Frenzee Festival, Whiteacres, 16th - 20th April 2018

Even though its been a long tough winter, this seems to have come a round quickly again, just Paul Faiers and myself travelling down this year, our other regular lodge companion was unable to make it this year, shame, as its a good craic with Glenn along, even if I am somewhat off the pace in the bar nowadays....

The draw had put us in a rotation starting on the four small lakes, Bolingey on Tuesday, Pollawyn on Wednesday, Twin Oaks and Trelawny on Thursday and Friday saw us heading for Jennys or Trewaters.

Saturday saw us have a few hours on Trelawny, catching a few, but not really getting amongst the carp or decent F1's, then a few beers and catching up with old friends in the bar.  That led to a fairly late start on Sunday and for some inexplicable reason we decided to go to Trewaters, the weather was awful and we really struggled to catch.

Monday dawned and I did try and talk myself into Canal 19, but it wasn't to be, peg 7 for me and Paul didn't do much better in 11 Canal.  Looking at 4th in the section from here, but you have to be hopeful on the first day, that the fish have moved from their residency.

Peg 7 has no features such as the gorse bushes or trees that many of the other pegs have, I set up a meat rig for short, pellet rig to fish soft pellet over micros, a rig for the edge, which isn't nice either side and a pellet rig to fish tight across.

First two put in's on the meat I was surprised to have a near 2lb F1 and then a 1lb Carassio, but this was a short lived burst of hope, the tone for the rest of the match was set, never taking more than one or occasionally two off the same line. It was a real struggle and the day was capped off by seeing a swirl on the far bank seconds before the all out, I swung the pellet rig with a bit of meat on at the swirl and immediately hooked a small angry carp.  It tore down the bank, tangling the elastic in over hanging brambles, I managed to push the pole right across and free it, only for the carp to change direction, run down the far bank to my left and snag some more brambles.  Got free from them and played it across, about 10' out the fish found a snag and I tried all the usual tricks to get it out, but to no avail.

I had decided that I had to pull for a break, so put the elastic round a keepnet and started pulling, expecting the 0.12 to snap any second, I was surprised to see the carp come free, attached to a bit of rope.  Once I netted it I could see that the rope was tied in a hangmans noose, had I known what the week was to bring, I might have kept it and put it to use.......  The carp didn't affect the result, as predicted pegs 7-13 were the last on the lake, with my 29lb beating two and a long way from the top weight of 70lb+

Tuesday

Bolingey, where I have done OK in the past, so was hopeful of putting the festival back on track, the weather was foul, wind and rain forecast all day, into the tub and out comes peg 20, a look at the results from the day before had me concerned, Vince Brown had been on there the day before and was near the bottom of the section.  Paul was off to peg 2.

The wind was blowing R to L at my peg, so I decided that the Multi Margin would be the only pole out of the bag, as there was no way I could fish longer than its 8m. A pellet rig for 8m. a meat rig for 5m and a margin rig, but on plumbing up the margin, I was very doubtful I'd catch in it, too shallow.

A straight lead and a method, completed the set up, no point in even opening the holdall with the waggler rods in.  Bolingey will usually give up a fish or two (and sometimes more) starting on the meat short, not today, not even a carrasio.  It took me over an hour to get a fish and it was a small carp, in the first 4 hours I managed 2 carp and 4 carassio's for 12lb on the clicker, all on the method, it wasn't exciting and it wasn't frenetic......

At 16.10 with 50 minutes to go I had my first bite and fish on the short meat line, a decent fish, but it wasn't until 16.40 when I had another and then one more at 16.50, terrible, worst day I have had on Bolingey. The results on my bank went:  peg 22 - 37.00, peg 21 - 15.00, peg 20 37.04, peg 19 12.00 and peg 18 6.00, so I won my bank, but for all the value that had in the match, I may as well have blanked.....  Two days gone and festival over by two draws that I certainly couldn't get anymore out of and I am fairly sure that most on the festival would have struggled on.

Wednesday

A chance to redeem myself today, another lake I have picked up on, on several occasions, peg 17 on the high bank, which again hadn't done any good in previous days, not one I'd choose, a bit hemmed in, but I was confident I'd get some fish across and have caught well on the pole in this area before.

Loads of time to tackle up with the 09.00 draw and fishing from 12.00 -17.00, so I had two wagglers, a method and a bomb set up, along with 3 topkits, one to fish meat up the shelf, another for deep shallow and finally one meat at depth.

Once again the wind was looking to spoil the fishing for me, as the waggler was going to be nigh on impossible to fish, unless there were a huge shoal there competing, so the pellet is grabbed as it lands and that was unlikely in this peg.  So having to resort to 8mm pellets to get anywhere near the island with them, in the scare lulls in the virtually incessant wind, I started on the bomb.  This produced on solitary bite from a scruffy looking hybrid that went about a pound and a half.

Pellet and meat on the pole lines were pretty much non starters and I set up a new line and fished worm, this saw 30lb of skimmers netted, in between trying to catch a carp.  I seem to have been on carp avoidance since before Xmas and its wearing a bit thin now.....  This wasn't quite last in section, but it wasn't far off, again, I have no idea, not the foggiest what I could have done to get more from the peg - except to fish 5 hours solid for skimmers......  Just for a change, I could see someone catching steadily, as 27 was catching on the lead into the gap, where the fish had been all week.

Best bit of Wednesday was a trip to The Two Clomes with Paul, Steve Nadin, Chris Albiston, Tom from Whitemoor lakes and Pete, whose second name eludes me.  Nice food, good company and a splendid glass of red......

Thursday

I fancied A section on Twin Oaks, big carp, rather than F1's, but as usual, I couldn't be further from the lake or peg I wanted, 22 on Trelawny, a lake I have won a section on in the past, on a day the carp didn't feed.  Looking at the results from the day before, I had to be reasonably happy, 95lb and a section win from the peg.

It's too far to reach the far bank with the pole, but there was no horrendous side wind to stop me getting tight to the bank with a method, lead or even waggler, which I clipped up all three.  A line to fish expander over micros and the obligatory meat line, a margin rig and a rig to fish worm and GB right in front of my keepnets, the skimmers and bream will come right up the shelf on this lake.

Started on the method, it produced one tiny carrasio in 40 minutes, the wind had swung round since yesterday and was now blowing straight down the lake into pegs 1 and 32.  I was able to feather the waggler in perfectly and couldn't believe that I never had a bite on it, the far bank appeared devoid of fish, although I stuck it out as peg 20 was having a good run fishing the pole to the point of the island (you can reach it with less than 16m from this peg).

I came onto the micros line and fished expander over it, this was fairly slow and it was skimmers I was catching, no sign of an F1, I did get a 2lb carp, but the line was getting slower and slower.  A switch to the worm and GB on topkit, saw a decent run of skimmers and bream netted, but I was never going to compete with the pegs further up the lake, I had one F1 with 20 minutes to go, so am fairly sure that there weren't many in the area, as peg 23 similarly struggled.  The peg that wasn't 'favoured usually, easily won the section with 122lb of F1's, the wind had done for me again, this time taking the fish down the other end of the lake.

Walking up to the club in the evening we saw this on the ground......

So it wasn't me spitting the dummy out, but I was struggling to come to terms with just how badly I was doing this year, my worst ever festival result was on the cards and I didn't think I'd fished too badly, my drawing had done me no favours...

Friday

I fancied Jennys, just because I have a dismal record at Trewaters (Trewaters cost me a top ten finish last year), so fully expected to be driving the 10 miles to Trewaters, but 20 on Jennys came out of the drawbag, Paul Holland had 120lb off it the day before for a section win.

Got to the peg and found Paul's lodge match Andy Bennett on 21, so I kept an eye on what he set up, as he would have all the info from Paul as to how he caught the day before.  Although he did speculate it wouldn't be so good today, as surprise, surprise, the wind had changed......

Its a reasonable chuck to the island, so I set up a 24g Guru Hybrid feeder, a bomb and a 6g pellet waggler.  A rig to fish pellet at 14m, ond for meat at 5m and a rig for worm short.  It transpired that Paul had caught carp on the method the day before, so that had to be my starting ploy, even though its not something I would claim to have any prowess in doing, as I rarely fish it.

I hadn't had a bite and Andy Bennett had 4 or 5 fish, I then saw he was fishing two dead reds on the hook, a switch to this and GB from pellet and micros saw me start to catch, but it was small carassios rather than the proper carp I was looking for.  I switched to the pole and had some skimmers and a small carp on 6mm banded pellet at 14m, but this was slow going as well.  Back on the feeder and a few more small carassios, this was the pattern of the day, with only an odd fish on the short worm line, another small carp on the pole.

Andy Bennett was kind enough to spend some time explaining about fishing the method after the match and I knew he'd beaten, but when the scales arrived, by less than I thought.  My fish went 35lb odd, Andy weighed 47lb odd, I was sure he had a lot more but the stamp of fish were small, over a ton won the section further down and the lake was won from peg 1 with 120+.  If I was a little more practised at casting the method accurately and had some confidence in it, I may have had the couple of pounds more that I needed to be third in section behind Andy, as it was there were a couple of 37's.

So, fishing wise a bloody disaster, memories of last years 19th place finish wiped out by this years embarrassing 151st.  Faierzy managed 71st and it was a good week apart from my miserable endeavours, shame Glenn wasn't there, the service, bar food and on site chippy are all massively improved from the last few years, the lakes have had a lot of work and new fish, so things are looking up.  By the end of Thursday, I was ready to put my tackle on ebay, but now I'm determined to get back and prove to myself, if nothing else, that I'm better than this finishing place portrays.