26 lined up at the start of this match, held on Cary and Lodge, I wasn't too bothered where I drew, although a corner on Lodge would have been nice, as they often throw up a few fish. That wasn't to be and 81 worked its way into my grasp at the draw, the LH side of the spit. The spit can be a a feast or famine area, hopefully not the latter today.
I set up a waggler to fish just past the end of the spit, although the way the wind was pushing the surface around the spit rendered it a waste of time on the couple of occasions I tried it, not so much as a bite on it. A lead rod completed the rod and reel set ups. Four topkits set up, two for the margins (up the spit and down by the monk) one with a plain hook, one with a pellet band hair rigged on. Another to fish pellet at 14m and one for meat short.
The two 'open' water rigs did not produce anything except one skimmer and one roach, so mo more about them, the straight lead produced two bites and two fish, so nothing to get too excited about. The spit produced odd fish with the occasional two in two put-ins, but this was the exception, rather than the rule. I thought I'd cracked it with a margin line down to the monk, with two 14lb fish, then something even bigger hooked, that got a head of steam up, went round the monk and I could hear it splashing about in the margin, but with the pole bent double and me pulling as hard as I could, it still wouldn't come back, eventually I got the rig back, minus a hooklength and with a section of branch wrapped round it. Next drop in another good fish and Paul Greenwood walked round, this, or putting another net in, jinxed it, no more fish from that line.
The third into the fourth hour was the most productive, but gave false hope of a strong finish, as the bites petered out in the 5th hour and didn't improve. Hard to complain when I was 9th, with 128.04 and 19 out of the 26, 'did a ton'.
1: Dave Hayward 178.06 peg 105
2: Paul Blake 168.10 peg 59
3: N Gaff 155.07 peg 68
4: Roy Worth 154.1 peg 74
5: Mark Poppleton 143.13 peg 96
6: Phill Cardwell 139.8
Silvers
1: Alex Murray 52.2 peg 78
2: A Mitchell 39.0 peg 102
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Friday, 11 April 2014
Viaduct Costcutter,Open, Thursday 10th April 2014
On Wednesday I had a trip up to Barston lakes in preparation for a forthcoming match, nice looking place and I caught my first fish on a method feeder and boilie, totally different than all the waters we fish down here.
Anyway, onto Viaduct and 38 fished this costcutter, with anglers coming over the bridge from Wales, so even winning wouldn't cover their costs, but it is nice to fish a decent size match, rather than what amounts to a knockup.
Into the draw tin and out comes 112, with 18 on the lake, it meant I would have some room with 113 not pegged. As I haven't been down to Viaduct for a few weeks, since the carp have started to wake up, I thought it best to cover all options and set up a straight lead, a waggler to fish at depth with no shot down the line and 3 pole rigs. They were an NG margin float to fish back down towards 113, a NG Power Finesse to fish pellet at 14m and a MW diamond to fish meat at 5m.
Simple bait tray today, 6 and 8mm pellet and 6mm meat, on the all in I started on the lead, but in 15 minutes, apart from on vicious wrap round and a bumped fish (fouler I'm sure), not so much as a liner. by now Scott on 111 was catching decent silvers short and the lad on 110 was 4 carp ahead of most on the lake who were having a slow start. I dropped onto the 5m line and had 2 skimmers, a tench and 2 carp, before that went quiet, only to be expected I suppose, far too early to fish it short and hope to bag up. I had been pinging some 6mm pellets on the 14m line and managed an intermittent few fish from here, I hooked and lost a couple of foulers, but managed to keep that to a minimum by feeding twice and fishing it out before feeding again.
Further down the lake I could see some had started catching on the waggler, but as seemed to be the case all round, they had 3 or 4 fish and they backed off. I had a quick look on the waggler, but not even a liner on that, so no more a bout either rod and line, as I caught nothing on either of them. With 2 hours to go I cupped 3 big potfuls of groundbait down the edge and came back on the meat line, this produced two quick fish and then nothing, a familiar pattern for today. I dropped in the edge after refeeding some more groundbait and dead maggot, and had a roach, then a small carp, before both meat and dead maggot were being ragged by roach. A look round the other two lines again produced the odd fish, whilst I had put two more potfuls of gbait down the edge, along with a pot of dead maggot, this produced three more carp two I landed, one went through a submerged snag and cut the line, but they were of a smaller stamp than the fish I was catching in front.
On the all out, it felt like it had been a hard day, as the fish came sporadically and I had clicked 63lb and 33lb for my carp nets and had about 6 or 7lb of silvers, as I didn't add to my initial burst of silvers. With several weights ton+ before the scales got to me I had no thoughts of framing. My first net that I had clicked at 33lb went 47lb and I now had concerns about the other net if I had that badly under estimated the fishes weight. First weigh was 39.12, second weigh was 41.12.... oops a red face and an frustrating mistake that cost me 11lb in weight as the net was called at 70lb and bumped me down from 3rd, to 6th, as it was quite a tight match, I can''t believe either how out of touch I have got during the winter, or how much weight the fish in Campbell have put on since last year, I think I had a few 8/9lbers that I probably clicked at 6lb. Good job it was just a costcutter and not an expensive mistake in a big match.
1: Lewis Greenwood-King 162.12 peg 81
2: Dave ?? 155.00 peg 118
3: Scott Russell 135.13 peg 11
4: K Newman 130.05 peg 129
5: Dave Romain 126.10 peg 127
6: Chris (red faced) Fox 124.13 peg 112
Silvers:
1: Craig Tucker 57.05 peg 71
2: Scott Russell 48.02 peg 111
3: Steve long 44.08 peg 85
Anyway, onto Viaduct and 38 fished this costcutter, with anglers coming over the bridge from Wales, so even winning wouldn't cover their costs, but it is nice to fish a decent size match, rather than what amounts to a knockup.
Into the draw tin and out comes 112, with 18 on the lake, it meant I would have some room with 113 not pegged. As I haven't been down to Viaduct for a few weeks, since the carp have started to wake up, I thought it best to cover all options and set up a straight lead, a waggler to fish at depth with no shot down the line and 3 pole rigs. They were an NG margin float to fish back down towards 113, a NG Power Finesse to fish pellet at 14m and a MW diamond to fish meat at 5m.
Simple bait tray today, 6 and 8mm pellet and 6mm meat, on the all in I started on the lead, but in 15 minutes, apart from on vicious wrap round and a bumped fish (fouler I'm sure), not so much as a liner. by now Scott on 111 was catching decent silvers short and the lad on 110 was 4 carp ahead of most on the lake who were having a slow start. I dropped onto the 5m line and had 2 skimmers, a tench and 2 carp, before that went quiet, only to be expected I suppose, far too early to fish it short and hope to bag up. I had been pinging some 6mm pellets on the 14m line and managed an intermittent few fish from here, I hooked and lost a couple of foulers, but managed to keep that to a minimum by feeding twice and fishing it out before feeding again.
Further down the lake I could see some had started catching on the waggler, but as seemed to be the case all round, they had 3 or 4 fish and they backed off. I had a quick look on the waggler, but not even a liner on that, so no more a bout either rod and line, as I caught nothing on either of them. With 2 hours to go I cupped 3 big potfuls of groundbait down the edge and came back on the meat line, this produced two quick fish and then nothing, a familiar pattern for today. I dropped in the edge after refeeding some more groundbait and dead maggot, and had a roach, then a small carp, before both meat and dead maggot were being ragged by roach. A look round the other two lines again produced the odd fish, whilst I had put two more potfuls of gbait down the edge, along with a pot of dead maggot, this produced three more carp two I landed, one went through a submerged snag and cut the line, but they were of a smaller stamp than the fish I was catching in front.
On the all out, it felt like it had been a hard day, as the fish came sporadically and I had clicked 63lb and 33lb for my carp nets and had about 6 or 7lb of silvers, as I didn't add to my initial burst of silvers. With several weights ton+ before the scales got to me I had no thoughts of framing. My first net that I had clicked at 33lb went 47lb and I now had concerns about the other net if I had that badly under estimated the fishes weight. First weigh was 39.12, second weigh was 41.12.... oops a red face and an frustrating mistake that cost me 11lb in weight as the net was called at 70lb and bumped me down from 3rd, to 6th, as it was quite a tight match, I can''t believe either how out of touch I have got during the winter, or how much weight the fish in Campbell have put on since last year, I think I had a few 8/9lbers that I probably clicked at 6lb. Good job it was just a costcutter and not an expensive mistake in a big match.
1: Lewis Greenwood-King 162.12 peg 81
2: Dave ?? 155.00 peg 118
3: Scott Russell 135.13 peg 11
4: K Newman 130.05 peg 129
5: Dave Romain 126.10 peg 127
6: Chris (red faced) Fox 124.13 peg 112
Silvers:
1: Craig Tucker 57.05 peg 71
2: Scott Russell 48.02 peg 111
3: Steve long 44.08 peg 85
Monday, 7 April 2014
Pole Only Series 2014. Round One. Acorn Fishery, Sunday 6th April 2014
First round of this years pole only saw 30 booked in, I think that is an absolute maximum number for this lake, Paul Faiers did a good job of arranging the sections and hopefully has created 3 fair sections, one of which the pegging is a bit tight and two with a bit more space, as everyone will fish each section twice it should all even itself out.
After a nice Breakfast we got Charlie Barnes and Ken Rayner to draw the knockout, which starts in the next match and then got down to drawing. I got Bob 'Bridge Troll' Gullick to pick me a peg, as he had already picked himself a bridge flyer, peg 34, but he handed me peg 14 on the back straight, the section where all the pegs are in, cheers Bob......
I had Tom Thick for company on peg 13 and Sensas Thyers captain Lance Tucker on 15 and we were a bit concerned that if the already blustery wind increased further, we'd struggle as it was blowing straight up the lake from L to R. I set up a MW Pear on 0.14 to fish a banded pellet on 0.12 across, a0.4g NG Gimp to fish down the track over groundbait, again on 0.14 to 0.12 with a 18 63.13 hook, I also set up a another Gimp to fish across on the 'second' shelf, but never had a bite on this, so no more about it.
On the all in, I fed some groundbait down the track and then went across with a banded 6mm pellet, because of the wind I didn't put a pole pot on, preferring to feed 6mm pellets by catapult. Tom had a fish almost straight away fishing across, I then had one and a couple more before the wind speed increased and made it very difficult to present a bait where the fish were. We both had problems with a couple of foul hookers which came off, mainly because the wind blowing the pole around was dragging the rig into fish.
It seemed to be fishing hard, so I was still trying to catch a target weight of 40lb, but that might be optimistic, given the pegs we were on had been producing less than 30 in recent matches. The wind induced Tourrettes was by now almost constant as if I managed to lower the rig in the right spot amongst the spikey grass tufts (which need trimming back), the wind dragged the pole round and put the rig into the grass.
This was also not doing my back any good, so a switch to the line down the track brought a run of small skimmers and a carp, fishing a maggot 1" overdepth. Finally the wind dropped again and whilst it still remained a hindrance, I managed to land 3 or 4 more carp on the banded pellet, before the bites died off, with 15 minutes to go another look down the track produced another carp, giving me a total of 32.13 for 7th overall and 2nd in section behind Mark Bartlett on peg 18 who had 39.02.
No spectacular weights, but it was a fair match, as from 1st and 10th were only separated by 13lb, I'd rather fish matches like this than ones where some pegs chuck up astronomical weights, with others so far behind they had no chance, its possible to believe that better decisions or small tweaks could catch you 13lb, when you are 100lb or more behind the winner, there is every chance that no matter what you did, you couldn't have caught that much.
Knockout Draw.
To not give anyone a bye, the highest weight knocked out in this round will come back in for round 2.
After a nice Breakfast we got Charlie Barnes and Ken Rayner to draw the knockout, which starts in the next match and then got down to drawing. I got Bob 'Bridge Troll' Gullick to pick me a peg, as he had already picked himself a bridge flyer, peg 34, but he handed me peg 14 on the back straight, the section where all the pegs are in, cheers Bob......
I had Tom Thick for company on peg 13 and Sensas Thyers captain Lance Tucker on 15 and we were a bit concerned that if the already blustery wind increased further, we'd struggle as it was blowing straight up the lake from L to R. I set up a MW Pear on 0.14 to fish a banded pellet on 0.12 across, a0.4g NG Gimp to fish down the track over groundbait, again on 0.14 to 0.12 with a 18 63.13 hook, I also set up a another Gimp to fish across on the 'second' shelf, but never had a bite on this, so no more about it.
On the all in, I fed some groundbait down the track and then went across with a banded 6mm pellet, because of the wind I didn't put a pole pot on, preferring to feed 6mm pellets by catapult. Tom had a fish almost straight away fishing across, I then had one and a couple more before the wind speed increased and made it very difficult to present a bait where the fish were. We both had problems with a couple of foul hookers which came off, mainly because the wind blowing the pole around was dragging the rig into fish.
It seemed to be fishing hard, so I was still trying to catch a target weight of 40lb, but that might be optimistic, given the pegs we were on had been producing less than 30 in recent matches. The wind induced Tourrettes was by now almost constant as if I managed to lower the rig in the right spot amongst the spikey grass tufts (which need trimming back), the wind dragged the pole round and put the rig into the grass.
This was also not doing my back any good, so a switch to the line down the track brought a run of small skimmers and a carp, fishing a maggot 1" overdepth. Finally the wind dropped again and whilst it still remained a hindrance, I managed to land 3 or 4 more carp on the banded pellet, before the bites died off, with 15 minutes to go another look down the track produced another carp, giving me a total of 32.13 for 7th overall and 2nd in section behind Mark Bartlett on peg 18 who had 39.02.
No spectacular weights, but it was a fair match, as from 1st and 10th were only separated by 13lb, I'd rather fish matches like this than ones where some pegs chuck up astronomical weights, with others so far behind they had no chance, its possible to believe that better decisions or small tweaks could catch you 13lb, when you are 100lb or more behind the winner, there is every chance that no matter what you did, you couldn't have caught that much.
1: Andy France 43.08 Peg 25
2: Bob Gullick 41.15 Peg 34
3: Mark Bartlett 39.02 Peg 18
4: Lewis Jones 38.07 Peg 23
5: Kev Perry 38.00 Peg 21
6: Mike Nicholls 33.08 Peg 40
Silvers
1: Andy Gard 14.08 Peg 33
2: Mike Nicholls 10.10 Peg 40
A section
1: Mark Bartlett
2: Chris Fox 32.13 Peg 14
3: Tom Thick 31.10 Peg 13
Silvers: Ken Rayner 6.11 Peg 2
B section
1: Bob Gullick
2: Mike Nicholls
3: Tony Thick 28.14 Peg 6
Silvers: Andy Gard
C Section
1: Andy France
2: Lewis Jones
3: Kev Perry
Silvers: Paul Faiers 10.10 peg 28
| 1 | Andy France | 10 | 43 | 8 | ||
| 2 | Bob Gullick | 10 | 41 | 15 | ||
| 3 | Mark Brooomsgrove | 10 | 39 | 2 | ||
| 4 | Lewis Jones | 9 | 38 | 7 | ||
| 5 | Mike Nicholls | 9 | 33 | 8 | ||
| 6 | Chris Fox | 9 | 32 | 13 | ||
| 7 | Kev Perry | 8 | 38 | 0 | ||
| 8 | Tom Thick | 8 | 31 | 10 | ||
| 9 | Tony Thick | 8 | 28 | 14 | ||
| 10 | Eddie Wynne | 7 | 28 | 2 | ||
| 11 | Glenn Calvert | 7 | 25 | 4 | ||
| 12 | Lance Tucker | 7 | 17 | 14 | ||
| 13 | Nigel Vigus | 6 | 27 | 5 | ||
| 14 | Mike Owens | 6 | 22 | 10 | ||
| 15 | Paul Lasson | 6 | 15 | 14 | ||
| 16 | Russ Peck | 5 | 18 | 9 | ||
| 17 | Paul Faiers | 5 | 16 | 2 | ||
| 18 | Dom Sullivan | 5 | 15 | 1 | ||
| 19 | Harry Muir | 4 | 17 | 10 | ||
| 20 | Gordon Canning | 4 | 14 | 14 | ||
| 21 | Ken Rayner | 4 | 12 | 0 | ||
| 22 | Kevin Lloyd | 3 | 17 | 0 | ||
| 23 | Glenn Bailey | 3 | 13 | 10 | ||
| 24 | Brian Slipper | 3 | 9 | 12 | ||
| 25 | Nick Harvey | 2 | 16 | 9 | ||
| 26 | John Osborne | 2 | 9 | 9 | ||
| 27 | Norman Hugget | 2 | 4 | 2 | ||
| 28 | Pete Bartlett | 1 | 15 | 14 | ||
| 29 | Charlie Barnes | 1 | 4 | 13 | ||
| 30 | Rob Fogg | 1 | 3 | 12 |
| Silvers Table | |||||||
| Name | Points | Weight | |||||
| 1 | Harry Muir | 10 | 14 | 8 | |||
| 2 | Paul Faiers | 10 | 10 | 2 | |||
| 3 | Ken Rayner | 10 | 6 | 11 | |||
| 4 | Mike Nicholls | 9 | 10 | 10 | |||
| 5 | Charlie Barnes | 9 | 4 | 13 | |||
| 6 | Glenn Calvert | 9 | 3 | 10 | |||
| 7 | Chris Fox | 8 | 4 | 10 | |||
| 8 | Paul Lasson | 8 | 4 | 10 | |||
| 9 | Gordon Canning | 8 | 2 | 10 | |||
| 10 | Bob Gullick | 8 | 4 | 3 | |||
| 11 | Kevin Lloyd | 7 | 3 | 10 | |||
| 12 | Norman Hugget | 7 | 1 | 15 | |||
| 13 | Brian Slipper | 6 | 4 | 7 | |||
| 14 | Nick Harvey | 6 | 3 | 1 | |||
| 15 | Glenn Bailey | 6 | 1 | 2 | |||
| 16 | John Osborne | 5 | 2 | 2 | |||
| 17 | Eddie Wynne | 5 | 1 | 12 | |||
| 18 | Mike Owens | 5 | 0 | 10 | |||
| 19 | Andy France | 5 | 0 | 10 | |||
| 20 | Pete Bartlett | 4 | 1 | 10 | |||
| 21 | Lance Tucker | 4 | 1 | 0 | |||
| 22 | Tony Thick | 3 | 1 | 4 | |||
| 23 | Rob Fogg | 3 | 0 | 7 | |||
| 24 | Dom Sullivan | 3 | 0 | 15 | |||
| 25 | Tom Thick | 2 | 1 | 2 | |||
| 26 | Nigel Vigus | 2 | 0 | 14 | |||
| 27 | Russ Peck | 1 | 0 | 11 | |||
| 28 | Mark Brooomsgrove | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 29 | Lewis Jones | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 30 | Kev Perry | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
Knockout Draw.
To not give anyone a bye, the highest weight knocked out in this round will come back in for round 2.
| 3 | Glen Calvert | v | 13 | Lance Tucker | |||||||
| 5 | Pete Bartlett | v | 7 | Mark Broomsgrove | |||||||
| 11 | Rob Fogg | v | 8 | Eddie Wynne | |||||||
| 30 | Gordon Canning | v | 17 | John Osborne | |||||||
| 12 | Mike Owens | v | 25 | Andy France | |||||||
| 6 | Charlie Barnes | v | 24 | Russ Peck | |||||||
| 26 | Ken Rayner | v | 29 | Brian Slippper | |||||||
| 21 | Tom Thick | v | 9 | Dom Sullivan | |||||||
| 16 | Mike Nicholls | v | 14 | Paul Lasson | |||||||
| 18 | Kevin Lloyd | v | 28 | Kev Perry | |||||||
| 19 | Norman Hugget | v | 2 | Paul Faiers | |||||||
| 22 | Tony Thick | v | 20 | Bob Gullick | |||||||
| 4 | Nigel Vigus | v | 27 | Nick Harvey | |||||||
| 15 | Glenn Bailey | v | 10 | Lewis Jones | |||||||
| 1 | Chris Fox | v | 23 | Harry Muir |
Saturday, 5 April 2014
MFS Silvers Match, Docklow Pools, Saturday 5th April 2014
Having never been to Docklow and hearing good things about it, I booked into this match along with fellow local blogger, Ken Rayner, who travelled up with me. We arrived earlier and had a look round, it is a peaceful, scenic spot, looks ideal for a fishing break in the holiday cabins.
We were on a lake called Snake, it was a very apt name, as the lake does snake through an area of the complex, it appears to have a solid 'bridge' across it at one point, making two seperate lakes, one of which was coloured, the other, gin clear. I was hoping we weren't on the clear section, it reminded me of the Bridgwater and Taunton canal before it was reopened to boats.
We had a breakfast there, all in the ticket price, it was OK, not the best I've had, but far from the worst. Here we discovered that it was the clear section we were on. Given the weights I had heard, which were of 40lb nets of silvers, mainly roach and ide, I had planned to fish maggot and caster, but as a back up, I bought some fishery pellets and some soft hookers.
I drew peg 34 which meant nothing too me, Ken picked 32 and we were in the middle of the match stretch, given the clarity of the water an end peg might prove useful, but we were mostly pegged everyother peg so all had some room.
I set up two whips, one with a small waggler, one with a greased loop rig, fully expecting roach to come up in the water. 3 topkits, two with chianti's both with strung out shot, one at depth and one set to 2/3rd depth. Last rig was a MW Steady, with a bulk of No10's , a No11 dropper 4" below that and a 4" 0.08 hooklength with a 20 63-13.
I started on the whip, feeding caster down the track, with maggot on the hook, I had a small roach 3rd flick in, a bigger roach and then a few perch, but the bites weren't forthcoming as expected for the expected weights. I tried swapping to the pole to improve presentation and this brought a couple more small perch, but generally the fish were conspicuous by their absence. I had 4 lily pads across at about 9m so used these as a marker and fed some of the fishery pellet, which I had softened.
Going across with a 4mm pellet I had a run of 4oz crucians and skimmers, along with the odd roach and small ide, Ken was struggling and walked down ro see what I was doing, he scrounged some hook pellets and wandered back to his peg. There had been some other bank walkers, so I knew it was fishing hard, I set myself a targe of 5lb for the last two hours, the pellet line died off and the maggot lines I'd kept fed were just as barren.
I did manage another 5 or 6 fish in the last two hours and put a level 16lb on the scales for second place, behind a weight of 26lb for match organiser Herbie, who had drawn one of the coveted end pegs. A long way to go for a tough silvers match, but some consolation in getting a pick up. I'll let you read Ken's tale of woe on his blog.
1) Herbie 26.00
2) Chris Fox 16.00
3) ?? 13.00
We were on a lake called Snake, it was a very apt name, as the lake does snake through an area of the complex, it appears to have a solid 'bridge' across it at one point, making two seperate lakes, one of which was coloured, the other, gin clear. I was hoping we weren't on the clear section, it reminded me of the Bridgwater and Taunton canal before it was reopened to boats.
We had a breakfast there, all in the ticket price, it was OK, not the best I've had, but far from the worst. Here we discovered that it was the clear section we were on. Given the weights I had heard, which were of 40lb nets of silvers, mainly roach and ide, I had planned to fish maggot and caster, but as a back up, I bought some fishery pellets and some soft hookers.
I drew peg 34 which meant nothing too me, Ken picked 32 and we were in the middle of the match stretch, given the clarity of the water an end peg might prove useful, but we were mostly pegged everyother peg so all had some room.
I set up two whips, one with a small waggler, one with a greased loop rig, fully expecting roach to come up in the water. 3 topkits, two with chianti's both with strung out shot, one at depth and one set to 2/3rd depth. Last rig was a MW Steady, with a bulk of No10's , a No11 dropper 4" below that and a 4" 0.08 hooklength with a 20 63-13.
I started on the whip, feeding caster down the track, with maggot on the hook, I had a small roach 3rd flick in, a bigger roach and then a few perch, but the bites weren't forthcoming as expected for the expected weights. I tried swapping to the pole to improve presentation and this brought a couple more small perch, but generally the fish were conspicuous by their absence. I had 4 lily pads across at about 9m so used these as a marker and fed some of the fishery pellet, which I had softened.
Going across with a 4mm pellet I had a run of 4oz crucians and skimmers, along with the odd roach and small ide, Ken was struggling and walked down ro see what I was doing, he scrounged some hook pellets and wandered back to his peg. There had been some other bank walkers, so I knew it was fishing hard, I set myself a targe of 5lb for the last two hours, the pellet line died off and the maggot lines I'd kept fed were just as barren.
I did manage another 5 or 6 fish in the last two hours and put a level 16lb on the scales for second place, behind a weight of 26lb for match organiser Herbie, who had drawn one of the coveted end pegs. A long way to go for a tough silvers match, but some consolation in getting a pick up. I'll let you read Ken's tale of woe on his blog.
1) Herbie 26.00
2) Chris Fox 16.00
3) ?? 13.00
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…………
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