The format of these festivals is that the 180 strong field is split into 5 sections of 36 anglers and each section fishes one of 5 different venues during the week. The 36 man section is split further into 4 9 peg sections for each days fishing. For a section win an angler gets 9 points, down to 1 for a section last. At the end of the week the 4 best results count and in the event of a tie the dropped result comes into play and then weight.
It was just myself and Paul Connell sharing a lodge this year as the other "regulars" had other commitments this year. The draw was the first important consideration for the week, as there are always some sections harder than others. Both Paul and I were hoping to avoid most of the "superstars" if possible. I had drawn section B which put me on Twin Oaks or Trewlaney on the first day. I was happy with this start, as I felt this section would fish well on the first day and then steadily get worse. The top anglers in my section were Richie Hull and Kieron Rich, however there were many other good anglers as well and it was sure to be a big test. Poor old Paul on the other hand had definitely drawn the "Section of Death". He was in E section starting at bagging mecca Bolingey(which has to be the best commercial lake in the country) and had the likes of William Raison, Neil Mckinnon, Geoff Ringer, Andy May, Alan Scotthorne amongst others......... As you can see there were gonna be no gimme points here for Paul!
Day 1 Twin Oaks Peg 29 (Right hand lake, Bodriggy)
When I pulled this out I had mixed feelings. I had practiced Bodriggy the day before for about an hour and a half on the meat feeder, just to get my eye in casting and the tip had gone round most casts. Therefore I was confident the meat feeder would work. However, my draw put me in the middle of the lake and it was often the case that end pegs were hard to compete with on this lake. I would be happy with top three, as there is nothing worse than starting your festival with a disaster as it gives you no leeway for a mistake later in the week.
My peg had what looked like a lovely chuck on the feeder as there was a hole of about 3 feet wide where the grass had been cleared tight to the bank. From experience I knew that a cast within inches of the far bank often results in the tip flying round whilst a cast a foot short would result in nothing. There was a brisk wind directly into my chops which meant that conditions were less than ideal for the pellet wagg, however I still assembled one, along with the feeder and two pole lines for 5 metres and down the edge at 5 metres to my right. I could have fished a long pole as well, but you have to be ultra positive at Whiteacres to win sections. I don't think I could have fed an extra line properly so didn't set it up.
Down the edge I fed a potful of hemp and half a pot of meat at the start and on my 5 metre line another pot of hemp and a quarter of a pot of corn. I would have liked to have fed meat at 5 metres as well, however if the meat feeder went I may not have had enough meat for all three lines so went with the corn. Incidentally through the meat feeder I fed shredded meat (through a meat cutter and then through a maggot riddle) and whole 6mm cubes in a Drennan Micro open ended feeder. I put some extra lead on the feeder as well to prevent the wind catching the bow in my line after I had cast and dragging the feeder off the far bank.
To summarise, my match was very stop and start and I never bagged throughout, however after 3.5 hours I felt I had a good chance of second in the section. Peg 36 was paralysing the section having caught down the edge after an hour and eventually ended up with 130 odd pound. The meat feeder was nowhere near as good as I had hoped but I persisted with it and had about 40-45lb of carp between a pound and two pounds after 3.5 hours and felt that I was just edging most other people in the section. I had fed 4-6 grains of corn at 5 metres and 4-6 cubes of meat down the edge regularly and felt that one or both of these lines should fire. However, neither did and I only nicked odd fish off both to end up with 75lb odd and fourth in the section. This was disappointing and I was overtaken by people catching lumps down the side late. After speaking to these anglers it transpired they had dump potted it down the edge with big pots of bait and simply waited for bites. I had fed it the way I fish my local venues as dump potting is the kiss of death here. This will be something I'll remember should I draw this lake again and proves you have do everything exactly right to win sections at Whiteacres.
Day 2 Gwinear Peg 17
There were some real horror stories coming from Gwinear after day 1, with a couple of blanks recorded. Gwinear is now a shadow of its former self and can only be described as an average-poor commercial fishery, which is not fit for a festival. It needs a serious injection of fish to be comparable to days of old.
I knew that I needed some luck at the draw bag or it could be festival over after two days - not a pleasant thought. To a certain extent I had some luck as I pulled out peg 17. This is on the back bank, furthest from the car park and was one of the better pegs on the lake. However, on paper all the pegs to the left of me were better (19,20,24,25) and all the pegs to the right of me were worse (16,14,13,10). I still felt the top 3 finish I needed was possible if I fished a reasonable match.
It was a fairly warm day with some light breeze and seeing as my swim was about 9 feet deep from 6-7 metres onwards, everything pointed to catching shallow. This was going to be my main line of attack where I would ping 6mm pellets at 14.5 metres and set rigs up between 12 inches and 6 foot. I also set up a feeder to chuck to the island and also a 5 metre line where I would feed corn and a kerb crawler for munters late towards the empty peg to my left. My plan was to constantly feed 3-5 pellets on the 14.5 metre line for the first hour whilst starting on the feeder and 5 metres in the hope of catching a few early. My plan was to let the fish build up confidence before fishing for them shallow.
After a slow start on the feeder and only a couple of fish at 5 metres my match improved. In hours two, three and four I caught fish shallow with 18 inches being the best depth. However I had one of those days when I lost 6 or 7 fish to hook pulls which I was convinced were hooked properly, really frustrating! As always in such a competitive environment such losses are bound to prove costly. A hair rigged banded 6mm was the bait in amongst 6mm loosefed pellets. It was one of those days when I was looking for a golden spell to reach that 100lb mark but it never happens. I strongly believed that my 5 metre line would go in the final hour but despite religious feeding I couldn't get more than a couple of bites in succession which was frustrating.
I knew at the final whistle it would be a tight section for places 2nd to 5th. Peg 20 had won the section with a high 80lb. He'd had a storming start catching 8-10 fish at 5 metres at the start. I was pleased to find my 73lb 15ounces was enough for second place, a low 70 was third. An additional bonus was claiming 3rd on the lake which gave me a bit of coin to boot. I was more than pleased with this as the hook pulls hadn't caused me too much pain and more importantly it wasn't festival over after 2 days!
Day 3. Porth Peg 32
It was now my day for a break from the carp and onto Porth Resevoir which is a massive expanse of water dominated by "traditional" species such as roach and skimmers. Porth has been a fantastic venue over the years, however the first two days had revealed it was slightly off colour with only low double figures being required to win the lake. A few rumours were circulating with reasons for this, the most popular being cormorants, pike and clear water.
My peg was in the second section on the near bank and gave me a chance to do some exercise due to a long walk with a tackle laden barrow. I was reasonably pleased with this peg as it was an end peg, however traditionally the higher numbers being better, with peg 40 the flyer. The way Porth was fishing though I felt it was a leveller and I just needed to try and do things right on the day.
Traditionally at Porth you either fish the pole or feeder, never both. Yet the fishing had been so hard every fish would count, therefore the feeder together with short and long poles were assembled. I'd even bought my secret weapon for the day which was some liquidised bread! I'd had bites on it on the canal on days when the roach wouldn't touch anything else, it just had to work didn't it?
The short pole line at 6 metres was fed with bread and some pinkies whilst 13 metres a 50/50 mix of fishmeal and natural groundbaits went in with some finely chopped worms, and a few castors pinkies and dead maggots. The feeder mix was 100% fishmeal compromising Ringers Dark and Natural.
My match was a real battle and every fish was a bonus, my opening gambits of the feeder and the short pole with bread were worth only 4 fish; 1 bottle top skimmer and 3 roach (none of which came on my secret weapon of the liquidised!). The long pole produced fish in spasms for the rest of the match, with most of the fish being very small hand sized skimmers, about 60 in total were landed despite the efforts of Pike to ruin my day! Interestingly, the only way I could catch was to loosefeed maggots and alternate my depths between the deck and 6 inches off to keep the od bite coming. Recupping in groundbait seemed to have no postive impact so I just fished for bites in the end, using 0.07 line and a 22 Wide Gape Canal Seed.
I was last to weigh in and my mate Pemb Wrighting was winning the section with 8lb 3 ounces 8 drams off of peg 38. I knew I would be close to this, when I lifted my net out of the water fishery manager Clint Elliot felt I was just short. Close wasn't the word to describe it and I was mightily relieved when Clint announced my weight at 8lbs 4 ounces. Yep, thats right I had won the section by 8 drams! close but I didn't care as I had the crucial 9 points and again I had sneaked third place on the lake! Things were looking up!
Day 4. Bolingey. Peg 43.
The penultimate day put me on the venue that everyone looks forward to as you are almost guaranteed a cracking day with the chance of latching into some proper 20lb plus munters. I was fairly pleased with my draw as it put me in the right hand arm, which I reckon is the fairest section there, its impossible to predict where the section would be won from. My peg put me 2 out of the corner on the spit. On arriving at my peg the only thing that worried me was the strong wing blowing down the lake from right to left which could benefit the pegs at the wind ward end of my section. Also, I had Kieron Rich opposite me on peg 37 and of course he would be the man I would need to beat.
A big weight would be needed to win the section therefore I kept it simple with a 13 metre line out in open water, a 6 metre line towards the bottom of a slowly sloping near shelf and two edge lines at 4.5 metres left and right. Bolingey had been pellet fishing for all of the week, but I couldn't get the meat option out of my head as it always works at Bolingey ... or does it? My plan was to ping 2, 3 or 4 6mm pellets at 13 metres all of the time and find out where where the fish wanted to feed. Therefore I set up 4 rigs to cover the whole water column on this line. At six metres I decided to feed meat and hemp, loosefeeding 4 to 6 cubes all of the time to build it up later in the match. I found 2.5 feet tight to the near bank on two lines left and right down the edge, where I was to feed in the same manor as on the 6 metre line.
My match went well for the first 2.5 to 3 hours on the 13 metre line where I was getting small carp between 1-2.5 pounds every bung on a 6mm expander. However, I was behind Kieron who was catching a fish a bung at 6 metres, as his fish were clearly bigger than mine. Into the third hour I continued to catch and Kieron began to slow, therefore I began to catch him up. However, that didn't last as the wind got up and I was struggling with my presentation long. The last hour and a half are always times when you look to make that charge and catch on a line consistently. However, both my 6 metre lines and edge lines produced fish intermittently and I didn't get that golden run. I was convinced that I would have caught much better fishing pellets at 6 metres, simply because it was so good at 13. I also paid the price of playing a low double figure fish for the last half an hour whilst watching Kieron bagging 3 pounders one a bung. It was a lean common that wouldn't come in despite me seemingly pulling all of the elastic out of my top kit using my pull bung!
My weight of 110lb was only good enough for third in the section, Kieron had 120 pound odd and the section was won with 130 odd by Wayne Mellings I think on peg 29, he'd slaughtered it in the last two hours on the kerb krawler.
I was in 12th place going into the last day and a section win would give me 33 points which would almost certainly guarantee top 10, so it was all to go for on the last day.
Day 5. Pollawyn Peg 32
This peg is in a section which is split up all over the lake, so it was hard to see what was happening on the other pegs. I just had to get my head down and fish an ultra positive match. Peg 32 is just off the high bank and just off the main head of carp, to win my section I was sure to need 100lb plus, which meant my tactics were gonna be dead simple and revolve entirely around catching 20 carp at least (which was likely to be 100lb). Richie Hull was in my section on peg 22 and was sure to be a threat especially as he was going to flex his muscles and wield 19 metres of pole to the island. The stakes were high for Richie as well because a section win could see him get a top 3 finish.
My peg was approximately 25 metres to an island and this was where I was going to concentrate my efforts. I set up bomb rods and pellet wagglers to fish tight to the island also I decided to fish a line at about 3/4 of the way across, just beyond pole range. On both of these lines I would ping 3 and 4 11mm pellets regularly. The wind was smack in my face so I needed 11mm's to get them out there. My only other line was to be at 5 metres where I would feed meat and hemp to try and get a rush of late fish.
I started off on the pellet wagg tight across but with only one lost foul hooker in the first 20 minutes I soon switched to the bomb. I had a poor first hour only catching 2 fish and even worse news was the sight of Richie slaying 'em on the other side of the lake. I was in trouble already. The 3/4 line didn't produce a bite so it was back tight to the far bank. In the next hour I had a few more pulls and had 6 after 2 hours. The annoying thing was I needed to use a big lead to keep my bait nailed to the far bank as the wind was putting a bow in my line and pulling it away. I am sure the ounce lead was responsible for a few annoying hook pulls. A switch down to 3/4 of an ounce seemed to be a better compromise.
I had a bit of a purple patch in hour 3 and was up to 12 fish, which was ok, especially as Richie had slowed a bit. I needed 6 fish an hour to the end to stand any chance. At the end of hour four things were beginning to slow again as I was only up to 16 fish and to make matters worse Richie was bagging again. Despite trying the other lines I couldn't get a bite anywhere else and a poor last hour gave me 18 fish which gave me a total of 89lb. Richie obliterated the section and the lake with 150lb odd. His performance was really impressive especially as there was a strong wind on his side all day. I don't think many other people would have had the strength to fish like this all day.
I ended up second in the section which gave me a total of 32 points dropping a 4th in section. This consolidated my position in 12th place, just missing out on the top 10 on weight. Steve Ringer won the festival with a maximum 36 points with Andy May second and Will Raison third. I'm already looking forward to October to have another go!
