Thursday could not have come quick enough for me as Mike O’Gorman was holding a sweep at the fabulous Bolingey lake, it hadn’t been fished since October so it was going to be interesting to see just what happened. Twelve anglers turned up and it was decided that we would fish the back leg in a pole only contest. In an effort to make it as fair as possible pegs 45 and 27 were left out of the hat.
I was the first to have a dip and was thinking of the pegs in the 40’s as I really fancied that bank. I was a little disappointed when peg 37 stuck to my hand it is a peg that in my opinion is feast or famine, if they are down in the shallower corner it is one of the best pegs on the lake if not there isn’t much you can do! Never mind I wasn’t going to let negative thoughts ruin my day after all I was really pleased to be fishing a match on what is my favourite lake. We had generous pegging so I had some room to fish to my right as an option.
Tackle wise it was a straight forward affair with half a gram Cralusso Capri floats for my 13m line and a .2 version to fish towards the bank in about 4’ of water. What wasn’t so straight forward was me forgetting all my carp hooks! I have been so used to fishing for silvers and catching carp on light rigs that I had clean forgotten to make sure I had a supply of ‘proper’ tackle, today was all about carp and I was under gunned. Thanks to Chris Hancock I was soon sorted with some size 18 PR36 hooks. I had some .14 Xedion line so was off and running.
The batteries had run out on my thermometer towards the end of my last match and despite leaving some out so I could replace them I forgot to take them with me. As a result we will never know if the water temperature had reached double digits!
I had a dilemma about what bait to bring, I was in two minds as to use this as an early practise for the Bait Tech festival in a few weeks time which is a pellet barred match or just fish my normal coarse pellets. In the end pellets came out the winner and I decided to fish with 6mm hard pellets. The match started and Roger Baker opposite me on peg 38 was the first person to catch followed by Harry Billing on peg 40 and Andy Dare on peg 41. I soon had a bite and a small Common of about 2 ½ pound opened my account. In the first 40 minutes I was just about keeping touch with the others and I had three carp, one of them about 5lb so I figured I was around the 10lb mark.
Going into the second hour I started to fall behind, I was finding it difficult to get any bites unlike Roger who at that time was walking away with the match and it wasn’t long before he had 10 fish in the net. It is frustrating as our floats were not that far apart, Rogers kept going under whilst mine remained visible like an annoying spot on a teenagers face!
Harry was also catching, at one stage I thought he was getting one a bung as every time I glanced over his elastic was out. I mentioned that he was bagging and he said it was the same fish that he had been playing for ages , it was later weighed at a stunning 19lb 8oz a Common as well, no wonder it took some time getting in!
I started to get the odd fish from my 4’ deep swim which was at 12 ½ metres towards the left hand bank. I wasn’t getting many but when I did they were good fish. In fact I only had nine carp that went a shade over 50lb considering I had two babies that went no more than 5lb you can see the stamp of fish I had.
Roger, despite a slow end of the match came out the winner with 88lb followed by Harry with 82lb, Billy Arch continued his good run with a 66lb net for third. I thought the lake fished reasonably well to say it hadn’t been fished for a long time and suddenly had 12 anglers descend on it, it is looking good for the spring festivals.
Froliccing In The Barn!
Saturday saw a first for me as I was fishing a blind pair’s match on ‘The Barns’ new match lake, like everybody else was keen to see what it was like. There had been the inaugural match last weekend won by Sean Drinkwater with a ton and some good backing weights so it was looking good. I was pleased to see that Sean or ‘Yam Yam’ as he is known locally win that first match as he is a friend of Kevin’s the lake owner and he spends countless hours working at the complex, I just thought it was fitting that he is the first lake record holder.
The pegs had been chosen in pairs and were on opposite bank as you drew your peg it also gave you your partner for the day, my partner was Gordon Luck he was on peg 8 and I had peg 23. According to those that had fished last week there were some fish to be caught in those areas but neither of us had drawn a flier.
The lake on my side is 12 ½ metres wide, both sides slope of at 45 degrees so the bottom of the slope is not that far out from the bank, I should think it’s about 5’. It made tackle selection an easy affair. I had two 0.2g J13 floats to tackle the far bank working up and down the slope and a Spro .4 gram float to fish the bottom of the shelf. For bait I had some red maggots and some fishery coarse pellets in micro and 6mm.
I had forgotten the batteries again for my thermometer so could not take the temperature. Just before the start ‘Yam Yam’ walked around as Kevin would not let him fish today, apparently he said he could not stand it if he won two on the bounce! Anyway, he asked me out of interest what the water temperature was and I explained my problem. He told me he had to take the ladies home that had been cooking the breakfast so he could stop of and get me some. Great I said handing him a £20 note. I have to say his eyes lit up and he was last seen running down the bank saying ‘Were all going down the pub’!
It has to be said that the fishing was hard for most, everybody caught but it seems that the fish have not fully spread around the lake yet. The majority have stopped in some weed along the bank to my left where Billy Arch and Simon Poynter were pegged they both were catching well. My match saw me catch 7 carp which weighed 13lb odd which put me second in the section behind my old mate Mick Heacock who had 14lb from the end peg. Incidentally, Mick keeps telling me how he prefers silver fishing to carp, but I keep finding him taking the coin on carp lakes!
During the match I stuck at it trying to entice the odd bite as I could see Gordon was catching a few and thought that if we both managed to get second in section we would stand a chance as I thought we were ahead of Billy and Simons partners. To cut a long story short we were ahead but it was to no avail as the result was to be a decided on weight! Oh man Billy won the pairs match on his own with something like 50lb beating Simon and his partner’s 47lb the rest of us didn’t have a prayer. Andy Partridge Spro chipped in to help Billy with 13lb to show that there is life in the old boys!
Afterwards Kevin provided a Cornish Cream Tea which I have to say went down well, they really cannot do enough for you at ‘The Barns’ that is except make the fish feed! Sean did bring back the change and the batteries and briefly I noted the water temperature at 10C but as the wind got up towards the end of the match it dropped down to 9.5C.
Porth
I woke at 4am on Sunday morning and I just wish it was with excitement about fishing Porth Reservoir but I was feeling rough, so much so that I didn’t think I was going to make the match! Fortunately by 8.15 the time I had to leave I was feeling a little better and was on my way, if it had been an individual I would have stayed at home. Today was the last the teams of three winter league and we needed a result to sneak into second place.
Pete Thomas was again asked to do that draw as he has a bit of a name as a ‘draw bag’ he came back with the news that I was on peg 11 in the woods, Harry was on peg 18 in the meadow and Pete was in the middle of the 70’s not bad but not as good as the leaders White Acres who had managed to find two end pegs! I must remind Clint to let me have those seven numbers he was going to let me have for next Wednesday’s lottery!
My peg was a bit of a parrot cage to say the least, the trees look quite high above you but I was worried as these pegs are deep with a capital ‘D’ I got myself organised and plumbed the swim, I found that I had to fish a top five to hand and I was short lining! I then had to put on the sixth section just to get over what felt like a boulder in the swim but couldn’t fish six to hand because of the trees! I was using a 4g Colmic Jolly float that hadn’t seen the light of day for quite a few years. My other rigs were a 4 x 16 Mosella Impact 6 for fishing the top kit in about 6’ and a 4 x 18 J5 for fishing the top 4 .These lines are all fishing against the slope as the reservoir just keeps getting deeper! A feeder completed my kit for the day.
I had three bags of Mosella All Round Select as my Groundbait choice and some Yorkshire Baits Green Betaine for the feeder; this had a little Mosella added to give it some body. Three pints of casters some maggots and worms completed my bait table. At the start I balled my 6 metre line with half a dozen big uns! I really enjoyed doing this as I don’t get the chance to ball it these days and it is quite satisfying hearing that sploooodoosh! Another ball on the close line and I was out in the deeps a bite first drop resulted in a small perch that had the bends coming up so quickly!
A few more small perch followed before I hooked a much better fish I took the sixth section off and reached for the landing net just to see the elastic streaming out as a pike took a fancy to my fish! Now this is a nightmare I played it for awhile wondering what to do. You cannot put anymore pole on because of the trees, shipping back is impossible due to the very steep bank behind you! In the end I had to take of a couple of sections off ship back until I could reach the elastic and hand line that until I got hold of the main line at this stage the hook length snapped! Tackle up and start again few more small perch, better fish Pike, repeat step 1 but this time was going to be the last I could see a broken pole or worse causing myself some damage hand lining that heavy tackle.
Loose feeding casters and fishing red maggot I caught perch steadily on the top three some were very small a ½ oz each but occasionally I managed to find a better sample of 4oz they seemed to be hanging around just of the main feed area. I was putting a few together when my old mate Mr Esox lucius put in an appearance again and had a better perch, it was a little easier to handle on a short pole but the result was the same a lost hook length and no fish! The pike definitely unsettled the fish and they were becoming harder to catch.
The last couple of hours were spent alternating between the feeder over my longer pole line and the short pole, I put the odd fish in the net including two 8 oz skimmers but I lost a further 4 fish to the pike on the feeder. I really must go and have a go at that Predator fishing!
The scales came and I was pleased to win the part section that I was in I had 6lb 4oz to beat 6 other anglers. Unfortunately for me there were 3 anglers on the other bank in the woods and the all recorded higher weights with two14lb weights coming first and second. One wag actually mentioned that those three were so far away from us they may well have been fishing at Gwinear! Actually come to think of it they had so much room they could each have had a lake at Gwinear! Only joking lads well done, if Pete had been on form I would have been over there!
Pete finished 6th in a hard section taking the scalp of Skip McCabe on the next peg. Harry just for a change won the match with just over 16lb of pole caught roach and skimmers so at least Kernow Match Group had the individual winner. We finished 3rd as a team the hiccup of the previous round was just too much to overcome but in the end didn’t really matter as it would have been very difficult to beat Clint’s team, again well done and congratulations to the Newtown Angling team who finished second.
The weight were very impressive to say this was the first match on the venue for ages, the 70’s was won with 13lb with good backing weights and the meadow fished extremely well. It should be good later this month in the festivals if the colour remains, at present it has that fishy tinge! The water temperature was showing 9.5C but I am sure it was colder in the depths of the abyss where I fished, the fish certainly felt colder to the touch.
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so when you are sat in the water on porth it sounds like you dont want to take your waders off on a warm sunny day,they might get a nip or two
I’m just dreaming of those warm sunny days! One things for sure you won’t want to be dipping anything there this spring it will freeze!
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Stewart
