but it was last but one, Des had struggled to catch from 45, but he
did weigh 35lb, beating Pauls weight by ounces.
Tricky day and I’m not sure what I would do differently if I had to fish
it over again, apart from be more negative, but going on the previous weights I
thought I was fishing for nearly double the 54lb which won the section.
Last day and off to Porth, this wasn’t in the Bait Tech this
year, so its 18 months since I fished it, I decided to just take two feeder rods
and fish one at 30 turns of a 3000 reel and one at 55 turns of a 4000 reel, peg
16 had thrown up one decent weight earlier in the week, 48lb which was 8 fish I
believe. I obviously fancied peg 16 and was somewhat shell shocked when it
revealed itself in my hand. The day before it had produced about 1lb, I guess
whoever was on it had fished for bream…..
Arriving at the peg I had Des for company on peg 17, I would
say I am a better silvers angler than carp, but I won’t try and kid myself or
anyone else that I could beat Des in a roach head to head, so the feeder would
be a shit or bust gamble. (which is that when it goes wrong? Shit? Or bust?)
Paul avoided the boat ride as he drew 23. So same section again, he too had
just feeder rods and quite a few more had the same idea, most of us with no
chance of qualifying in the top 24!!
I had a look at the new Preston pole Des is using, it looks
a nice bit of kit and he was raving about it, so much better than what Preston
have produced before. I then got really frustrated trying to tie a shockleader
knot, Des couldn’t help, he never uses one, so up the bank to peg 23 and
Faiersy tied it for me, something I must practice. On the all-in I spent nearly 15 minutes with
a big feeder putting GB, pellets and corn at 55 turns, then spent 20 minutes on
it, just in case there was an inquisitive fish in the area. No signs of a decent fish, just a 3oz roach
that some how rattled the tip and got hooked when attacking double hair rigged
worm. So onto the short feeder line and not long before I had a bite, a small
perch, not a good sign, a couple of small skimmers and another perch before
this died. Back out to 55 turns and casting every 5 minutes to keep it topped
up, at least whilst I was waiting for a bite I had a first hand view of Des’s
roach masterclass and his cursing at the pike attacks.
With two hours to go it was looking unlikely anything was
going to happen, the conditions weren’t conducive to catching bream, sunny,
easterly breeze, so I switched to a method feeder and boilie, this did give me
faint hope when I struck into a drop back, but the fish wasn’t the 6lber I
hoped for, more like 1lb 4oz. With 20 minutes to go, I had a last cast and
determined to leave I there until it either went round or the all-out was
called, I had a couple of flicks on the
tip, which I though were liners, but when the all-out was called, I reeled in
and had a skimmer about 3oz hooked fair and square in the mouth, I guess he
couldn’t lift the 45g method feeder off the deck, I am really surprised he didn’t
attract the attentions of a pike. Des
won the section with 17lb, I was about halfway with 3.12, but I knew it would
either be glory or nothing.
On the evening Glen Calvert turned up with his misses Liz,
nice to see them but they led me and Paul astray, after our week of sensible
sobriety, we were last out of the bar and then back to their caravan for more
beer, but it was a nice way to round off a disappointing week.
I just managed to not finish in the bottom 3rd,
119th, Paul was 138th, the last two days he had a taster
of what it’s like to be me…… I was in the lowest weight section every day, at
least he only suffered that fate on the last two days, not sure what the odds
of drawing the section that has no chance of framing every day, but I wish I’d
put a few quid on it before hand. All in
all it was a decent week for the company, we met up with Scott Russell, Dan
White, Scott Cousins and a fair few others, the weather turned from looking
dreadful to not too bad, the only let down was the hard fishing and couple of
dire draws.
Lessons learnt, especially
that we had far too much bait again, but partly that was caused by us finding a
couple of kilo’s of worms left in the storage shed by the previous occupants, I
haven’t opened the two kilos I bought. I
didn’t use half the 10 pints of caster and I brought plenty of meat and corn
home.
Oh well, next up the Viaduct silvers all-winners final on
Saturday and the Viaduct silvers league on Sunday, so the same prep and bait
for the two days.
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